If a negotiated settlement to the war is a priority, and the aim is to facilitate talks between the Taliban and Kabul, then a legitimate, stable Afghan government would be a prerequisite. But Afghanistan’s history to this date indicates that elections are not an effective way of producing legitimate and stable central government there. Read […]
This month, for the first time, the U.S. armed forces are recruiting young men and women who weren’t yet born when the invasion of Afghanistan took place. The war has been going on for 17 years now (17-year-olds can enlist with parental consent), making it the longest war in American history. Yet we are no closer […]
Finally, and perhaps ultimately what may prove most decisive of these factors, the notorious Great Game—in which outside powers have intervened in and jousted over Afghanistan for a century and a half—is proving surprisingly propitious in terms of a rare coinciding of the interests of these countries. Read Here – The National Interest
Poppy cultivation, heroin production, terrorist attacks and territory controlled by the Taliban are now at or near record highs. President Ashraf Ghani said recently that Afghanistan’s military — and the government itself — would be in danger of imminent collapse, perhaps within days, if U.S. assistance stops. Read Here – Politico
Controversial private security tycoon Erik Prince has famously pitched an audacious plan to the Trump administration: Hire him to privatise the war in Afghanistan using squads of “security contractors.” Prince, who founded the Blackwater security firm and testified last week to the House Intelligence Committee for its Russia investigation, has deep connections into the current White […]
Indeed, the drug trade is a crucial part of Afghanistan’s economy, both in regions that the Afghan government controls and in Taliban-dominated regions. The Kabul government estimates that at least three million farmers make their living from that crop. In a desperately poor country, such income is often the difference between a decent lifestyle and destitution. U.S. […]
When Afghan pilots begin training on Black Hawk helicopters at Fort Rucker, Alabama, this year, the U.S. military will have two concerns: that they can fly and that they don’t fly the coop. More than 1 in 10 Afghan military personnel training in the United States last year went absent without leave, according to a report […]
If you’d asked Pentagon officials on Wednesday morning, “How many U.S. troops are deployed to Afghanistan?” they’d have told you “about 8,400.” If you ask them now, they’ll tell you “approximately 11,000” — maybe a thousand troops less than the actual best estimate. Read Here – Defense One
Here’s a crazy idea floating around Washington these days, outlandish even by today’s outlandish standards: The United States should hire a mercenary army to “fix” Afghanistan, a country where we’ve been at war since 2001, spending billions along the way. The big idea here is that they could extricate U.S. soldiers from this quagmire, and […]
It now appears that — barring some truly exceptional circumstances — Barack Obama has made his last decision regarding Afghanistan as president of the United States. The current force of about 10,000 U.S. service members will remain through the end of 2016, when it will quickly draw down to a force of about 5,500. The […]
looking beyond borders 