- How Afghanization Can Work, Linda Robinson. If past is prologue, the December 5 Bonn conference, which aims to shore up international support for Afghanistan, will conclude with promises that will almost certainly remain unfulfilled, like the Kabul and London conferences before it, and the barely noticed Istanbul conference last month. The most important question about Afghanistan is one that must be answered in Washington, not Bonn: What is the size and nature of the military commitment that the United States is prepared to make in the coming years? That decision will in turn dramatically affect both the diplomatic prospects for negotiations and the funds available for ongoing assistance. http://www.cfr.org/afghanistan/afghanization-can-work/p26662
- Women and the Afghan Transition, Ben Smith. House of Commons Library, United KingdomThere has been a lot of concern that Afghan women will be the main losers in the next few years as international forces withdraw and the Kabul government negotiates some sort of accommodation with the insurgency. http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06132.pdf
- Transition in Afghanistan: Looking Beyond 2014, The World Bank Full responsibility for security is to be handed over and most international troops are to be withdrawn by the end of 2014—as understood at the 2010 Kabul and Lisbon conferences. Experience suggests that withdrawals of international troops reduce civilian aid, with implications for economic growth, fiscal sustainability, and service delivery. Potential financing gaps in the budget could threaten security and recent development progress, creating a sense of urgency for both the Government and the donor community. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFGHANISTAN/Resources/AFBeyond2014.pdf
- The Afghanistan-Pakistan War at the End of 2011: Strategic Failure? Talk Without Hope? Tactical Success? Spend not Build (And Then Stop Spending)?, Anthony H. Cordesman. Center for Strategic and International Studies The US is on the thin edge of strategic failure in two wars: the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan/Pakistan. This failure may never reach the point of outright defeat in either country. Iraq may never become hostile, revert to civil war, or come under anything approaching Iranian control. Afghanistan and Pakistan may never become major sanctuaries for terrorist attacks on the US and its allies. Yet Iraq is already a grand strategic failure. The US went to war for the wrong reasons, let Iraq slide into a half decade of civil war, and failed to build an effective democracy and base for Iraq’s economic development. Its tactical victories – if they last – did little more than put an end to a conflict it help create, and the US failed to establish anything like the strategic partnership it sought. http://csis.org/files/publication/111115_Afghanistan_at_End_2011.pdf
5. A Review of the 2001 Bonn Conference and Application to the Road Ahead in Afghanistan, Mark Fields and Ramsha Ahmed. Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University
Ten years ago in Bonn, Germany, the United Nations Envoy to Afghanistan, Ambassador
Lakhdar Brahimi, and U.S. Envoy to the Afghan Opposition, Ambassador James Dobbins,
led a diverse group of international diplomats and warriors to consensus and charted
the political course for Afghanistan well into the decade. The process that led to the Bonn
Agreement (Bonn 2001, or Bonn I) reflects the best of U.S. and United Nations statesmanship
and was the result of the effective application of military and diplomatic power. Bonn 2001
was successful for five reasons…
http://www.ndu.edu/inss/docUploaded/Strategic%20Perspectives%208_Fields-Ahmed.pdf
http://www.ndu.edu/inss/docUploaded/Strategic%20Perspectives%208_Fields-Ahmed.pdf
6. Painful Steps: Justice, Forgiveness and Compromise in Afghanistan’s Peace Process, Jay Lamey. Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit
Peace in Afghanistan is frequently discussed but remains only a faint hope. As we move from meetings in Kabul to Bonn, and as strategies for the future are made and revised, it is vital that the voices of those who have suffered during Afghanistan’s conflicts are heard and understood. An arrangement that respects their hopes and concerns stands the best chance of delivering a just and durable peace in the country.
http://www.areu.org.af/Uploads/EditionPdfs/1129%20Painful%20Steps%20PN.pdf
http://www.areu.org.af/Uploads/EditionPdfs/1129%20Painful%20Steps%20PN.pdf
- Afghanistan's Paramilitary Policing in Context: The Risks of Expediency, Antonio Giustozzi and Mohammad Isaqzadeh. Afghanistan Analysts Network Despite representing the bulk of Afghanistan’s post‐2001 policing, the paramilitary dimension has received little attention among analysts. Still, if the current regime is to survive the transition to Afghan leadership in the security sector, which officially started in July 2011, and the subsequent Western disengagement, getting paramilitary policing into a functional state will be decisive. There are different types of para‐militarism, however, and what suits the Afghan predicament can only be determined by looking at the functioning of the MoI. http://aan-afghanistan.com/uploads/AAAN-2011-Police_and_Paramilitarisation.pdf
- Iraqi Leaders React to the U.S. Withdrawal, Ramzy Mardini. Institute for the Study of War On October 21, 2011, President Barack Obama announced his decision to withdraw all of the remaining 39,000 U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of the year. The complete pullout of U.S. forces satisfies the final phase of the withdrawal timetable established by the U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement signed in December 2008 by outgoing President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The decision comes after negotiating efforts failed to reach a new security arrangement with Iraq that would have allowed for a continued U.S. military presence beyond 2011. This document compiles and analyzes many of the reactions of Iraq’s leaders to the cessation of negotiations and the withdrawal of U.S. forces. http://www.understandingwar.org/files/Backgrounder_IraqLeadersReacttoWithdrawal.pdf
- Security Issues Relating to Iraq, Hearing before the Senate Committee on Armed Services on 15 November 2011 http://armed-services.senate.gov/e_witnesslist.cfm?id=5256
- Police Corruption: What Past Scandals Teach about Current Challenges, U.S. Institute of Peace Police corruption is a universal problem, but it is a particular challenge in countries in crisis and emerging from conflict. This report is based on the lessons gleaned from a review of public commissions of inquiry into police misconduct worldwide and their possible application in stability operations, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan. The study attempts to determine whether past scandals can help us deal more effectively with the contemporary problems of nation building and police reform. http://www.usip.org/files/resources/SR%20294.pdf
- Geopolitical Fault Lines – The Case of Afghanistan, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich Long before the colonial age, Afghanistan’s history has been defined geopolitically, first as a buffer zone between chaffing empires, then as a collision point between competing and global powers. This article examines the country’s past, current and perhaps future geopolitical fate. http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Special-Feature/Detail?lng=en&id=134666&contextid774=134666&contextid775=134664&tabid=134664&dynrel=0c54e3b3-1e9c-be1e-2c24-a6a8c7060233,4888caa0-b3db-1461-98b9-e20e7b9c13d4
- China's Pakistan Conundrum, ForeignAffairs.com
