Afghanistan Weekly Reader: Quagmire in the Asia Pacific
It was a tough week for US efforts/forces in Afghanistan. After a NATO airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along the border with Afghanistan, US-Pakistan relations further soured, with the result that Pakistan has pulled out of the international conference at Bonn. As our relationship with Pakistan destabilizes Presiden Karzi has announced that more than half of Afghanistan will soon be under the control of local forces. When this process is supposed to start is anyone’s guess, as is how it will be paid for. Without reliable partners and a clear strategic plan Afghanistan will continue to be a quagmire, one that we cannot afford.
FROM ASG
11/28/11
The Afghanistan War’s Costly Refrain
Afghanistan Study Group by Mary Kaszynski
“We can win in Afghanistan, we just need more time and money.” It’s a favorite line of those in favor of prolonging the Afghanistan war. CFR’s Max Boot especially enjoys this refrain recently writing in The Weekly Standard …
11/23/11
Where Is GOP Fiscal Responsibility On The Afghanistan War?
Afghanistan Study Group by Mary Kaszynski
Last night’s foreign policy debate saw little in the way of surprises. The Republican presidential candidates postured on Iranand Israel, argued immigration laws, and even discussed racial profiling. Substantive discussion of Afghanistan, however, was again in short order.
ARTICLES
11-28-11
Pakistan Halts Supplies to U.S.’s Afghanistan Troops After NATO Air Strike
Bloomberg by Haris Anwar and Anwar Shakir
The U.S. military began a high-level investigation to help salvage relations with Pakistan after an air strike by the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan killed 24 Pakistani troops at the border.
11-29-11
To Afghanistan, on the slow train
CNN by Tim Lister
Call it the ultimate in military logistics. As land routes from Pakistan into Afghanistan are cut, sabotaged or otherwise interrupted, the U.S. military has developed alternative railroad routes that make the Orient Express look like a branch line.
11-27-11
Afghan Dunkirk: Exiting Afghanistan UK-Style … or … How the Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex (MICC) Will Win By Losing
TIME’s Battleland by Chuck Spinney
My previous posting, discussed some of the implications of our looming grand-strategic defeat in Afghanistan. Here, we address the narrower logistics question of how to bring our forces home.
OPINION
11/23/11
Shortchanging our security
The Hill by Derek Brown, Melanie Greenberg and Milburn Line
n the coming weeks, Congress may well downsize the portion of the U.S. budget that is the least costly and most effective way of ensuring our security both at home and abroad.
11-29-11
Troubled ties that US and Pakistan can ill afford to cut
The National by Shuja Nawaz
An old saying in Pakistan comes to mind as one tries to make sense of the fraught relationship between Pakistan and the United States, as these two “frenemies” lurch from one crisis to another: when you make friends with camels, you must raise the roof of your foyer. In other words, an asymmetric friendship has its costs. For many in Pakistan, these costs are becoming unbearable. Yet a mutual codependency keeps this odd couple of international diplomacy together.
