Afghanistan Weekly Reader: Drawdown Deadline Still Unclear
The last US troops left Iraq this week, an encouraging sign toward the restoration of fiscal propriety in the Defense Department. The encouragement ends, however, when we turn our eye toward Afghanistan. If we are winning, as Secretary Panetta says we are, why aren’t we leaving?
General John Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force, dispelled any misperceptions about the US presence in Afghanistan after 2014. “If you been waiting for us to go, we’re not leaving,” he said. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has confirmed that the Strategic Partnership Agreement currently under negotiation “may bring about the presence of some U.S. troops in Afghanistan for the duration of the agreement.”
Congress just passed a defense spending bill that provides over $100 billion for war costs. If the drawdown slows down, the final price tag of the Afghanistan war is anyone’s guess.
From ASG
Priorities And Perspective: Are We Reasonably Allocating Our Resources In The Af-Pak Region
Afghanistan Study Group by Mary Kaszynski
If Pakistan and Iran are truly our most important foreign policy challenges, why do we continue to invest in the Afghanistan war?
ARTICLES
12-18-11
The IED: The $30-Bombs That Cost The U.S. Billions
NPR by Rachel Martin
The IED, which is essentially a homemade bomb, became the weapon of choice for the insurgency in Iraq. The U.S. has officially declared the end of the war there, but one lasting legacy will be the IED and how it changed the way the U.S. thinks about warfare.
OPINION
12-14-11
The National Defense Authorization Gesture
National Interest by Paul Pillar
A defense-authorization act is supposed to set the limits for appropriations for national defense and update the rules and standards by which the Department of Defense is to operate. This bill has become a Christmas tree of topics on which members of Congress want to make gestures.
12-15-11
Running Out of Time for Afghan Governance Reform
Foreign Affairs by Stephen Biddle
Reasonable people can differ on whether a tolerable result is worth the sacrifice in Afghanistan. But no one can justify continued sacrifice for an unsustainable result.
Administration Bait and Switch in Afghanistan?
National Interest by Doug Bandow
If the president plans on keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond the promised 2014, he should ‘fess up. Then the American people can make their views known. And, more important, they can take appropriate action in next year’s presidential election.
12-19-11
This isn’t the COIN you’re looking for
Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel by Michael Few
COIN as a strategy cannot work in today’s world, given the current limitations in available resources, time, and national will. It was a collection of tactics and operational arts developed for twentieth century wars of nationalism and communism. Strategy, defined as the ends, ways, and means of American policy, must rise above a collection of disjointed tactics that have no proven cumulative effect.
