ABSTRACT
This chapter delves beneath the rhetoric to argue that Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), like all of the other proposed solutions to bureaucratic incoherence, were compromised by agency interests, culture, perceptions and power. In fact, they were nothing less than a microcosm of the US nation-building effort in Afghanistan. The chapter proceeds with a comparison of some laudatory and critical accounts of the programme and then continue with a comparative evaluation of military and civilian agency roles. It makes some brief remarks about the relationship between the counter-bureaucracy and PRTs. In some policymaking circles, PRTs were acclaimed as a 'missing link' that successfully integrated the US agencies involved in Afghanistan. Others who witnessed them in action were also impressed. Dobbins described PRTs as 'substantial organizations' that successfully implemented development in rural areas. US Government sources identified similar problems. Government Accountability Office reports recounted a fragmented approach where policy was divided up between agencies.
