- “Afghan
National Security Forces: Resources, Strategy, and Timetable for Security
Lead Transition.” Hearing before
the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations, 20 June 2012. http://armedservices.house.gov/index.cfm/hearings-display?ContentRecord_id=74a9017f-5e1b-418a-9878-2afe7e3f9e3f
- State Department Fact Sheet: U.S.-Russia Cooperation on Afghanistan, June 2012. http://csis.org/files/publication/120619_Afghan_Transition.pdf
- “In Brief: Next Steps in the War in Afghanistan? Issues for Congress.” Congressional Research Service, June 2012.
On
May 1, 2012, President Obama gave a speech from Bagram Air Field in which he
laid out U.S. government approaches for “winding down” the war in
Afghanistan. While a number of observers
have challenged the logical plausibility of a unilateral decision to “wind
down” a war, the Administration’s commitment to decreasing U.S. involvement in
the war in Afghanistan is clear.
As
of mid-2012, many observers point to a coalescing vision of the way
forward—shared by the governments of the United States, Afghanistan, and other
international partners—that includes bringing the current campaign to a close
by the end of 2014, and pursuing a political settlement among the parties in
conflict, while extending U.S. and other international commitments to
Afghanistan beyond 2014. In evaluating this emerging vision, some observers
emphasize that the overall level of ambition has been lowered, while others
stress that the timeline for international engagement has been extended. https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42137.pdf
- “Learning from Women's Success in the 2010 Afghan Elections.” United States Institute of Peace, June 2012.
Afghan
women made small but significant gains in participation in Afghanistan’s
September 2010 parliamentary elections. But their status in Afghanistan’s
electoral system is precarious, and significant effort is needed to preserve
gains during the next election cycle in 2013–15. In the 2010 parliamentary
elections, seventy-eight more female candidates ran than in the 2005 elections,
a 24 percent increase. One additional woman was elected to Parliament over the
sixty-eight-person quota stated in the constitution, and in four provinces, a
woman received the highest number of votes out of all candidates.
Women
continued to face significant obstacles to campaigning, however, with female candidates
and their campaign workers receiving a disproportionate number of threats or attacks
reported during the elections. In less secure areas, cultural restrictions on
women’s access to public spaces increased, leaving many female candidates
unable to effectively communicate with voters.
Women
made up 40 percent of the electorate in 2010, but women’s access to the
electoral process
as voters often depends on having women hired as election workers by the electoral administration, candidates,
and observer groups. Without female counterparts working at the polls, many women will stay home due to
cultural concerns over interacting
with men in public places.
A
significant finding from the 2010 candidate statistics is that women face less competition for seats than men do, making it
attractive for political parties or coalitions to recruit powerful women to run on their platforms. http://www.usip.org/files/resources/SR309.pdf
- “Reconciliation with the Taliban: Fracturing the Insurgency.” Institute for the Study of War, June 2012. The Obama administration has pursued peace talks with the Taliban’s leadership in Pakistan with the hopes of engineering a grand peace bargain with the Taliban. Making a deal with the Taliban senior leadership will compromise America’s national security interests in the region by fueling ethnic tensions in Afghanistan and possibly providing a continued platform for international extremists to operate within the region and beyond. Thus far, there has been little to no progress and the effort has halted since the Taliban walked away from preliminary discussions in March. However, high-level outreach between the U.S. and Afghan governments and the senior Taliban leaders hiding in Pakistan has caused the various factions in the movement to turn against each other—some believing that peace talks are a step in the right direction and others vowing to fight to the death. Capitalizing on this infighting, rather than quixotically pursuing a negotiated settlement, may be the best way for the international community and the Afghan government to accelerate the demise of the movement. http://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Backgrounder_Reconciliation.pdf
6. “It's the economy...Even in Afghanistan.” ForeignPolicy.com.
Americans are not alone in worrying
that their economic futures are headed in the wrong direction. Afghans, too,
fear that the next several years will bring a business tailspin that will see
recent gains eked out by small and medium companies dissolve amid security woes
and a sharp pullback in international largesse and, of course, foreign forces.
The "light of a new day"
may be "on the horizon," as President Obama announced this May from
Bagram Air Base, but Afghan entrepreneurs want to make sure their start-ups
survive the changes that will accompany whatever comes next. This Thursday 50
such business-owners, 12 women among them, will gather at an investment
conference in New Delhi hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industries with
support from the Confederation of Women Entrepreneurs in India (CWEI).
8 7. “Afghanistan:
The Failing Economics of Transition.” Anthony H. Cordesman and Sean T. Mann. Center
for Strategic and International Studies.
In the next two and a half years
the US and its allies plan to hand over security and other responsibilities to
the Afghan government in a process labeled “Transition”. One of the major
challenges facing the US and its allies during this time is helping Afghanistan
prepare for significant cuts in military and development spending, which have
long driven the growth of Afghanistan’s fragile economy. These cuts, along with
the country’s fractious politics and persistent insecurity, threaten to derail
Transition for a number of reasons… http://csis.org/files/publication/120626_Afghan_Uncert_Econ_Trans.pdf
8. “The
Afghanistan Stabilisation Program (ASP): A National Program to Improve Security
and Governance.” Shahmahmood Miakhel.
Middle East Institute. Since the coup in April of 1978 by
the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), the social, cultural,
political, economic, governance, and security fabric of Afghanistan’s
institutions have been destroyed by the subsequent Mujahedin and Taleban
regimes. It is impossible to have enduring peace, stability, and development in
a country without a strong institutional foundation. After 33 years of war and
instability, for the most part, the linkages between central, provincial,
district, and village governance structures in Afghanistan are either very weak
or non-existent.
After the overthrow of the Taleban
regime in 2001, the government of Afghanistan and the donor community
recognized from the very outset that government institutions were mere weak
skeletal structures. Two years after the Taleban were ousted from power, most
of the district headquarters in Afghanistan did not even have proper buildings
from which to run local administration. In 2004, in an effort to strengthen
local governance, the government of Afghanistan launched the Afghanistan Stabilisation
Program (ASP). The main objectives of
the ASP were to extend the reach of the government of Afghanistan into the
districts and provinces through building physical infrastructure and enhancing
the capacity of local governance.
1 9. “Pakistan's Impending Defeat in Afghanistan.” Ashley J. Tellis. Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, June 2012.
Irrespective of how the
coming security transition in Afghanistan pans out, one country is on a
surprising course to a major strategic defeat: Pakistan. Every foreseeable
ending to the Afghan war today—continued conflict with the Taliban, restoration
of Taliban control in the southern and eastern provinces, or a nationwide civil
war—portends nothing but serious perils for Islamabad. But judging from
Pakistan’s behavior, it appears as if this fact has eluded the generals in
Rawalpindi.
1 10. “The Court Rules in Pakistan: Pakistan Supreme Court’s Dogged
Efforts to Reduce Corruption Could Signal Democracy – or Chaos.” Paula Newberg.
YaleGlobal, June 2012.
Pakistan has a history
of its civilian government being removed from power by the military, and last
week the country’s Supreme Court mounted what could be the first judicial coup.
As Pakistan faces terrorist challenges, political turmoil and economic crises,
the activist Supreme Court has compounded the challenges – ruling that Prime
Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani’s contempt-of-court conviction prevents him from
serving in parliament. The newly nominated candidate, Makhdoom Shahabuddin, has
also been served with an arrest warrant by the Supreme Court. Paula Newberg,
Marshall B. Coyne Director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at
Georgetown University, points out that the court claims to support democracy,
yet ignited another domestic crisis as Pakistan confronts immense
foreign-policy challenges with NATO’s impending withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Fiery activism and debate could signal movement toward democracy. Criticism of
Pakistan’s government, from its own courts or an ally like the US, should come
in measured doses. Too much could irrevocably weaken the civilian government.
Unmanageable reforms, especially during a difficult transition period, are
dangerous and could encourage unknown alternatives to civilian government.
11. "Porus Border and Corruption Keep Drugs Flowing through Tajikistan.” Alexander Sodiqov, Jamestown Foundation.
Recent weeks have seen a number of major narcotics busts in Tajikistan. On June 17, a border patrol found a cache containing almost 420 kilograms of cannabis in Shurobod district, on the country’s southern frontier with Afghanistan. On June 11, the authorities reported busting some 14 kg of hashish in the country’s north. One day earlier, police in Shurobod spotted a group of Afghan smugglers that had crossed the Panj River separating the two countries. Following a brief shootout, the smugglers retreated to Afghanistan, leaving behind about 100 kg of cannabis. On June 9, police reported capturing some 107 kg of narcotics, including 38 kg of heroin, in Hamadoni, another Tajik district lying on the southern frontier. On June 6, police intercepted more than 90 kg of narcotics after a two-hour clash with Afghan smugglers in Shurobod. Overall, almost 800 kg of drugs have been seized in Tajikistan since the beginning of June (news.tj, June 7, 10, 11, 18).
