Missionaries of Modernity

Reviewed by: Missionaries of Modernity: Advisory Missions and the Struggle for Hegemony in Afghanistan and Beyond by Antonio Giustozzi and Kalinovsky Artemy Nizar A. Motani Giustozzi, Antonio and Artemy, Kalinovsky. Missionaries of Modernity: Advisory Missions and the Struggle for Hegemony in Afghanistan and Beyond. London: Hurst, 2016. Missionaries of Modernity: Advisory Missions and the Struggle for Hegemony in Afghanistan and Beyond, a survey of civilian and military advisory and mentoring missions since the 1940s, covers a range of case studies beginning [End Page 281] with a discussion of US advisory missions to Nationalist China's Kuomintang government and ending with an analysis of events in contemporary Iraq. Nevertheless, the primary focus of the study is Afghanistan, especially during the Soviet (1979–1989) and the United States (since 2001) periods of occupation. The sections on Afghanistan are based on new research, while the sections covering the other case studies are culled, for the most part, from the existing literature. Antonio Giustozzi, a Visiting Professor at London's King's College, and Artemy Kalinovsky, an Assistant Professor of East European Studies at the University of Amsterdam, contend that the roles of advisers and mentors are often overlapping and confusing. They argue that in the "real world there is often much confusion between the two" (21). In an attempt to delineate between the two groups, Guistozzi and Kalinovsky explain that "mentors practice a form of on-the-job training and focus on developing the skills of the individuals," whereas advisors are "focused on the organization within which individuals operate" (21). The authors highlight how large-scale missions have been particularly problematic, causing friction with the hosts and sometimes even undermining their legitimacy. Small missions, staffed by more carefully selected cadres, appear instead to have produced better results. Nevertheless, whether the missions are staffed by advisers or mentors, large or small, their failure to accomplish their tasks is frequently due to the lack of proper knowledge of the host country's history and culture. Western expatriates in Afghanistan were isolated in their fortified compounds and insulated from the realities of the people they had come to assist. The Afghan leaders took advantage of rivalries among donor countries and often got the same aid from multiple missions operating in their nation. Besides the United States, several Western nations, the United Nations, the World Bank, and other international organizations had their own advisory missions in the field. The authors examine the "common threads in such disparate range of advisory efforts by such different actors and develop an interpretative framework to explain the drive to advise and mentor the rest of the world" (2). Here again, their attempt to develop an interpretative framework into which to fit the various missions under labels such as "soft-hegemony," "hard-hegemony," "imperialism," "patronage," and "clientism" is as nebulous as their efforts to distinguish between advisers and mentors (7). [End Page 282] Part I examines the missions in China, Cuba, and Vietnam. Part II examines the missions in Korea, Laos, Latin America, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and Oman. Part III, roughly half of the book's text, is dedicated to Afghanistan. Among the many valuable lessons offered by advisers in the field or attached to the Afghan ministries in Kabul, is one that keeps being ignored: never hand over financial aid packages to the top echelons of the host governments (226). Unfortunately, the author's did not engage in a thorough discussion of the work of the many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), deployed in Afghanistan. In sharp contrast to the failed advisory missions by Western governments, some NGOs have improved the living conditions for ordinary Afghans, especially women and children in health, education, and cottage industries, thus leading to increased incomes and hope for a better future. This book should be compulsory reading for all civilian and military mission advisors and mentors. In the academic world, the book should be of great interest to students of contemporary international relations. Nizar A. Motani Independent Scholar Copyright © 2017 Association of Global South Studies, Inc

China · Government (linguistics · Hegemony · Modernity · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Law · Military History and Strategy · Philosophy · Public Administration