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anonymous

U.S. and Pakistan: Afghan Strategies - 0 views

  • Any withdrawal from Afghanistan, particularly an accelerated one, will leave a power vacuum in Afghanistan that the Kabul government will not be able to fill.
  • There is a prior definition of success that shaped the Bush administration’s approach to Afghanistan in its early phases. The goal here was the disruption of al Qaeda’s operations in Afghanistan and the prevention of further attacks on the United States from Afghanistan.
  • It was more modest and, in many ways, it was achieved in 2001-2002. Its defect, of course, was that the disruption of al Qaeda in Afghanistan, while useful, did not address the evolution of al Qaeda in other countries.
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  • The ultimate Iraq strategy was a political settlement framed by an increase in forces, and its long-term success was never clear. The Obama administration was prepared to repeat the attempt in Afghanistan, at least by using Iraq as a template if not applying exactly the same tactics.
  • However, the United States found that the Taliban were less inclined to negotiate with the United States, and certainly not on the favorable terms of the Iraqi insurgents, simply because they believed they would win in the long run
  • As we pointed out after the death of Osama bin Laden, his demise, coupled with the transfer of Petraeus out of Afghanistan, offered two opportunities.
  • The first was a return to the prior definition of success in Afghanistan
  • Second, the departure of Petraeus and his staff also removed the ideology of counterinsurgency
  • The conventional understanding of war is that its purpose is to defeat the enemy military. It presents a more limited and focused view of military power.
  • Counterinsurgency draws its roots from theories of social development in emerging countries going back to the 1950s.
  • In the view of this faction, defeating the Taliban was impossible with the force available and unlikely even with a more substantial force. There were two reasons for this.
  • First, the Taliban comprised a light infantry force with a superior intelligence capability and the ability to withdraw from untenable operations
  • Second, sanctuaries in Pakistan allowed the Taliban to withdraw to safety and reconstitute themselves, thereby making their defeat in detail impossible.
  • The United States can choose to leave Afghanistan without suffering strategic disaster. Pakistan cannot leave Pakistan.
  • while Afghanistan is a piece of American global strategy and not its whole, Afghanistan is central to Pakistan’s national strategy. This asymmetry in U.S. and Pakistani interests is now the central issue.
  • After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States became indifferent to Afghanistan’s future. Pakistan could not be indifferent. It remained deeply involved with the Islamist forces that had defeated the Soviets and would govern Afghanistan, and it helped facilitate the emergence of the Taliban as the dominant force in the country.
  • Sept. 11, 2001, posed a profound threat to Pakistan.
  • On one side, Pakistan faced a United States in a state of crisis, demanding Pakistani support against both al Qaeda and the Taliban.
  • On the other side Pakistan had a massive Islamist movement hostile to the United States
  • The Pakistani solution was the only one it could come up with
  • they did as much as they could for the United States without completely destabilizing Pakistan while making it appear that they were being far more cooperative with the Americans and far less cooperative with their public.
  • The United States wanted to disrupt al Qaeda regardless of the cost. The Pakistanis wanted to avoid the collapse of their regime at any cost. These were not compatible goals.
  • The United States accepted this publicly because it made Pakistan appear to be an ally at a time when the United States was under attack for unilateralism. It accepted it privately as well because it did not want to see Pakistan destabilize. The Pakistanis were aware of the limits of American tolerance, so a game was played out.
  • That game is now breaking down, not because the United States raided Pakistan and killed bin Laden but because it is becoming apparent to Pakistan that the United States will, sooner or later, be dramatically drawing down its forces in Afghanistan.
  • First, Pakistan will be facing the future on its western border with Afghanistan without an American force to support it.
  • Second, Pakistan is aware that as the United States draws down, it will need Pakistan to cover its withdrawal strategically.
  • Finally, there will be a negotiation with the Taliban, and elements of Pakistan, particularly the ISI, will be the intermediary.
  • Publicly, it is important for them to appear as independent and even hostile to the Americans as possible in order to maintain their domestic credibility.
  • From the American point of view, the war in Afghanistan — and elsewhere — has not been a failure. There have been no more attacks on the United States on the order of 9/11, and that has not been for al Qaeda’s lack of trying.
  • In the end, the United States will leave Afghanistan (with the possible exception of some residual special operations forces). Pakistan will draw Afghanistan back into its sphere of influence.
  • A play will be acted out like the New Zealand Haka, with both sides making terrible sounds and frightening gestures at each other.
  • The United States is furious at Pakistan for its willingness to protect American enemies. Pakistan is furious at the United States for conducting attacks on its sovereign territory. In the end it doesn’t matter. They need each other. In the affairs of nations, like and dislike are not meaningful categories, and bullying and treachery are not blocks to cooperation. The two countries need each other more than they need to punish each other. Great friendships among nations are built on less.
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    "U.S. President Barack Obama will give a speech on Afghanistan on June 22. Whatever he says, it is becoming apparent that the United States is exploring ways to accelerate the drawdown of its forces in the country. It is also clear that U.S. relations with Pakistan are deteriorating to a point where cooperation - whatever level there was - is breaking down."
anonymous

Central Asia and Afghanistan: A Tumultuous History | Stratfor - 0 views

  • Contrary to popular perception, Central Asia is not likely to see an immediate explosion of violence and militancy after the U.S. and NATO drawdown from Afghanistan in 2014. However, Central Asia's internal issues and the region's many links with Afghanistan -- including a web of relationships among militant groups -- will add to the volatility in the region. 
  • Central Asia is linked to Afghanistan geographically; Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan share borders with Afghanistan that collectively span more than 2,000 kilometers (about 1,240 miles).
  • the topography of Afghanistan's frontiers with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan is largely desert. 
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  •  Afghanistan is an ethnically diverse country, with more than a dozen ethno-linguistic groups represented substantially in the country's population of slightly more than 31 million.
  • The Pashtuns are the largest such group (42 percent), with Tajiks (27 percent), Hazaras (9 percent), Uzbeks (9 percent) and Turkmen (3 percent) constituting significant cohorts as well.
  • Historically, Afghanistan's borders with the Central Asian states did not exist in a modern sense; rather, they consisted of frontier areas that constantly shifted hands, given that warfare in the region was the norm.
  • Russia's imperial expansion into Central Asia coincided with the growth of the British domain over India, and the result was the establishment of a buffer zone in what is now Afghanistan.
  • This set the borders of Afghanistan as we know them and -- with the transition from the Russian Empire to the Soviet Union in the early 20th century -- led to a closing off of the borders between Central Asia and Afghanistan for the first time in history.
  • The ensuing 70 years of Soviet rule in Central Asia created significantly different political and cultural identities among the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Turkmen in the Soviet Union and those within Afghanistan, given the vastly different governing structures.
  • Because of the geography of the border areas, interaction and movement between the peoples of Central Asia and Afghanistan was difficult to stop.
  • The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and the collapse of the Soviet Union only two years later created a dramatically new environment both within Central Asia and within Afghanistan.
  • In 1991, the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (along with Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan farther north) became independent states for the first time in modern history.
  • Beginning in 1994 and starting from their stronghold in Kandahar, the Taliban were able to spread their influence and control over much of Afghanistan. It took the movement only months to take control of most southern provinces from various Pashtun warlords, and they quickly made progress in capturing regional centers in the west and east of the country like Herat and Jalalabad.
  • The rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan coincided with a number of significant developments in Central Asia. The post-Soviet regimes in the region had no experience of ruling their territories directly. Moreover, Central Asia faced immense economic and political challenges as Russia withdrew subsidies and the Soviet military-industrial complex with which the Central Asians were so integrated collapsed.
  • Tajikistan descended into civil war almost immediately, when groups from the Kulyabi and Khujand regions known as the Popular Front were pitted against an array of opposition elements including Islamists, democrats and the Pamiri clan from the east collectively known as the United Tajik Opposition. 
  • Outside groups got involved in the civil war, supporting the different sides along political and ideological lines. Russia and Uzbekistan supported the secular and neo-communist Popular Front, while many Tajiks in Afghanistan supported the United Tajik Opposition, particularly the Islamist elements of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan. 
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    "This is the first installment of a two-part series on the relationship between Central Asia and Afghanistan and the expected effects of the U.S. drawdown in Afghanistan on Central Asian security."
anonymous

Militancy and the U.S. Drawdown in Afghanistan - 0 views

  • Indeed, with the United States having set a deadline of July 2011 to begin the drawdown of combat forces in Afghanistan — and with many of its NATO allies withdrawing sooner — the Taliban can sense that the end is near. As they wait expectantly for the departure of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from Afghanistan, a look at the history of militancy in Afghanistan provides a bit of a preview of what could follow the U.S. withdrawal.
  • First, it is very important to understand that militant activity in Afghanistan is nothing new. It has existed there for centuries, driven by a number of factors.
  • One of the primary factors is the country’s geography.
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  • A second, closely related factor is culture. Many of the tribes in Afghanistan have traditionally been warrior societies that live in the mountains, disconnected from Kabul because of geography
  • A third factor is ethnicity. There is no real Afghan national identity.
  • Finally, there is religion. While Afghanistan is a predominantly Muslim country, there is a significant Shiite minority as well as a large Sufi presence in the country.
  • Any of these forces on its own would pose challenges to peace, stability and centralized governance, but together they pose a daunting problem and result in near-constant strife in Afghanistan.
  • Militant activity in Afghanistan is, therefore, not just the result of an outside invasion. Rather, it has been a near constant throughout the history of the region, and it will likely continue to be so for the foreseeable future.
  • Foreign Influence
  • The United States does not want the country to revert to being a refuge for al Qaeda and other transnational jihadist groups.
  • Russia does not want the Taliban to return to power.
  • Facing enemies on its borders with India and Iran, Pakistan must control Afghanistan in order to have strategic depth and ensure that it will not be forced to defend itself along its northwest as well.
  • This is exactly why India wants to play a big part in Afghanistan — to deny Pakistan that strategic depth.
  • Iran also has an interest in the future of Afghanistan and has worked to cultivate certain factions of the Taliban by providing them with shelter, weapons and training.
  • It may seem counterintuitive, but following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the casualties from militancy in the country declined considerably.
  • Although Mullah Omar is the dominant force and is without peer among Afghan insurgent leaders, there are a number of local and regional militant commanders who are fighting against the U.S. occupation beside the Taliban and who have post-U.S. occupation interests that diverge from those of the Taliban.
  • With the sheer size of the Taliban and its many factions, and the fact that many factions are receiving shelter and support from patrons in Pakistan and Iran, it is simply not possible for the U.S. military to completely destroy them before the Americans begin to withdraw next summer. This will result in a tremendous amount of pressure on the Americans to find a political solution to the problem. At this time, the Taliban simply don’t feel pressured to come to the negotiating table — especially with the U.S. drawdown in sight.
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    "The drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq has served to shift attention toward Afghanistan, where the United States has been increasing its troop strength in hopes of forming conditions conducive to a political settlement." By Scott Stewart at StratFor on September 2, 2010.
anonymous

Afghanistan: Why the Taliban are Winning - 0 views

  • Almost 150,000 U.S. and allied troops are now in Afghanistan, some 30,000 more than the number of Soviet troops at the height of their occupation in the 1980s. The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is now at the pinnacle of its strength, which is expected to start declining, one way or another, by the latter half of 2011, a trend that will have little prospect of reversing itself. Though history will undoubtedly speak of missed or squandered opportunities in the early years of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, this is now the decisive moment in the campaign.
  • In his analysis, McChrystal made two key assertions: The strategy then being implemented would not succeed, even with more troops. A new counterinsurgency-focused strategy just proposed would not succeed without more troops.
  • When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Washington had originally intended to install a stable, pro-American government in Baghdad in order to fundamentally reshape the region. Instead, after the U.S. invasion destroyed the existing Iraqi-Iranian balance of power, Washington found itself on the defensive, struggling to prevent the opposite outcome — a pro-Iranian regime.
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  • But the foreign jihadists ultimately overplayed their hand with Iraq’s Sunnis, a decisive factor in their demise. Their attempts to impose a harsh and draconian form of Islamism and the slaying of traditional Sunni tribal leaders cut against the grain of Iraqi cultural and societal norms. In response, beginning well-before the surge of 2007, Sunni Awakening Councils and militias under the Sons of Iraq program were formed to defend against and drive out the foreign jihadists.
  • At the heart of this shift was Sunni self-interest.
  • the strategy relied heavily on capitalizing on a shift already taking place: the realignment of the Sunnis, who not only fed the U.S. actionable intelligence on the foreign jihadists but also became actively engaged in the campaign against them.
  • In Afghanistan, the problem is the opposite. The initial American objective in Afghanistan was to disrupt and destroy al Qaeda, and while certain key individuals remain at large, the apex leadership of what was once al Qaeda has been eviscerated and no longer presents a strategic threat. This physical threat now comes more from al Qaeda “franchises” like al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
  • Most of what remains of the original al Qaeda prime that the United States set out to destroy in 2001 now resides in Pakistan, not Afghanistan.
  • Despite — or perhaps because of — the remarkably heterogeneous demography of Afghanistan, there is no sectarian card to play. Nor is there a regional rival, as there is in Iraq with Iran, that U.S. grand strategy dictates must be prevented from dominating the country.
  • Faced with a superior force, they declined combat and refused to fight on American terms, only to resurge after American attention shifted to Iraq.) But it is not the Afghan Taliban per se that the United States is opposed to, it is their support for transnational Islamist jihadists — something to which the movement does not necessarily have a deep-seated, non-negotiable commitment.
  • And as a light-infantry force both appropriate for and intimately familiar with the rugged Afghan countryside, the Taliban enjoy superior knowledge of the terrain and people as well as superior intelligence (including intelligence from compromised elements of the Afghan security forces). The Taliban are particularly well-suited for waging a protracted insurgency and they perceive themselves as winning this one — which they are.
  • The Taliban are winning in Afghanistan because they are not losing.
  • The United States is losing because it is not winning. This is the reality of waging a counterinsurgency.
  • First, the core strengths of the Taliban as a guerrilla force are undisputed, and the United States and its allies are unwilling to dedicate the resources and effort necessary to fully defeat it.
  • In reality (if not officially), the end objective now appears to be political accommodation with the Afghan Taliban and their integration into the regime in Kabul.
  • there is no Afghan analogy to the Sunni Awakening in Iraq
  • The underlying point here is that the United States does not intend to defeat the Taliban; it seeks merely to draw them into serious negotiations.
  • The application of military power, as Clausewitz taught, must be both commensurate with the nation’s political objectives and targeted at the enemy’s will to resist.
  • Political accommodation can be the result of both fear and opportunity. Force of arms is meant to provide the former. And the heart of the problem for the U.S.-led effort in Afghanistan is that the counterinsurgency strategy does not target the Taliban directly and relentlessly to create a sense of immediate, visceral and overwhelming threat. By failing to do so, the military means remain not only out of sync with the political objectives but also, given the resources and time the United States is willing to dedicate to Afghanistan, fundamentally incompatible. As an insurgent force, the Taliban is elusive, agile and able to seamlessly maneuver within the indigenous population even if only a portion of the population actively supports it. The Taliban is a formidable enemy. As such, they are making the political outcome appear unachievable by force of arms — or at least the force of arms that political realities and geopolitical constraints dictate.
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    "With additional troops committed and a new strategy in place, the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is making its last big push to win the war in Afghanistan. But domestic politics in ISAF troop-contributing nations are limiting the sustainability of these deployments while the Taliban maintain the upper hand. It is not at all clear that incompatibilities between political climates in ISAF countries and military imperatives in Afghanistan can ever be overcome. And nothing the coalition has achieved thus far seems to have resonated with the Taliban as a threat so dangerous and pressing it cannot be waited out." At StratFor on September 1, 2010.
anonymous

Obama's Afghanistan Plan and the Realities of Withdrawal | STRATFOR - 0 views

  • Afghanistan, a landlocked country in the heart of Central Asia, is one of the most isolated places on Earth. This isolation has posed huge logistical challenges for the United States. Hundreds of shipping containers and fuel trucks must enter the country every day from Pakistan and from the north to sustain the nearly 150,000 U.S. and allied forces stationed in Afghanistan, about half the total number of Afghan security forces. Supplying a single gallon of gasoline in Afghanistan reportedly costs the U.S. military an average of $400, while sustaining a single U.S. soldier runs around $1 million a year (by contrast, sustaining an Afghan soldier costs about $12,000 a year).
  • An 11,500-foot all-weather concrete and asphalt runway and an air traffic control tower were completed this February at Camp Leatherneck and Camp Bastion in Helmand province. Another more than 9,000-foot runway was finished at Shindand Air Field in Herat province last December.
  • short of a hasty and rapid withdrawal reminiscent of the chaotic American exit from Saigon in 1975 (which no one currently foresees in Afghanistan), the logistical challenge of withdrawing from Afghanistan — at whatever pace — is perhaps even more daunting than the drawdown in Iraq. The complexity of having nearly 50 allies with troops in country will complicate this process.
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  • The American logistical dependence on Pakistani acquiescence cannot be understated.
  • Much construction and fortification has been done with engineering and construction equipment like Hesco barriers (which are filled with sand and dirt) that will not be reclaimed, and will continue to characterize the landscape in Afghanistan for decades to come, much as the Soviet influence was perceivable long after their 1989 withdrawal.
  • More important than the fate of armored trucks and equipment will be the process of rebalancing forces across the country. This will involve handing over outposts and facilities to Afghan security forces, who continue to struggle to reach full capability, and scaling back the extent of the U.S. and allied presence in the country.
  • This process of pulling back and handing over responsibility for security (in Iraq often termed having Iraqi security forces “in the lead” in specific areas) is a slow and deliberate one, not a sudden and jarring maneuver.
  • The security of the remaining outposts and ensuring the security of U.S. and allied forces and critical lines of supply (particularly key sections of the Ring Road) that sustain remaining forces will be key to crafting the withdrawal and pulling back to fewer, stronger and more secure positions.
  • The desire to accelerate the consolidation to more secure positions will clash with the need to pull back slowly and continue to provide Afghan forces with advice and assistance. The reorientation may expose potential vulnerabilities to Taliban attack in the process of transitioning to a new posture. Major reversals and defeats for Afghan security forces at the hands of the Taliban after they have been left to their own devices can be expected in at least some areas and will have wide repercussions, perhaps even shifting the psychology and perception of the war.
  • Force protection remains a key consideration throughout. The United States gained considerable experience with that during the Iraq transition — though again, a political accommodation underlay much of that transition, which will not be the case in Afghanistan.
  • As the withdrawal becomes more and more undeniable and ISAF pulls back from key areas, the human relationships that underlie intelligence sharing will be affected and reduced.
  • Given the intensity and tempo of special operations forces raids on Taliban leadership and weapons caches, it is unclear whether the Taliban have managed to retain a significant cache of heavier arms and the capability to wield them.
  • The shift from a dispersed, counterinsurgency-focused orientation to a more limited and more secure presence will ultimately provide the space to reduce casualties, but it will necessarily entail more limited visibility and influence. And the transition will create space for potentially more significant Taliban successes on the battlefield.
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    "U.S. President Barack Obama announced June 22 that the long process of drawing down forces in Afghanistan would begin on schedule in July. Though the initial phase of the drawdown appears limited, minimizing the tactical and operational impact on the ground in the immediate future, the United States and its allies are now beginning the inevitable process of removing their forces from Afghanistan. This will entail the risk of greater Taliban battlefield successes."
anonymous

The 30-Year War in Afghanistan - 0 views

  • The Afghan War is the longest war in U.S. history. It began in 1980 and continues to rage. It began under Democrats but has been fought under both Republican and Democratic administrations, making it truly a bipartisan war. The conflict is an odd obsession of U.S. foreign policy, one that never goes away and never seems to end. As the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal reminds us, the Afghan War is now in its fourth phase.
  • The first phase of the Afghan War began with the Soviet invasion in December 1979, when the United States, along with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, organized and sustained Afghan resistance to the Soviets.
  • The second phase lasted from 1989 until 2001.
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  • The third phase began on Sept. 11, 2001, when al Qaeda launched attacks on the mainland United States.
  • The fourth phase of the war began in 2009, when U.S. President Barack Obama decided to pursue a more aggressive strategy in Afghanistan. Though the Bush administration had toyed with this idea, it was Obama who implemented it fully.
  • While al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan in 2001, Afghanistan is no longer its primary base of operations. The group has shifted to Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and other countries. As al Qaeda is thus not dependent on any one country for its operational base, denying it bases in Afghanistan does not address the reality of its dispersion. Securing Afghanistan, in other words, is no longer the solution to al Qaeda.
  • the real strategy is to return to the historical principles of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan: alliance with indigenous forces.
  • The American strategy is, therefore, to maintain a sufficient force to shape the political evolution on the ground, and to use that force to motivate and intimidate while also using economic incentives to draw together a coalition in the countryside.
  • Afghanistan ultimately is not strategically essential, and this is why the United States has not historically used its own forces there.
  • The forces the United States and its allies had trained and armed now fought each other in complex coalitions for control of Afghanistan. Though the United States did not take part in this war directly, it did not lose all interest in Afghanistan.
  • First, the Americans intended to keep al Qaeda bottled up and to impose as much damage as possible on the group.
  • Second, they intended to establish an Afghan government, regardless of how ineffective it might be, to serve as a symbolic core.
  • Third, they planned very limited operations against the Taliban, which had regrouped and increasingly controlled the countryside.
  • The three phases of American involvement in Afghanistan had a common point: All three were heavily dependent on non-U.S. forces to do the heavy lifting. In the first phase, the mujahideen performed this task. In the second phase, the United States relied on Pakistan to manage Afghanistan’s civil war. In the third phase, especially in the beginning, the United States depended on Afghan forces to fight the Taliban.
  • The United States commenced operations barely 30 days after Sept. 11, which was not enough time to mount an invasion using U.S. troops as the primary instrument. Rather, the United States made arrangements with factions that were opposed to the Taliban (and defeated in the Afghan civil war).
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    By George Friedman on July 29, 2010
anonymous

Bury the Graveyard - 0 views

  • Afghanistan, we're told, is "the graveyard of empires."
  • Look, failure is always a possible outcome, especially judging by the way things have been going lately. But if the United States and its allies end up messing up their part of the equation, blame it on their bad policy decisions. Don't blame it on a supersimplified version of Afghanistan's history -- especially if you prefer to overlook the details.
  • One of those myths, for example, is that Afghanistan is inherently unconquerable thanks to the fierceness of its inhabitants and the formidable nature of its terrain. But this isn't at all borne out by the history. "Until 1840 Afghanistan was better known as a 'highway of conquest' rather than the 'graveyard of empires,'" Barfield points out. "For 2,500 years it was always part of somebody's empire, beginning with the Persian Empire in the fifth century B.C."
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  • Alexander's successors managed to keep the place under their control for another 200 years.
  • Genghis had "no trouble at all overrunning the place," and his descendants would build wide-ranging kingdoms using Afghanistan as a base.
  • But context is everything. Everyone tends to forget what happened after the rout of the British: In 1842 they invaded again, defeating every Afghan army sent out against them.
  • Britain's foreign-policy aim, which it ultimately achieved, was to ensure that Afghanistan remained a buffer state outside the influence of imperial competitors, such as the Russians.
  • But even the most skeptical historians concede that, around 1984 or so, the Soviets were actually getting the better of the mujahideen. It was the U.S. decision to send shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles to the Afghan resistance, which robbed the Russian helicopter gunships of their superiority, that allowed the guerrillas to stage a comeback.
  • As Barfield points out, the war against the Soviets was sharply different from previous rebellions in Afghanistan's history as a state, which were relatively fleeting and almost always local affairs, usually revolving around dynastic power struggles. "From 1929 to 1978," he says, "the country was completely at peace."
  • Unfortunately, popular views of the place today are shaped by the past 30 years of seemingly unceasing warfare rather than substantive knowledge of the country's history.
  • Anti-war activists routinely blame the post-2001 Western military presence in the country for the destruction of national infrastructure and the widespread cultivation of opium poppies -- both of which actually date back to the Soviet invasion and the civil war that followed. Others play up the notion of Afghanistan as inherently immune to civilization: "We are not going to ever defeat the insurgency," said Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on CNN in 2009. "Afghanistan has probably had - my reading of Afghanistan history - it's probably had an insurgency forever, of some kind."
  • One thing is for sure: If we really want Afghans to attain the future they deserve, clinging to a fake version of their history won't help.
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    "If you want to figure out a way forward for Afghanistan, fake history is not the place to start. " By Christian Caryl at Foreign Policy on July 26, 2010.
anonymous

U.S., Russia Make New Deals on Supply Routes to Afghanistan - 0 views

  • The ability to move more cargo along these routes will strengthen the United States’ position relative to Pakistan in their upcoming summit.
  • During the past year, Russia has been cooperating more with the United States on security issues in Afghanistan, particularly by expanding the use of supply routes to Afghanistan that go through Central Asia.
  • In 2009, as much as 90 percent of NATO supplies shipped via surface routes to Afghanistan were transported along supply lines through Pakistani territory.
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  • the United States has dramatically increased the volume of supplies moving into Afghanistan via road and rail routes through Central Asia known as the Northern Distribution Network (NDN)
  • As of July, more than 40 percent of surface cargo bound for Afghanistan was transported along these routes. U.S. military officials have said they hope to increase this share to as much as 75 percent by the end of the year.
  • U.S.-Russian cooperation has increased, particularly in the last quarter, on security issues in Afghanistan and the surrounding Central Asian states.
  • before Washington can expand its use of the NDN, the United States and Russia must address several outstanding issues.
  • First, the only cargo currently allowed to move along the NDN is “non-lethal” cargo: food, water, construction materials and the like. Weapons and ammunition are not permitted.
  • What Russia really wants is an agreement on ballistic missile defense in Europe
  • An additional problem is that current Central Asian supply routes to Afghanistan only go one way; the shipment of any supplies out of Afghanistan via the NDN is prohibited.
  • The third issue is that some of the transportation infrastructure along the Central Asian networks is in disrepair and would need upgrades to handle any significant increase in volume.
  • Finally, there is the issue that NATO supply lines have served as major targets for militants.
  • it is likely that Washington and Moscow have already reached an agreement on most of these issues
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    "U.S. Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman visited Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan at the end of July, right before traveling to Pakistan to meet the Pakistani president and participate in a trilateral summit on the Afghan war."
anonymous

The Death of bin Laden and a Strategic Shift in Washington - 1 views

  • Together, the events create the conditions for the U.S. president to expand his room to maneuver in the war in Afghanistan and ultimately reorient U.S. foreign-policy priorities.
  • With the death of bin Laden, a plausible, if not altogether accurate, political narrative in the United States can develop, claiming that the mission in Afghanistan has been accomplished.
  • From Langley, Petraeus can no longer be the authoritative military voice on the war effort in Afghanistan. Obama has retained Petraeus as a senior member of the administration while simultaneously isolating him.
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  • The U.S. political leadership faced difficulty in shaping an exit strategy from Afghanistan with Petraeus in command because the general continued to insist that the war was going reasonably well.
  • We are not saying that bin Laden’s death and Petraeus’ new appointment are anything beyond coincidental. We are saying that the confluence of the two events creates politically strategic opportunities for the U.S. administration that did not exist before, the most important of which is the possibility for a dramatic shift in U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.
  • Petraeus is now being removed from the Afghanistan picture. Bin Laden has already been removed. With his death, an argument in the United States can be made that the U.S. mission has been accomplished and that, while there may be room for some manner of special-operations counterterrorism forces, the need for additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan no longer exists.
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    "Two apparently distinct facts have drawn our attention. The first and most obvious is U.S. President Barack Obama's announcement late May 1 that Osama bin Laden had been killed. The second is Obama's April 28 announcement that Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, will replace Leon Panetta as CIA director. Together, the events create the conditions for the U.S. president to expand his room to maneuver in the war in Afghanistan and ultimately reorient U.S. foreign-policy priorities. "
anonymous

Pakistan and the U.S. Exit From Afghanistan - 1 views

  • But while the military’s top generals and senior civilian leadership are responsible for providing the president with sound, clearheaded advice on all military matters including the highest levels of grand strategy, they are ultimately responsible for the pursuit of military objectives to which the commander-in-chief directs them.
    • anonymous
       
      Which is why I scratch my head when I read or hear (as I did at a recent family function) "Obama is just leaving because of political reasons." Of course he - I mean *we* are - we got into it for political reasons and we'll leave that way. At its core, war is political. I'm amazed at how ridiculously basic a concept that is, and yet its lacking from many person-to-person narratives.
  • The strategy of the guerrilla is to make the option to withdraw more attractive. In order to do this, his strategic goal is simply to survive and fight on whatever level he can. His patience is built into who he is and what he is fighting for. The occupier’s patience is calculated against the cost of the occupation and its opportunity costs, thus, while troops are committed in this country, what is happening elsewhere?
    • anonymous
       
      See also: The rise of conventional powers during this decade-long overmagnification on one region.
  • The occupation force will always win engagements, but that is never the measure of victory. If the guerrillas operate by doctrine, defeats in unplanned engagements will not undermine their basic goal of survival.
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  • While the occupier is not winning decisively, even while suffering only some casualties, he is losing. While the guerrilla is not losing decisively, even if suffering significant casualties, he is winning.
  • There has long been a myth about the unwillingness of Americans to absorb casualties for very long in guerrilla wars. In reality, the United States fought in Vietnam for at least seven years (depending on when you count the start and stop) and has now fought in Afghanistan for nine years. The idea that Americans can’t endure the long war has no empirical basis.
    • anonymous
       
      This is another one of those fascinating bits of conventional wisdom that's completely wrong. Another is the idea that Afghanistan is the *graveyard of empires*. Both these misconceptions feed our basic need for explanatory stories, but they do so at the expense of realistic observation.
  • Far more relevant than casualties to whether Americans continue a war is the question of the conflict’s strategic importance, for which the president is ultimately responsible.
  • Washington’s primary goal at the initiation of the conflict was to destroy or disrupt al Qaeda in Afghanistan to protect the U.S. homeland from follow-on attacks to 9/11.
  • STRATFOR has long held that Islamist-fueled transnational terrorism does not represent a strategic, existential threat to the United States. While acts of transnational terrorism target civilians, they are not attacks — have not been and are not evolving into attacks — that endanger the territorial integrity of the United States or the way of life of the American people.
  • They are dangerous and must be defended against, but transnational terrorism is and remains a tactical problem that for nearly a decade has been treated as if it were the pre-eminent strategic threat to the United States.
    • anonymous
       
      Initial criticisms of the GWOT is that you can't have a "war" on a method. I believe that criticism still stands. It's certainly an untenable basis for conducing national security.
  • disrupting and degrading it — to say nothing of destroying it — can no longer be achieved by waging a war in Afghanistan.
  • The strategic problem is that simply terminating the war after nine years would destabilize the Islamic world.
  • The political problem is domestic. Obama’s approval rating now stands at 42 percent. This is not unprecedented, but it means he is politically weak. One of the charges against him, fair or not, is that he is inherently anti-war by background and so not fully committed to the war effort.
    • anonymous
       
      To which I respond: Presidents are not the same as partisan constituents. They may enter office with one perspective, but the reality of the damnedable profession changes you. Being "anti-war" is a sort of childlike triviality once you've had to manage the unweildy apparatus of the state.
  • The American solution, one that we suspect is already under way, is the Pakistanization of the war. By this, we do not mean extending the war into Pakistan but rather extending Pakistan into Afghanistan.
  • In the past, the United States has endeavored to keep the Taliban in Afghanistan and the regime in Pakistan separate.
  • The Pakistani relationship to the Taliban, which was a liability for the United States in the past, now becomes an advantage for Washington because it creates a trusted channel for meaningful communication with the Taliban.
  • The United States isn’t going to defeat the Taliban. The original goal of the war is irrelevant, and the current goal is rather difficult to take seriously. Even a victory, whatever that would look like, would make little difference in the fight against transnational jihad, but a defeat could harm U.S. interests.
  • Therefore, the United States needs a withdrawal that is not a defeat.
  • Bob Woodward has released another book, this one on the debate over Afghanistan strategy in the Obama administration.
  •  
    "Bob Woodward has released another book, this one on the debate over Afghanistan strategy in the Obama administration. As all his books do, the book has riveted Washington. It reveals that intense debate occurred over what course to take, that the president sought alternative strategies and that compromises were reached. But while knowing the details of these things is interesting, what would have been shocking is if they hadn't taken place." By George Friedman at StratFor on September 28, 2010.
anonymous

Next Steps for Iraq and Afghanistan - 0 views

  • While Afghanistan is likely to continue along its current path, the fate of Iraq hangs in the balance.
  • the troops committed to the war in Afghanistan and the strategy that guides their deployment do not appear set to shift meaningfully in the year ahead.
  • the Afghan war is increasingly looking like a known quantity, even if it is an active war zone.
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  • In a very real sense, this centuries-old ethno-sectarian struggle is barely contained inside political process. The struggle has not gone away; it has merely moved from one arena — the formation of a coalition and the distribution of power, ministry by ministry — to another: the powers that are and are not assigned to the NCSP, and the means provided to the NCSP to wield and protect those powers.
  • In Iraq, despite the outward appearance of peace, the country remains on the brink. And to understand that, the two issues at the forefront of our mind are 1) the mechanisms that the Sunni will accept as sufficient to wield and defend their share of the political pie, and 2) the understandings — or lack thereof —between Washington and Tehran about what happens next in Baghdad.
  •  
    "With Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and al-Iraqiya List leader Iyad Allawi meeting in Baghdad Tuesday night, a governing coalition appears near. And with a review of the efficacy of the counterinsurgency-focused strategy in Afghanistan due to the White House before the end of the week, the Iraqi question appears to be settling out while Afghanistan remains as unsettled as ever. But in looking at the months ahead, the reverse is also true: While Afghanistan is likely to continue along its current path, the fate of Iraq hangs in the balance."
anonymous

Obama's Announcement and the Future of the Afghan War - 0 views

  • In 2001, al Qaeda and the Taliban were distinct, yet necessarily intertwined.
  • Meanwhile — and especially after Tora Bora — al Qaeda was increasingly driven into Pakistan and, more importantly, farther abroad.
  • Thus began the deepening divide between the two groups.
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  • For al Qaeda, a transnational jihadist phenomenon with global ambitions, the logic behind setting up franchises from Yemen and the Maghreb to East Asia was readily apparent.
  • Meanwhile, the Taliban, an Afghan phenomenon, doubled down on their home turf.
  • For their part, the United States and its allies never wanted to occupy Afghanistan in the first place.
  • The war has helped prevent a subsequent attack of the magnitude of Sept. 11, 2001
  • Meanwhile, even the most serious observers wonder why the United States is so heavily committed in Afghanistan.
  • The noteworthy aspect of Obama’s speech is that it lays the groundwork for American domestic political rhetoric to circle back into alignment with military reality.
  • If military reality and military objectives are defined in terms of the Taliban insurgency, then Afghanistan is every bit as lost now as it was two years ago – if not more so.
  • But if they are defined in terms of al Qaeda, then the United States has good cause to claim victory and reorient its posture in Afghanistan.
  •  
    "U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday night made the most important political statement on the war in Afghanistan since the death of Osama bin Laden. In a planned statement, Obama spelled out his post-surge strategy, as the July 2011 deadline approaches that would mark the start of the drawdown of American and allied forces in Afghanistan. While Obama did not declare victory in his address, he laid the groundwork to do so."
anonymous

Expectations and Reality in Afghanistan - 0 views

  • Most Afghans who live beyond the few urban enclaves in the country do not rely on these institutions in their day-to-day business. In other words, Afghanistan’s financial world has nowhere near as far to fall as the West’s, so even its utter collapse — not just a crisis of confidence in one bank — would not have the same geopolitical magnitude.
  • This is not to suggest that Western efforts in Afghanistan do not depend on aid and development. But after nearly nine years and tens of billions of dollars of Western aid, Afghanistan has not shown progress in terms of becoming a functional economy and the primordial goal of security has become increasing elusive.
  • Such views are based on an utter disregard for the simple reality that Afghanistan, which has not existed as a nation — let alone a state — for more than three decades, does not operate by the same rules as do most other countries.
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  • The United States appears to be coming to terms with the reality that graft is a way of life in Afghanistan and needs to be tolerated to the degree that allows Washington to work with local leaders (who are unlikely to be clean) in attempting to undermine the momentum of the Taliban insurgency.
  •  
    "That Afghanistan's largest private bank is in trouble is not as significant as the Western media coverage of the issue. The Western press is depicting it as a major crisis, with some saying it is a larger problem than the rapidly intensifying Taliban insurgency. This view does not take into account that modern financial institutions in a country like Afghanistan cannot be treated as they are in other countries and the West." At StratFor on September 8, 2010.
anonymous

The Real David Petraeus Scandal - 0 views

  • It might behoove us, before we accept this nauseating spectacle as a permanent feature of life, to fill in as many of these blanks as possible. You can't do that in the dark.
  • At the risk of raising a question that is by custom excluded from discussion of American foreign policy: What if other nations behaved as we do? What if they started firing drones into countries that house people they'd rather were dead? Couldn't this get kind of out of control? Shouldn't the U.S. be at least thinking about trying to establish a global norm against this sort of thing (except, conceivably, under well-defined circumstances that have a clear basis in international law)?
    • anonymous
       
      Imagine if Mexico did this kind of thing (targeting in the U.S.) in their cartel war. We would go ape-shit.
  • But in many ways this president is no improvement over the last one, and Exhibit A is the acceleration of a far-flung drone-strike program that is shrouded in the secrecy of the CIA. The vision implicit in this program is of an America whose great calling is to lead the world into a future of chaos and lawlessness.
  •  
    "When, in the fall of 2011, David Petraeus moved from commanding the Afghanistan war effort to commanding the CIA, it was a disturbingly natural transition. I say "natural" because the CIA conducts drone strikes in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and is involved in other military operations there, so Petraeus, in his new role, was continuing to fight the Afghanistan war. I say "disturbingly" because this overlap of Pentagon and CIA missions is the result of a creeping militarization of the CIA that may be undermining America's national security."
anonymous

StratFor Annual Forecast 2013 - 0 views

  • Generational shifts take time to play out and often begin with a period of denial as the forces of the international system struggle to preserve the old order. In 2013, that state of denial will persist in many areas. But we are more than four years into this cyclical transformation, and change is becoming more palpable and much harder to deny with every passing month.
  • In Europe, short-term remedies that are so far preserving the integrity of the European Union are also papering over the deep, structural ailments of the bloc.
  • China is not so much in denial of its current predicament as it is constrained in its ability to cope with a dramatic shift from high export-oriented growth to more sustainable development of its interior.
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  • The emerging economies of the post-China world will take time to develop, but 2013 will be an important year in determining which are best positioned to fill the growing void left by China.
  • Change will be primarily violent in nature -- and thus harder to miss -- in the Middle East.
  • The United States is also not immune to change. In this generational shift, and all the tumult that comes with it, Washington will be forced to learn the value of restraint in balance-of-power politics, preferring to lean on regional partners and encourage strategic competition as a way of preserving its own power.
  • The Arab world is moving uncomfortably between two eras. The post-World War II era, in which Arab dictatorships and monarchies supplanted colonial rule, is now roughly blending with -- or in some cases outright colliding with -- a fractured landscape of long-repressed Islamist forces.
  • This dynamic will be particularly visible in the northern Levant region this year as Syria and Lebanon continue coming apart. From Stratfor's perspective, the regime in Syria has already fallen and is giving way to a familiar state of warlordism, where militias and clan interests reign supreme. There is no longer a political entity capable of wielding control over the entirety of Syrian territory, nor will there be for some time.
  • once Syrian President Bashar al Assad is removed from power, whether through a negotiated deal or by force, the Sunni forces will fragment along ideological, ethnic and geographic lines, with Salafist-jihadist forces battling against a more politically minded Muslim Brotherhood and secular Sunnis.
  • As their grip over Aleppo slips, Alawite forces will try to hold Damascus while preparing a mass retreat to their coastal enclave. The battle for Damascus could extend beyond the scope of this forecast.
  • The potential use of chemical weapons by Alawite forces in a state of desperation could accelerate the unraveling of the region; a U.S.-led coalition would have to assemble in haste to contain the chemical weapons threat.
  • To be clear, the United States is not looking for a pretext to intervene militarily in Syria. On the contrary, the United States will make every effort possible to avoid another military campaign in the Islamic world this year.
  • A military conflict between the United States and Iran remains unlikely in 2013.
  • The growing disparity in the U.S. and Iranian negotiating positions will largely relegate Iran to the role of regional spoiler. So long as Iran can create pain for its regional adversaries, it can slow its own descent.
  • Iraq remains Iran's primary regional imperative, however. The momentum building among Sunni forces in Syria will eventually spill into Iraq and challenge Shiite dominance.
  • Iran's presidential elections in June will reveal the declining relevancy of the clerical elite and the populist faction embodied by outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This creates a political void for the Revolutionary Guard to fill. The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will try to check the Corps' growing influence by bolstering rival military and security agencies and backing a less controversial and more politically malleable ally from the pragmatic conservative camp for the presidency.
  • In Egypt, the military will adapt to an emerging Islamist political order. The military will remain the ultimate arbiter of the state and will rely on a number of factors -- including a fragmented judiciary, the military's economic leverage, a divided Islamist political landscape and the military's foreign relationships -- to check the Muslim Brotherhood.
  • Egypt's consuming political transition will leave opportunities for flare-ups in the Sinai Peninsula and in Gaza, but we do not expect a significant breach between Israel and Egypt this year.
  • Jordan, the oft-overlooked casualty of the Arab Spring, will continue to destabilize quietly and slowly in 2013
  • Israel and Turkey are both greatly affected by the shifting political dynamics of the Arab world, but both have little means to influence the change. The two former allies will continue exploring ways to restore a quiet working relationship under these new regional stresses, but a public restoration of diplomatic ties is less likely.
  • Israel will struggle internally over how to adapt to a new regional framework in which the reliability of old working partners is called into question.
  • Turkey sees an opportunity in the rise of Islamist forces in the Arab world but Ankara's limited influences restrain its actions beyond Turkish borders.
  • A more aggressive Saudi role in Syria will aggravate the civil war and create competition with other regional stakeholders, including Turkey, Qatar and Jordan.
  • In 2012, the European Union took numerous steps to mitigate the financial impact of its ongoing crisis.
  •  These actions, which helped to keep the eurozone afloat in 2012, will remain effective in 2013, making it very likely that the eurozone will survive another year. But these tools do not solve three fundamental aspects of the European crisis. 
  • First, the European crisis is fundamentally a crisis of competitiveness.
  • Second, the crisis has a political aspect. The European Union is not a federation but a collection of nation-states bound together by international treaties.
  • Third, the European crisis is threatening the social stability in some countries, especially in the eurozone's periphery.
  • In 2013, the two largest economies of the eurozone (Germany and France) will face low growth or even stagnation. This will have negative effects across Europe.
  • In 2013, the crisis will keep damaging economic conditions in the eurozone periphery. Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy will see their economies shrink and unemployment rates rise. In all these countries, the social unrest will grow and the year will be marked by permanent protests and strikes. 
  • The conspicuous divide between the ruling elite and the populations of the periphery will be a key element in 2013, and some governments could fall. But even if opposition parties take power, they will face the same constraints as the governments that preceded them. In other words, a change in politicians will not bring a substantial change in policies regarding the European Union.
  • The only country in the eurozone periphery that has scheduled elections is Italy (in February). If the next Italian government fails to achieve political stability and apply economic reforms, the increased market pressure on Italy will make Rome more likely to require financial assistance from Brussels.
  • Because of the fundamental contradictions in the national interests and foreign policy strategies of the EU member states, the European crisis will continue generating political and economic divisions in the Continent in 2013.
  • Outside the eurozone, the United Kingdom will seek to protect its sovereignty and renegotiate its status within the European Union. But London will not leave the European Union in 2013.
  • Domestic Issues After the political tumult of 2012, Russia will face another year of anti-Kremlin protests, tensions among various political factions and ethnic groups, crackdowns and government reshuffles. Overall, the political tensions will remain manageable and will not pose a serious challenge to Moscow's control.
  • Russia has made significant progress recently in re-establishing influence in its former Soviet periphery.
  • Russia's relationship with Ukraine could be its most important connection in the former Soviet Union in 2013. Russia has been pursuing integration with Ukraine, primarily by taking over its natural gas transit infrastructure and calling on Kiev to join the Customs Union.
  • Georgia will be Russia's main concern in the Caucasus in 2013. With the political emergence of billionaire tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili and his Georgian Dream movement, Russia's position in the country strengthened at the expense of the anti-Russian camp of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.
  • In the past year, Russia has changed its tactics toward Europe to preserve its presence and leverage for the future. Russia's primary link to Europe is the Europeans' dependence on Russia's large energy supplies, which Moscow knows will be threatened when more non-Russian supplies become available.
  • In 2012, Russia began shifting away from its aggressive stance on energy -- particularly its high prices -- to strike long-term deals that will maintain Russia's market share with its primary strategic customers, such as Germany, Italy and Turkey. Russia will continue this strategy in 2013 as it continues to build new infrastructure to directly link its supplies to Europe.
  • The United States and Russia will continue sparring over trade matters, negotiations for a new nuclear arms treaty and Russia's role in Iran and Syria. Stratfor does not expect major changes from Washington or Moscow that would break the gridlock in negotiations on these issues.
  • The low-level violence and instability that occurred throughout Central Asia in 2012 will continue in 2013.
  • Three things will shape events in East Asia in 2013: Beijing's struggle to maintain social and political stability amid lower economic growth rates; China's accelerating military modernization and increasingly aggressive moves to secure its territorial and economic interests in the region; and varied efforts by other regional players, including the United States, to adapt to China's changes. 
  • In 2013, the Chinese economy will continue the gradual, painful process of moving away from high export-driven growth and toward a model that is more sustainable in the long run.
  • But barring another global financial meltdown on the scale of 2008-2009, China's coastal manufacturing economy will not collapse outright. The decline will be gradual.
  • The ongoing, gradual eclipse of coastal China as a hub of global manufacturing over the next several years will lead to higher unemployment and social dislocation as more of China's 250 million-strong migrant labor force returns inland in search of work. 
  • Shadow banking is by no means new in China. But it has grown significantly in the past few years from the geographically isolated informal loan markets of coastal cities to a complex network of semi-legal entities that provides between 12 and 30 trillion yuan (between $1.9 trillion and $4.8 trillion) in credit -- at interest rates of 20-36 percent -- to thousands of struggling small businesses nationwide.
  • The Party's growing sense of insecurity -- both internally and with regard to the social consequences of China's economic transition -- likely will be reflected in continued censorship of online social platforms like Weibo, crackdowns on religious or other groups perceived as threatening, and the Chinese military's growing assertiveness over China's interests in the South and East China seas and Southeast Asia.
  • The decline of low-end coastal manufacturing in China will present enormous opportunities for Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and potentially Myanmar -- all of whom will continue to push strongly for foreign investment not only into natural resources and raw materials industries but also into developing better urban, transport, power generation and materials processing infrastructure.
  • Meanwhile, Vietnam and the Philippines -- China's most vocal opponents in Southeast Asia -- will continue to push for greater integration among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and for U.S. business and military engagement in the region.
  • The Coming U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan Ahead of the 2014 drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, efforts will intensify to negotiate a settlement that gives the Taliban a place in a new government.
  • The negotiations will face numerous obstacles this year. There will be an upsurge in violence -- both in terms of officially sanctioned attacks designed to gain advantage on the negotiating table and spoiler attacks by Taliban elements allied with al Qaeda on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border.
  • Washington's intention to reduce its presence in the region will spur regional actors to fill the void. Pakistan will increase its interactions with Russia, Central Asia and Iran to prepare for a post-U.S. Afghanistan.
  • India will also turn its attention eastward, where the United States is quietly trying to forge a coalition of regional partners to keep a check on China in the Indo-Pacific basin. Myanmar in particular will be an active battleground for influence this year.
  • Preparing for a Post-Chavez Venezuela After a year of successful campaigning for re-election, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is in questionable health. Although the ultimate outcome of December's medical treatment for the ailing leader is unpredictable, Chavez's decision to name Vice President Nicolas Maduro as a political successor at the end of 2012 indicates that there is significant concern for his ability to remain in power.
  • Although it remains possible that Chavez will stay in power through the year, for Maduro to capitalize on Chavez's recent political gains, elections may need to be called sooner rather than later, regardless of Chavez's immediate health status.
  • Throughout 2013, Colombia will continue the incremental process of negotiating an end to the conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish acronym FARC.
  • This will be a year of significant transition for Mexico. Policy issues that were bottled up by intra-party competition in the waning years of the National Action Party's administration have begun coming to the fore and will dominate 2013. These include socio-political issues like education, tax and pension reform.
  • The most important issue facing Mexico in 2013 will be energy policy.
  •  
    "At the beginning of 2012, we argued that the international system is undergoing a generational transformation -- the kind that occurs every 20 years or so. The cycle we are now in started in 2008-2009, when global financial contagion exposed the underlying weaknesses of Europe and eventually cracked China's export-oriented economic model. The Middle East then began to deviate from its post-World War II paradigm with an attempted resurgence by Iran, the regional rise of Islamists and the decline of age-old autocratic regimes in the Arab world."
anonymous

U.S.: The Afghanistan Strategy After McChrystal - 0 views

  • The commander of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, Gen. Stanley McChrystal has resigned his command. His resignation is a direct result of his controversial remarks in a Rolling Stone interview broken late June 21, and not a reflection or indictment of the campaign he has led in Afghanistan. But that campaign and the strategy behind it are have significant issues of their own.
  • the heart of the strategy ultimately comes down to “Vietnamization“.
  • Meanwhile, a U.S. program to farm out more than 70 percent of logistics to Afghan trucking companies appears to be funding both warlord militias independent of the Afghan security forces and the Taliban itself.
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  • Intelligence is at the heart of the American challenge in Afghanistan, a fact that was clear from the beginning of the strategy.
  • Though the Taliban is a diffuse and multifaceted phenomenon, it also appears to be maintaining a significant degree of internal discipline in terms of preventing the hiving off of “reconcilable” elements, as the Americans had originally hoped.
  • The U.S. Army and Marine Corps certainly have no shortage of competent generals to replace McChrystal. And the surge of forces to Afghanistan is not likely to be reversed — U.S. and ISAF forces are spread quite thin, despite the already-significant increase in troop levels. But whoever replaces McChrystal will continue to struggle with a war that remains deeply intractable with limited prospects for success.
  •  
    June 23, 2010
anonymous

Fourth Quarter Forecast 2010 - 0 views

  • in Afghanistan, there is no real “victory” to be had, and the question is just how much needs to be accomplished before U.S. forces can withdraw.
  • The United States will be forced once again this quarter to balance the reality that Pakistan is both a necessary ally in the war in Afghanistan and a battlefield in its own right.
  • shape two other global trends
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  • Russia will strengthen its influence over former Soviet republics Belarus, Ukraine and the Central Asian “Stans” while reaching into Moldova and the Baltics to extend its influence along the European frontier.
  • China is often the focus of U.S. domestic politics, particularly during times of economic trouble, and the upcoming election is no different. China’s yuan policy is the most obvious target, but while Washington is unlikely to carry out any action that will fundamentally harm economic ties with Beijing, the political perception of actions could have a more immediate impact.
  • In this quarter, Washington will be both preoccupied with the Congressional elections and seeking ways to compromise enough to get out of its long-running wars. The election distraction gives China and Russia a brief opening, and neither is likely to pass up the opportunity to accelerate and consolidate its influence in its near abroad.
  • The U.S.-Iranian Struggle in Iraq
  • The War in Afghanistan
  • The Russian Resurgence
  • U.S.-Chinese Tensions
  • This sparring will continue in the fourth quarter, with one rather significant exception: Washington and Tehran are likely to reach a preliminary agreement on the factional balance in Baghdad, with a new power-sharing government for Iraq emerging.
  • no major strategic shift is likely to occur before the strategy review being prepared for the end of the year is completed.
  • consolidate gains made in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan.
  • Moscow will also assert itself in Moldova and the Baltics to prepare the ground for the future expansion of Russian influence there.
  • With its sights on reinforcing its leadership in Europe, Berlin will not look for a break in its ties with Russia
  • the two countries will prevent their relationship from fundamentally breaking down this quarter.
  • a tenuous stability globally
  • Two areas where this could become unhinged in the quarter are Europe and U.S.-China relations.
  • The battle inside the Kremlin will intensify in the fourth quarter as the tandem of Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin begins to purge high-level Russian figures and the campaign season leading up to the 2011 legislative and 2012 presidential elections starts.
  • Islamabad will continue working with Washington in the counterinsurgency offensive against Taliban and al Qaeda-led transnational jihadists, but tensions have become evident
  • Recovery from the massive floods that took place in the third quarter will consume most of the Pakistani state’s focus in the fourth quarter.
  • Domestically, the Justice and Development Party government will focus on consolidating the gains it made with the referendum on constitutional changes approved in September.
  • The bigger competition is playing out between Mubarak and his allies and the army’s top brass over a presidential succession plan.
  • China will continue showing a strong sense of purpose in pursuing its influence in its periphery.
  • Beijing will continue its active fiscal stimulus and relatively loose monetary policies amid concerns of slowing growth too quickly, with the intention of carrying out those structural reforms in a way that will limit the associated negative effects on growth and social stability.
  • The fourth quarter will see more such appearances by the new heir apparent as he begins to build his public image and the elder Kim manages the various elite interests in North Korea to build support for his son.
  • Nigeria will not see a sustained militant campaign this quarter, but there will still be an increased level of unrest in the Niger Delta, as well as in other parts of the country, as militants’ political patrons use their proxies to intimidate and undermine their political opponents.
  • Preparations for the referendum on Southern Sudanese independence will be the primary focus for both the north and the south this quarter.
  • High levels of violence between Islamist insurgents and African Union (AU) Mission in Somalia/Transitional Federal Government forces will continue, but neither side will be able to tip the scales enough to achieve a strategic victory.
  • Germany will continue using the economic crisis to impose its vision for more stringent European economic requirements on its neighbors.
  • A key issue that the two are already cooperating on is the debate on the European Union’s next budget period (2014-2020), which is set to intensify in the fourth quarter.
  • Central Europeans, including the Baltic States, will continue attempting to re-engage the United States in the region, particularly via ballistic missile defense and military cooperation.
  • After losing its two-thirds legislative majority, the ruling party now has an imperative to push through as much legislation as it can to expand the executive branch’s powers before the legislative session concludes at the end of the year and more opposition lawmakers are seated in January.
  • The more vulnerable Venezuela becomes, the harder-pressed it will be to find an external ally willing to provide the economic and political capital needed to sustain the regime.
  • Brazil will have a presidential runoff election Oct. 31, but the country’s attention is primarily occupied with its currency crisis.
  • Brazil will continue its military modernization plan and will play a more proactive rol
  • the coming quarter will see a more defined balance of power emerge among the drug-trafficking organizations within Mexico
  •  
    "The U.S. preparation to disengage from Iraq and Afghanistan will remain the international system's center of gravity in the fourth quarter." By StratFor on October 13, 2010.
anonymous

U.S., Russia Make New Deals on Supply Routes to Afghanistan - 0 views

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    "U.S. Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman visited Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan at the end of July, right before traveling to Pakistan to meet the Pakistani president and participate in a trilateral summit on the Afghan war."
anonymous

The 9/11 Anniversary and What Didn't Happen - 0 views

  • Yet in spite of the failed attack in Denmark and all the 9/11 retrospection, perhaps the most interesting thing about the 9/11 anniversary in 2010, at least from an analytical perspective, was what did not happen. For the first time, the al Qaeda core leadership did not issue a flurry of slick, media-savvy statements to mark the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. And the single statement they did release was not nearly as polished or pointed as past anniversary messages. This has caused us to pause, reflect and wonder if the al Qaeda leadership is losing its place at the ideological forefront of the jihadist cause.
  • When it comes to anniversaries, al Qaeda has not always seized upon them as opportunities for attacks, but it has long seen them as tempting propaganda opportunities.
  • Another consideration is topical relevance. Al-Zawahiri’s 2010 message was actually rather bland, uninspiring and little more than a rehash of several points the group has made in the past. There were no stirring and inspirational calls to action, no new threats to the West, and no real meaningful discussion of the 9/11 anniversary beyond the message title.
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  • There could be a number of possible explanations for the lapse.
  • The first could be that the group is observing a period of radio silence in expectation of a large attack.
  • It is also possible that the floods that have ravaged Pakistan this summer could have displaced the al Qaeda leadership or the As-Sahab crew.
  • The best explanation for the decline in As-Sahab’s propaganda efforts may be the increase in the number of strikes by U.S. unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) inside Pakistan in areas along the Afghan border since August 2008.
  • Now, perhaps in a few days or a few weeks, As-Sahab will return to releasing a flurry of slick, high-quality messages as it has done in years past. Maybe fresh videos of bin Laden and al-Zawahiri will appear that will present new ideas, vault them back into prominence in jihadist discourse and motivate their intended audience to action. But we may be witnessing, instead, the eclipse of the al Qaeda core leadership on the ideological battlefield.
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    "Sept. 11, 2010, the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, was a day of solemn ceremony, remembrance and reflection. It was also a time to consider the U.S. reaction to the attack nine years ago, including the national effort to destroy al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in order to prevent a repeat of the 9/11 attacks. Of course, part of the U.S. reaction to 9/11 was the decision to invade Afghanistan, and the 9/11 anniversary also provided a time to consider how the United States is now trying to end its Afghanistan campaign so that it can concentrate on more pressing matters elsewhere. " By Scott Stewart at StratFor on September 16, 2010.
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An Iranian-Pakistani Balance of Power in Afghanistan? - 0 views

  • Kabul’s admission and Washington’s response speak volumes about how both sides are looking at a post-NATO Afghanistan — one in which the southwest Asian country’s neighbors, particularly Iran and Pakistan, will play a dominant role.
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    "Afghan President Hamid Karzai admitted on Monday that his office has received millions of dollars in financial aid from Iran for several years. A day earlier, The New York Times reported that unnamed Western and Afghan officials said Tehran was giving bags of cash to Karzai's chief of staff, Umar Daudzai, to enhance its influence in Afghanistan. A U.S. State Department spokesman responded to Karzai's admission by saying the United States did not question Tehran's right to provide aid to Kabul or Afghanistan's right to receive it, but Washington "remains skeptical of Iran's motives."" At StratFor on October 26, 2010.
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