The Breathless, Embarrassing Cheerleading of NATO in Afghanistan

by Joshua Foust

Simon Gass, the senior NATO representative in Afghanistan, wrote about how victory in Afghanistan is still imminently around the corner. So I’ve decided to contrast his arguments with reality and recent history about the war to show that his case is not just wrong, but completely ignorant of recent history. Gass: In Helmand province, the [...]

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The Importance of Defining Victory

by Joshua Foust

For PBS, I write: The sad reality of Afghanistan is that victory is not achievable with our current strategy and policies. Last month, I released a report with my think tank, The American Security Project, which tried to assess President Obama’s goals for the war. The current strategy boils down to three broad goals: deny [...]

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Why the Economics of Southwest Kyrgyzstan Matter, And Afghanistan

by Joshua Foust

At my day job with the American Security Project, I recorded a podcast with Adjunct Fellow Nick Lockwood, expert on stabilization operations, population engagement and strategic communications. He travels routinely to Afghanistan, and more recently to places like Libya. The topic was primarily about my current research on the economics of southwest Kyrgyzstan, and why [...]

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The Taliban Time Warp

by Joshua Foust

February 3, 2008: A secret British plan to build military training camps for former Taliban fighters in Helmand has sent Afghan-UK relations to an all-time low, say officials. Kabul had no knowledge of attempts to persuade fighters to switch sides and train to fight in local militias until the plan was exposed last December, they [...]

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ISAF Reporting and the IED Numbers Shuffle

by Dan Smock

In looking at  ISAF’s data for the months of August and September, they summarize IED discoveries, etc., but only graph the numbers of actual IED explosions/attacks. This is a significant shift in their reporting, as they used to report all IED events, at least for the last three years or so. Additionally, some of the [...]

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Another Whistle Stop for the Caldwellville Express

by Dan Smock

LTG William Caldwell, IV is currently the commander of the NATO Training Mission, Afghanistan (NTM-A), and I’m a big fan of his work. OK, so maybe “fan” is overstating things a bit. “Blogging stalker” might be a better word. The point is, his briefings and his PAO’s press releases vary in quality from serious numbers [...]

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Why Uzbekistan should be left alone

by Michael Hancock-Parmer

Just to show there isn’t a monolithic thing called Registan, I thought I would voice my opinion. I think of Afghanistan as being separated from Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan by a 700-foot tall magical wall of ice. This ice wall represents the historical trajectory of the 19th and 20th centuries that took two locales connected [...]

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LTG Caldwell Redefines Independence, Proximity

by Dan Smock

Caldwellville: Named for the current commander of that NATO Training Missing-Afghanistan (NTM-A), LTG William B. Caldwell, IV. It’s like the real Afghanistan, but much, much better. Caldwellian: Any interpretation of Afghanistan that falls in line with LTG Caldwell’s view of Afghanistan. In Caldwellville, if you take the true Caldwellian view of things, your ideas of “independent” [...]

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An Ammoral Distinction

by Joshua Foust

A pair of stories about Afghan militant leaders have come out in the last few days. They highlight a rather stunning, if unsurprising, aspect of the war: we do not really support the good guys. From over the weekend, the New York Times ran an excellent piece about the Haqqanis, a family of Afghan insurgents [...]

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Dual-Use Products Have Dual Consequences for Removal

by Joshua Foust

The Haqqanis are Afghan members of the Zadran tribe, but it is in the town of Miram Shah in Pakistan’s tribal areas where they have set up a ministate with courts, tax offices and radical madrasa schools producing a ready supply of fighters. They secretly run a network of front companies throughout Pakistan selling cars [...]

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