- Dereliction of Duty II: Senior Military Leaders Loss of Integrity Wounds Afghan War Effort, Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, USA.
Senior ranking US military leaders have so distorted the truth when communicating with the US Congress and American people in regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognizable. This deception has damaged America’s credibility among both our allies and enemies, severely limiting our ability to reach a political solution to the war in Afghanistan. It has likely cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars Congress might not otherwise have appropriated had it known the truth, and our senior leaders’ behavior has almost certainly extended the duration of this war. The single greatest penalty our Nation has suffered, however, has been that we have lost the blood, limbs and lives of tens of thousands of American Service Members with little to no gain to our country as a consequence of this deception. http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/291793/dereliction-of-duty-ii-january-15-2012.pdf
2. Al Qaeda in Its Third Decade, By Heather Negley, RAND Corporation.
In the minds of most Americans, al Qaeda descended from the heavens in Wagnerian-opera fashion, on September 11, 2011, putting the organization today at the beginning of its second decade. But al Qaeda was formally established in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1988. It claims connection with assaults on American forces in Somalia and Saudi Arabia in the early 1990s, declared war on the United States in 1996, and launched its terrorist campaign in earnest in 1998. By 2001, the struggle was already in its second decade.
Whether al Qaeda is in its third decade or third century matters little to its leaders, who see the current conflict as the continuation of centuries of armed struggle between believers and infidels, and who expect it to transcend their lifetimes.
This is unnerving to Americans, who seek precision in dating their wars. The American Revolutionary War began when the Minutemen opened fire on advancing British troops on April 19, 1775. The Civil War began when Confederate forces began shelling Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. World War II began with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Americans seek equal precision in ending conflict. http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/occasional_papers/2012/RAND_OP362.pdf
3. Afghanistan: The Failed Metrics of Ten Years of War, Anthony H. Cordesman, Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The US has now been at war in Afghanistan for more than a decade, and is committed to stay through 2014 – with a possible advisory, aid, and funding presence that may extend to 2025. There still, however, are no convincing unclassified ways to measure progress in the war, and the trends in the fighting or level of violence.
There are, however, a wide mix of “metrics” that provide insight into some areas of progress. These range from analyses of the pattern in violence to estimates of casualties, attempts to show areas of insurgent influence, and efforts to measure the effectiveness of Afghan governance and aid.
This analysis looks at the reporting available on the state of the war at the end of 2011, in terms of the data, trends, and maps available from the US Department of Defense, the US National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), the NATO/ISAF command, and the UN. It attempts to explore the meaning of these data, the reasons for the sharp difference between them, and what they say about the fighting to date and its progress.
4. Maximizing Chances for Success in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Michael E. O'Hanlon and Bruce Riedel, Brookings Institution.
Four years ago, Barack Obama ran for president arguing that Afghanistan and Pakistan were the most crucial national security issues for the United States and that he would prioritize his attention and the nation’s resources in their direction if elected. His reasons began with the fact that Afghanistan was the preferred sanctuary for al Qaeda, where the 9/11 attacks were planned. In addition, Afghanistan offered huge swaths of land where al Qaeda and other extremist groups—mainly, Pakistan’s own Taliban, which seeks to destabilize that country, and Lashkar-e-Taiba, which seeks to attack India—would likely take refuge if the Afghan Taliban again seized power in much or all of that country. And Pakistan, soon to be the most populous country in the Islamic world and the fifth largest in the world, also has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world and is on track to be the world’s third largest nuclear weapons state.
The Obama administration has had major successes. The good news is that Osama bin Laden is dead and much of the broader al Qaeda leadership has similarly met its demise. Since preventing attacks by transnational terrorists against the United States and its allies was the core objective of military operations in Afghanistan, this is no mean feat. Also, Pakistan has arrested the progress of its own Taliban in threatening its internal stability. No further terrorist incidents like that of Mumbai in 2008 have brought India and Pakistan to the brink of what could be nuclear war. In addition, the momentum of the Taliban within Afghanistan has been stanched. By 2011, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was documenting fewer enemy-initiated attacks than had been witnessed in 2010 (though still more than were observed in 2009).
But, there is ample bad news as well…
- Peace and Development Efforts in Afghanistan: A Lost Decade, Patryk Kugiel, Polish Institute of International Affairs.
When international intervention put an end to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in late 2001 thousands of Afghans went out to the streets to celebrate a new beginning. After 20 years of bloody civil wars in the country, many had hoped that a new era of stability and prosperity was about to begin. The devastating terrorist attacks in the U.S., which brought the international coalition to Afghanistan, was seen as a guarantee that the West would not abandon the country before it was put back in order. Afghanistan could have been a model of post-conflict reconstruction.
After 10 years of international engagement in Afghanistan, it is clear that those hopes didn’t turn out to be true. The last 10 years have been mainly lost in terms of peace and the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Important questions to be asked are whether this grim outcome could have been prevented, if the intervention could have been done differently, what went wrong, and what lessons can be drawn for the future of Afghanistan and other similar post-conflict situations. When world leaders gather in Bonn to discuss a better strategy for Afghanistan it will be a good moment to re-assess those dilemmas. This paper aims to bring some proposals for answers to those questions. http://www.pism.pl/files/?id_plik=9193
6. Baluchistan. Hearing before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, 8 Feb 2012. Testimony of:
7. Pakistan Floods Emergency: Lessons from a Continuing Crisis, Shaheen Chughtai and Cate Heinrich. OxFam International.
8. Rethinking the Pakistan Plan, Amitai Etzioni, The National Interest
THE QUEST for improvement in the deeply troubled relationship between the United States (along with its Western allies) and Pakistan focuses largely on Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan and on the country’s approach to governing. But this quest has not yielded much, and relations between Washington and Islamabad are spiraling downward. Lost in this American struggle to induce change in Pakistani behavior is a fundamental reality—namely, that there probably can’t be any significant progress in improving the relationship so long as the India-Pakistan conflict persists. For Pakistanis, that conflict poses an ominous existential challenge that inevitably drives their behavior on all things, including their approach to the West and the war in Afghanistan. But if the India-Pakistan confrontation could be settled, chances for progress on other fronts would be greatly enhanced.
9. In Brief: Pakistan's Multiple Crises, Jon Lunn. House of Commons Library, United Kingdom.
Pakistan is facing multiple crises at present. Relations with the US are at an all-time low as a result of a number of incidents during 2011, including the unilateral US raid that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad in May and the border clash in late November in which US forces killed at least 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Relations between the military and the civilian government, led by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), are no better. Contempt proceedings against Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, brought by the Supreme Court, are due to resume on 1 February. If he is eventually found guilty, he would in all probability be obliged to resign. Early elections could be triggered, with cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, after years on the political margins, well placed to perform strongly.
- Prospects for Youth-Led Movements for Political Change in Pakistan, Michael Kugelman. Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre.
This policy brief assesses the potential for two types of youth-led political change movements in Pakistan. One is an Arab Spring-like campaign, fuelled by demands for better governance and new leadership. The other is a religious movement akin to the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which seeks to transform Pakistan into a rigid Islamic state.
The brief discusses the presence in Pakistan of several factors that suggest the possibility of the emergence of an Arab Spring-type movement. These include economic problems; corruption; a young, rapidly urbanising and disillusioned population; youth-galvanising incidents; and, in Imran Khan, a charismatic political figure capable of channelling mass sentiment into political change.
Pakistan is too fractured, unstable and invested in the status quo to launch a mass change movement, and talk of an Arab Spring is misguided in a nation that already experienced mass protests in 2007. Moreover, religion is too divided and polarised, and religious leadership too lacking in charisma and appeal to produce such a movement. Notwithstanding, there are several reasons why Pakistan could witness a religiously rooted revolution. These include Pakistanis’ intense religiosity and the growing influence in Pakistan of an Islamist political party that seeks to install caliphates in Muslim countries.
11. Pakistan: Charting a Course for Revival, Shada Islam, Friends of Europe.
More than at any time in its troubled history, Pakistan faces an uncertain future. The country’s political institutions are fragile, the economy is struggling while religious extremism and militancy cast a dark shadow over the landscape. Nuclear-armed Pakistan has long suffered from chronic political instability: long bouts of military rule have been followed by elections, the installation of weak civilian leaders who are, in turn, ousted by military coups d’état. The current situation is particularly disturbing. Often described as the “most dangerous place in the world”, Pakistan today risks further turmoil and destabilisation as a powerful army, a weak civilian government and the judiciary engage in a damaging standoff.
12. Pakistan's Perspective on Investigation Report Conducted by BG Stephen Clark into 26th November 2011 US Led ISAF/NATO Forces Attack on Pakistani Volcano and Boulder Posts in Mohmand Agency, Inter Services Public Relations, Government of Pakistan
- Report: Investigation Into the Incident in Vicinity of the Salala Checkpoint on the Night of 25-26 Nov 2011, http://www.centcom.mil/images/stories/Crossborder/report%20exsum%20further%20redacted.pdf
14. The Limits of the Pakistan-China Alliance, Lisa Curtis and Derek Scissors, Heritage Foundation.
After the U.S. raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan in May 2011, Pakistani political leaders played up their country’s relations with China, touting Beijing as an alternative partner to Washington. But China’s concerns over Pakistan’s future stability will likely limit the extent to which it will help Pakistan out of its economic difficulties. While China has an interest in maintaining strong security ties with Pakistan, the economic relationship is not very extensive and the notion that Chinese ties could serve as a replacement for U.S. ties is far-fetched. Instead of wringing its hands over Chinese influence on Pakistan, the U.S. should seek cooperation from Beijing in encouraging a more stable and prosperous Pakistan—which will benefit all parties involved. http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2012/pdf/B2641.pdf
