Whitney Haring-Smith sits on a short-range, ground-launched missile (similar to a SCUD) at Khairabad Ammunition Depot in August 2006. The missile is disarmed and awaiting demolition as part of the work of the Afghanistan’s New Beginnings Program of the UNDP in Afghanistan.

But there was nothing playful or glamorous about his work, as Haring-Smith, MC ’07, discovered when he arrived at the site of his internship: Kabul, Afghanistan. It was there that Haring-Smith served for two months as an operations assistant for the Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups, a program coordinated by the United Nations Development Program through its Afghanistan’s New Beginnings Program. Work this dangerous and delicate would seem to demand more expertise and experience than a college student could provide, but Haring-Smith did not let his youth deter him from taking on the job, which afforded him the opportunity to be in the midst of a changing political climate.

After interning the previous summer with the U.S. Department of Defense and getting in touch with several contacts, Haring-Smith was offered the position. Because of the political instability in Afghanistan, student travel there is not sanctioned by Yale, but this internship was under the auspices of the United Nations. So after the necessary security checks and some preliminary preparation, Haring-Smith was on a flight to Kabul in early June.

Asked the obvious question, “Why Afghanistan?” Haring-Smith explained, “I wanted to go there because I felt it was a place where a difference could be made.” He said that working on basic social service issues—for example, on education or environmental projects—is appealing, but progress in these areas is impossible in the absence of a secure environment. Thus, disarmament work appealed to him because of its long-range impact on the stability of the country. He also wanted to work in an area where “precedents were being set.” According to Haring-Smith, “The decisions being set now in Afghanistan are not only affecting Iraq, but how NGOs, international organizations, and national militaries operate across the globe.”

Haring-Smith is not alone in being drawn to a political hotspot; whether out of altruism or hubris, many Yale students seem compelled to travel to places of crisis. But Haring-Smith is extreme. He had looked into working in Iraq, but he decided on Afghanistan in part because he felt it held a greater potential for progress. One critical difference between the two countries, he argued, is their demographic distribution. “The Iraq War is largely waged in cities,” Haring-Smith said. “There are some underpopulated areas such as Anbar province, but you are primarily fighting for cities, whereas in Afghanistan, the majority of the population doesn’t live in anything we would call a city.” This difference, he argued, allows for greater possibilities in creating a stable environment and promoting social services.

Haring-Smith was remarkably candid about the prior knowledge and skills he did—and did not—bring to the project. He spent the long hours on the airplane and during the layover at Dubai reading hundreds of pages of briefings, filled with byzantine flow charts, complex acronyms, and “Worst-Case Scenario”-type subheadings. He did not speak Dari or Pashtu, so he had to rely heavily on translators. His munitions knowledge was gained largely from on-the-job training. While certified experts were to handle the highly technical issues, Haring-Smith still had to learn a considerable amount about weaponry to conduct his internship. “I can handle rounds, I can tell you which came from China and the former USSR and which came from Britain or Iran—skills you develop from working the job,” he told the Globalist. But Haring-Smith is a quick study, and his leadership skills, an understanding of the UN bureaucracy, and knowledge of the political situation in Afghanistan served him well.

The disarmament program’s primary goal is to collect as much illegal ammunition as possible: while internationals provide the logistical and technical support, the Afghan government is responsible for the project, with local officials ostensibly taking the lead in the collection of arms. The government’s incentive for disarmament is the promise of development assistance, but as Haring-Smith discovered, development promises were often slow in coming—as was voluntary compliance in the disarmament process. In fact, Haring- Smith believes the biggest challenge to the disarmament mission is the lack of development resources. “You need a solid commitment from the international community to fund assistance operations, to build roads and schools and power plants,” he said. He believes that whether the project is nationalized or run by international organizations is secondary to the need for the resources themselves.