Under control

One of the measures of the success of a government is its ability to control its infrastructure. The Thai government, for example, failed miserably to keep the country's major international airport in Bangkok open last December, raising doubts about whether that country is sliding towards "failed state" status. More recently, regional leaders had to be air-lifted from their conference venue as the Thai Army could not guarantee their safety after political protesters broke into the hotel.

In Afghanistan the government has difficulty guaranteeing electricity supplies. Residents of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, haven’t had reliable, nearly round-the-clock power in more than a generation. So there was reason for excitement as officials gathered at the Chimtallah substation just outside Kabul on Monday to inaugurate a new, 261-mile transmission line delivering electricity to the city from Uzbekistan — the backbone of a power system stretching across the northeast of the country.

But while the new line will take time to ramp up to capacity, it is already inadequate to serve Kabul, which now has 4.4 million people. Construction is scheduled to begin soon on a second transmission line, which will deliver power from Tajikistan. And the Afghanistan Reconstruction and Trust Fund recently awarded $150 million to Siemens, a global builder of transmission and distribution systems, and Power Grid of India, a large transmission utility, to further expand and rehabilitate the network.

But hard questions remain, including whether the newly-formed Afghan electricity utility will prove able to manage the system — and protect it from attack by local warlords.