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32. Seeking Solutions for Afghanistan
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EastWest Institute
- Abstract:
- The governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan have accepted a generous proposal from the government of Abu Dhabi to host a series of meetings facilitated by the East West Institute (EWI) to complement existing channels of communication between the two countries. Participants in the series, known as the Abu Dhabi Process, discuss areas of their relationship they believe will help build confidence, ensure greater stability, and enhance sustainable development in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The meetings are off-the-record, consultative in nature, and governed by the Chatham House Rule.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Islam, War, Armed Struggle, and Counterinsurgency
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Abu Dhabi
33. After bin Laden: What's Next for Obama
- Author:
- James Lindsay
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Video
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- James Lindsay discusses how bin Laden's death will influence U.S. foreign policy, President Barack Obama's public opinion, and the war in Afghanistan.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Islam, Terrorism, and Counterinsurgency
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and United States
34. Osama bin Laden is Dead
- Author:
- Rohan Gunaratna
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS)
- Abstract:
- Now that Osama bin Laden is dead, the big question to ask is whether global terrorism will die with him. What did bin Laden leave behind?
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, Globalization, Islam, Terrorism, Armed Struggle, and Counterinsurgency
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and United States
35. Making Peace in Afghanistan: The Missing Political Strategy
- Author:
- Minna Jarvenpaa
- Publication Date:
- 02-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United States Institute of Peace
- Abstract:
- The proposition that a political settlement is needed to end the war in Afghanistan has gained increasing attention in recent months. Channels for preliminary talks with Taliban leaders have been sought and a High Peace Council created. However, despite upbeat military assessments, the insurgency has expanded its reach across the country and continues to enjoy sanctuary in Pakistan. Afghans increasingly resent the presence of foreign troops, and the Taliban draw strength from grievances by ordinary Afghans against their government. External money to supply military bases and pay for development projects often ends up fueling conflict rather than creating stability. For their part, President Karzai and many Afghan political elites lack genuine commitment to reform, calling into question the viability of a state-building international strategy and transition by 2014. Missing is a political strategy to end the conflict that goes beyond dealing with the Taliban; it must define the kind of state that Afghans are willing to live in and that regional neighbors can endorse. Knowing that such a settlement could take years to conclude does not diminish the urgency of initiating the process. Given doubts about Karzai's ability to manage the situation effectively, the international community needs to facilitate a peace process more pro-actively than it has. To be sustainable, the process will need to be inclusive; women's rights, human rights, and media freedoms cannot become casualties of negotiations. Afghanistan's international partners should commit to a peace process and lay the groundwork to appoint a mediator. This includes gauging the interests of parties, identifying actual participants in talks, and structuring an agenda. In the meantime, international military efforts must be realigned to avoid action that contradicts the ultimate aim of a peace settlement.
- Topic:
- NATO, Treaties and Agreements, War, Armed Struggle, and Counterinsurgency
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, and Taliban
36. The Haqqani Nexus and the Evolution of al-Qa'ida
- Author:
- Don Rassler and Vahid Brown
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
- Abstract:
- The targeted killing of Usama bin Ladin at a compound in the garrison city of Abbottabad, Pakistan has raised a number of important questions about the infamous global jihadist's local connections. It has also highlighted how little is really known about the patrons and supporters that enabled al-Qa'ida's charismatic leader to hide in plain sight, and communicate with his key lieutenants, for so many years. Al-Qa'ida's successful integration into the complex local landscape of Islamist militancy in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region is not a recent phenomenon, and since the 1980s Bin Ladin's organization has been dependent on a network of local supporters to conduct an increasingly global campaign of violence. Indeed, the inception, execution and continuity of al-Qa'ida's global jihad cannot be meaningfully separated from this local dimension, which today remains one of the least studied aspects of the organization's history. The present report aims to address this gap through an analysis of the history and organizational relationships of the Haqqani network, a single major constant that, for the entirety of al-Qa'ida's existence, has shaped the latter's local trajectory in the region.
- Topic:
- Islam, Terrorism, Armed Struggle, and Counterinsurgency
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan and Afghanistan
37. Policing and COIN Operations: Lessons Learned, Strategies and Future Directions
- Author:
- Samuel Musa, John Morgan, and Matt Keegan
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Book
- Abstract:
- At the time of this writing, the United States and the other members of the International Security Assistance Forces are completing nearly a decade of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. What started as more conventional or traditional fights has degenerated over time into insurgency warfare, something U.S. Forces have had to re-learn and re-build to fight. Re-learn and re-build are key elements as U.S. Forces have fought insurgencies in the past, but consistently maintained forces to fight more conventional warfare. Counterinsurgency (COIN) is very different from armored vehicles rolling through the Fulda Gap, or the race to Baghdad. It is a fight not against a Government as much as it is a fight for control of the mind-set of the population by non-state actors in a race to gain popular support. It is a grassroots battle that not only requires military force, but security established at the local level through everyday police presence that represents the Rule of Law, the national Government, and safety and stability locally. It is against this backdrop that the Center for Technology and National Security Policy (CTNSP) and the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office (CTTSO) came together to look at Policing and COIN and the ways, methods, and techniques that could be shared to help overcome the insurgencies Coalition forces face. The efforts of the CTNSP at the National Defense University (NDU) and the CTTSO culminated in a one-day workshop held on September 29, 2010, on Policing and COIN Operations: Lessons Learned, Strategies, and Future Directions.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, Terrorism, War, and Counterinsurgency
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Asia
38. Aid and Conflict in Afghanistan
- Publication Date:
- 08-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- After a decade of major security, development and humanitarian assistance, the international community has failed to achieve a politically stable and economically viable Afghanistan. Despite billions of dollars in aid, state institutions remain fragile and unable to provide good governance, deliver basic services to the majority of the population or guarantee human security. As the insurgency spreads to areas regarded as relatively safe till now, and policymakers in Washington and other Western capitals seek a way out of an unpopular war, the international community still lacks a coherent policy to strengthen the state ahead of the withdrawal of most foreign forces by December 2014. The impact of international assistance will remain limited unless donors, particularly the largest, the U.S., stop subordinating programming to counter-insurgency objectives, devise better mechanisms to monitor implementation, adequately address corruption and wastage of aid funds, and ensure that recipient communities identify needs and shape assistance policies.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, War, Foreign Aid, and Counterinsurgency
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and United States
39. Civilianising warfare: ways of war and peace in modern counterinsurgency
- Author:
- Colleen Bell
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- This article examines the emergence of counterinsurgency doctrine in Coalition interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. While counterinsurgency is complimentary to the tenets forwarded by its classical military predecessors in several respects, the article shows that it is also more than a refashioning of conventional military practice. Counterinsurgency is intimately tied to institutional practices that shape global liberal governance. It can be traced to dominant trends in international humanitarian, development and peace interventionism since the end of the Cold War and it deepens the links between the social development of war-affected populations and the politics of international security. Rather than simply a shift in military practice, counterinsurgency is distinguished by its investment in civilian modes of warfare. Counterinsurgency retells the narrative of intervention as part of the evolution of political and economic liberalisation, marking a passage from interventionary force to post-interventionary governance. Modern counterinsurgency, it is concluded, exposes the widening indistinction between contemporary modes of peace and those of war in international relations.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Cold War, Economics, War, Counterinsurgency, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and Iraq
40. Afghanistan: The Impossible Transition
- Author:
- Gilles Dorronsoro
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- A combination of two critical problems threatens to undermine the mission of the United States-led coalition in Afghanistan: the failure of the counterinsurgency strategy and a disconnect between political objectives and military operations. If anything, the current strategy is making a political solution less likely, notably because it is antagonizing Pakistan without containing the rise of the armed opposition. That has put the coalition in a paradoxical situation, in which it is being weakened militarily by a non-negotiated and inevitable withdrawal while at the same time alienating potential negotiating partners.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, War, and Counterinsurgency
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and United States