What’s Inspiring WANA: "Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security" by Sarah Chayes

Sarah Chayes’ early experience in Afghanistan parallels the missteps of the U.S.military intervention there; she’s well-intentioned, if uninformed. After arriving as a journalist at the beginning of the U.S. invasion, Chayes left her job to get involved in development She then made a classic error: relying on a trusted Afghan intermediary for her local insight, President Karzai’s older brother. Her effort to launch an NGO with his guidance and support ended catastrophically; Chayes inadvertently become an accessory to fraud. She realised her misplaced trust had isolated her from the very people she was trying to help.

At this juncture, Chayes’ experience departs from that of the U.S. military apparatus, Chayes learned from her mistakes. Without shifting her goals, Chayes humbled her approach and began working as a tea merchant, growing tea and immersing herself in Afghan society. Thieves of State interweaves a powerful narrative of this experience with her argument: government corruption manufactures extremism, in Afghanistan and around the globe.

The quality that makes corruption so particularly pernicious is its propulsion of inequality and injustice. Chayes cites the well-known “ultimatum game,” a study in which a person is offered $100--with a caveat. The recipient must offer a second participant a portion of the money; if the second person accepts the offer, they both keep their shares. If she refuses, both are left skint. Chayes argues, for the second person to reject a portion she sees as unfair, rational or not, is all-too-human behavior. Thieves of State covers how similar indignities in the real world impel the irrational, destructive behavior that allows organisations like the Taliban to thrive.

Chayes’ accounts of the corruption-extremism linkage are largely anecdotal but nonetheless compelling. After getting tapped as special adviser to Generals David McKiernan and Stanley McChrystal in 2009, Chayes witnessed firsthand the ‘fundamental misunderstanding’ in the way the United States fights corruption. Efforts focus on fighting corruption at the lowest levels while perpetuating it at the top. Unfortunately, kleptocracies like Afghanistan are top-down criminal syndicates; changing this systemic problem must start at the highest echelon.

Chayes offers policy recommendations to encourage this shift, but her book is worth reading for more than its policy. Her personal story embodies the humility and integrity needed to act responsibly within the humanitarian community. As the WANA Institute works to develop evidence-based regional policy, scholars like Sarah Chayes remind us the traps that arise from relying our preconceived perceptions rather than hard data. Sometimes, it’s more valuable to think like the tea merchant than the lofty-minded humanitarian.