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Begin New Search Political Geography Afghanistan Publication Year within 25 Years

671. Terrorism and Indo-Pakistani Escalation

Author:
Daniel Markey
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
India faces the real prospect of another major terrorist attack by Pakistan-based terrorist organizations in the near future. Unlike the aftermath of the November 2008 attack on Mumbai, in which 166 people died, Indian military restraint cannot be taken for granted if terrorists strike again. An Indian retaliatory strike against terrorist targets on Pakistani soil would raise Indo-Pakistani tensions and could even set off a spiral of violent escalation between the nuclear-armed rivals. Given Washington's effort to intensify pressure on al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated militants operating from Pakistani territory, increased tensions between India and Pakistan would harm U.S. interests even if New Delhi and Islamabad stop well short of the nuclear threshold because it would distract Pakistan from counterterror and counterinsurgency operations, jeopardize the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, and place new, extreme stresses on Islamabad.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Islam, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, South Asia, Washington, India, New Delhi, and Mumbai

672. Build-up of Afghan security forces ill advised

Author:
Helge Lurås
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
Abstract:
A well-functioning government is a prerequisite for any successful counter-insurgency strategy and good governance is unlikely to be established in Afghanistan any time soon. As a consequence, the plans for the build-up of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) must be adjusted. This build-up is not only an exit strategy; it is a cover for a “graceful exit”, serving a perceptual function in western publics. But in counter-insurgency theory a disconnect between governance and security is anathema. The end-state projection of 400,000 soldiers and police is unsustainable and ill-adapted to Afghanistan's socio-economic and political foundations. Furthermore, the continued growth of centralized and corrupt security forces could very well lead to increased resistance. The ANSF – like any armed force – is in dire need of a credible and motivating cause, simply to avoid disintegration.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, NATO, Arms Control and Proliferation, and War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan

673. An anvil of clay: Pakistan's military balks at Obama's Afghan surge

Author:
Robert Matthews
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
Abstract:
Pakistan's cooperation is crucial to the success of the current US and Nato strategy in Afghanistan. Yet the Pakistani military not only has misgivings about the Nato surge but also its own agenda. Central to the discord is the military's view of the Afghan Taliban as assets to counter rival India's spreading Afghan footprint. The military views the US surge and the 18-month timeframe as acts of desperation by the Obama administration – as well as a vindication of Pakistan's strategy of keeping its options open through a “selective counter-insurgency approach”. Thus, there is little indication that Pakistan is willing to undertake campaigns against militants in the tribal areas. Or play the role of anvil to the US hammer along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Topic:
NATO, Arms Control and Proliferation, and War
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, and South Asia

674. From the Sun King to Karzai: Lessons for State Building in Afghanistan

Author:
Sheri Berman
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
SHERI BERMAN is Associate Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University. In December 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama announced the fruits of his administration's lengthy review of Afghanistan policy: temporary troop reinforcements and a new military strategy designed to reverse recent gains by the Taliban, efforts to increase the quality of Afghan governance, and a stronger partnership with Pakistan. The troop increases and the proposed withdrawal starting date of July 2011 dominated the headlines, but in the long run the effects of what Obama called a "civilian surge" will be even more important.
Topic:
Security and Governance
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, and Taliban

675. Complexity and Collapse: Empires on the Edge of Chaos

Author:
Niall Ferguson
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
NIALL FERGUSON is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, a Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His most recent book is The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World. There is no better illustration of the life cycle of a great power than The Course of Empire, a series of five paintings by Thomas Cole that hang in the New-York Historical Society. Cole was a founder of the Hudson River School and one of the pioneers of nineteenth-century American landscape painting; in The Course of Empire, he beautifully captured a theory of imperial rise and fall to which most people remain in thrall to this day.
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, America, and Iran

676. Enemies Into Friends: How the United States Can Court Its Adversaries

Author:
Charles A. Kupchan
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
In his inaugural address, U.S. President Barack Obama informed those regimes "on the wrong side of history" that the United States "will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." He soon backed up his words with deeds, making engagement with U.S. adversaries one of the new administration's priorities. During his first year in office, Obama pursued direct negotiations with Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs. He sought to "reset" relations with Russia by searching for common ground on arms control, missile defense, and Afghanistan. He began scaling back economic sanctions against Cuba. And he put out diplomatic feelers to Myanmar (also called Burma) and Syria. Over a year into Obama's presidency, the jury is still out on whether this strategy of engagement is bearing fruit. Policymakers and scholars are divided over the merits and the risks of Obama's outreach to adversaries and over how best to increase the likelihood that his overtures will be reciprocated. Debate continues on whether rapprochement results from mutual concessions that tame rivalries or rather from the iron fist that forces adversaries into submission. Equally controversial is whether the United States should pursue reconciliation with hardened autocracies or instead make engagement contingent on democratization. And disagreement persists over whether diplomacy or economic engagement represents the most effective pathway to peace. Many of Obama's critics have already made up their minds on the merits of his outreach to adversaries, concluding not only that the president has little to show for his efforts but also that his pliant diplomacy demeans the United States and weakens its hand. Following Obama's September 2009 speech to the United Nations General Assembly, in which he called for "a new era of engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect" and "new coalitions that bridge old divides," the conservative commentator Michelle Malkin charged that the president had "solidified his place in the international view as the great appeaser and the groveler in chief."
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Europe, and North Korea

677. Winning the Unwinnable War: America's Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism

Author:
Grant W. Jones
Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
In Winning the Unwinnable War, editor Elan Journo and fellow contributors Yaron Brook and Alex Epstein consider the ideas and events that led to 9/11 and analyze America's response. Arguing that our nation has been made progressively less secure by policies based on "subordinating military victory to perverse, allegedly moral constraints" (p. ix), they offer an alternative: grounding American foreign policy on "the moral ideal of rational self-interest" (p. 188). This they accomplish in the space of seven chapters, divided into three sections: "Part One. The Enemy," "Part Two. America's Self-Crippled Response to 9/11," and "Part Three. From Here, Where Do We Go?" In Part One, in a chapter titled "What Motivates the Jihad on America," Journo considers the nature of the enemy that attacked America on 9/11. With refreshing honesty, Journo dispenses with the whitewashing that often accompanies discussions of Islam and Jihad, pointing out that the meaning of "Islam" is "submission to Allah" and that its nature "demands the sacrifice of not only the mind, but also of self" (p. 33). Says Journo, the Jihadists seek to impose Allah's will-Islamic Law-just as Islamic teaching would have it: by means of the sword. "Islamic totalitarians consciously try to model themselves on the religion's founder and the figure who is held to exemplify its virtues, Muhammad. He waged wars to impose, and expand, the dominion of Islam" (p. 35). In "The Road to 9/11," Journo summarizes thirty years of unanswered Jihadist aggression, beginning with the Iranian takeover of the American embassy in Tehran in 1979. Throughout, Journo criticizes the idea that influenced the actions of America's leaders during this time-"realism"-which he describes as eschewing "[m]oral ideals and other broad principles" in favor of achieving narrow, short-range goals by sheer expediency (p. 20). Because of the nature of their own ideas, says Journo, realists are incapable of understanding the Jihadists and thus incapable of understanding how to act with respect to them. "The operating assumption for realist policymakers is that (like them) no one would put an abstract, far off ideal ahead of collecting some concrete, immediate advantage (money, honor, influence). So for realists, an enemy that is dedicated to a long-term goal-and thus cannot be bought off with bribes-is an enemy that must remain incomprehensible" (p. 21). Journo indicates how realism was applied to the Islamist threat in the years leading up to 9/11: Facing the Islamist onslaught, our policymakers aimed, at most, to manage crises with range-of-the-moment remedies-heedless of the genesis of a given crisis and the future consequences of today's solution. Running through the varying policy responses of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton there is an unvarying motif. . . . Our leaders failed to recognize that war had been launched against us and that the enemy is Islamic totalitarianism. This cognitive failure rendered Washington impotent to defeat the enemy. Owing to myopic policy responses, our leaders managed only to appease and encourage the enemy's aggression (p. 6). After 9/11, President George W. Bush shied away from the realist policy of passively reacting to the ever-escalating Islamist threat-and instead adopted the foreign policy favored by neoconservatives. "In place of 'realism,' neoconservatives advocated a policy often called 'interventionism,' one component of which calls for America to work assertively to overthrow threatening regimes and to replace them with peaceful 'democracies'" (p. 118). Two chapters of Winning the Unwinnable War are devoted to dissecting this policy, "The 'Forward Strategy' of Failure" by Brook and Journo (first published in TOS, Spring 2007) and "Neoconservative Foreign Policy: An Autopsy" by Brook and Epstein (first published in TOS, Summer 2007). In the first of these chapters, Brook and Journo consider Bush's interventionist plan, the "forward strategy of freedom." On the premise that democracies do not wage wars of aggression, Bush launched two campaigns of democratic state building in the Middle East-in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2003, Bush exclaimed, "Iraqi democracy will succeed-and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Tehran-that freedom can be the future of every nation" (p. 54). But neither Iraqi freedom nor American security was achieved by Bush's "forward strategy" of enabling Iraqis and Afghanis to vote. Because of democratic elections, Iraq "is [now] dominated by a Shiite alliance led by the Islamic Dawa Party and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI)" (p. 54), and a "further effect of the elections in the region has been the invigoration of Islamists in Afghanistan" (p. 57). . . .
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Africa, Iraq, and America

678. Health Initiatives and Counterinsurgency Strategy in Afghanistan

Author:
Leonard Rubenstein
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
An initiative by the Ministry of Public Health in Afghanistan to expand health services throughout the country, including rural communities, and supported by donors including USAID, has vastly expanded access to primary health care services, significantly reduced child mortality, and increased the capacity of the Afghan government to provide an essential service to its people. The program is based on principles of equity, national ownership, community engagement, and women's equality, and it warrants continued development. Many challenges remain, not least expanding services in insecure areas, and a more stable environment could better enable the Ministry of Public Health to achieve its goals. The U.S. military has supported health services development for the Afghan army and also offers significant emergency care services to civilians in insecure regions, training for health workers, construction of health facilities and other health-related programs. The military's civilian health initiatives, largely disconnected from the Ministry of Public Health, are short term, ad hoc, and unsustainable, and to date have lacked a consistent rationale or strategy, and have not been subject to evaluation. U.S. counterinsurgency strategy seeks to mesh development and security objectives through activities that enhance the legitimacy of the Afghan government in the eyes of its people. In the field of health, there are considerable tensions between counterinsurgency and development strategies, which must be addressed to increase the capacity of the government and meet health needs of the people.
Topic:
Security, Development, Health, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and United States

679. Media and Peacebuilding in Afghanistan

Author:
Sheldon Himelfarb
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the Afghan media sector has experienced dramatic growth in all areas: television, radio, print, internet, mobile phones. As such, the sector holds tremendous potential for making significant contributions to peacebuilding in the country. However, the media sector also confronts numerous challenges that impede its ability to realize this potential – which can only be addressed through the combined efforts and attention of international and domestic stakeholders alike. Among the most pressing challenges is resolving the tension between information operations and counterinsurgency, on the one hand, and developing a viable, credible media sector on the other. All too often efforts to counter extremist messages through expanded military and government access to the airwaves (via purchased air time and proliferating “radio in a box” broadcasts from military outposts) have had a negative impact on both media market economics and media credibility. Sustainability is also a significant issue. A glut of media outlets has arisen that are privately licensed yet sustained by international donor funds and strategic communications money. This has had a deleterious effect on the perception of media, and its effectiveness as a guardian of public interests. The shortcomings of state-owned RTA as a public broadcaster further contribute to this, leading many experts to call for greater investment in long-term training and mentoring as well as regulatory reform to limit government manipulation of the airwaves. Other significant areas for improvement: greater emphasis on quality and diversity of programming (including a need for more Pashto language programs), enhanced efforts to provide security for media practitioners, more professional communications training for Afghan government officials, and more extensive research and understanding of Afghan media consumers themselves.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Political Violence, Mass Media, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Afghanistan

680. The Politics of the Comprehensive Approach: The Military, Humanitarian and State-building Discourses in Afghanistan

Author:
Karsten Friis
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Over the last years there has been an increasingly vocal call for improved coherence and coordination among the international community engaged in Afghanistan. Facing a surge in violence, limited developmental and economical progress and a corrupt and inept domestic political leadership, it is assumed that better coordination among the international actors will address many, if not all, these challenges.
Topic:
Humanitarian Aid, International Cooperation, International Affairs, Military Strategy, Foreign Aid, Counterinsurgency, Governance, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Afghanistan