South Asia

Transcript: Brigadier-General Vance – Canada in Afghanistan

Full transcript of a NATO Forum public event with Canadian Brigadier-General Jonathan Vance, former commander of Joint Task Force 5-09.

Who is Running Our Afghanistan Policy?

By Bernard Finel

In a recent report, Major General Michael T. Flynn, Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence in Afghanistan levels a damning indictment against the U.S. conduct of the war in Afghanistan.

NATO Steps up to the Plate

By Damon Wilson

Afghanistan has eroded support for NATO in Washington. An alliance that has long enjoyed strong bipartisan support is now facing bipartisan skepticism.

Is Pakistan Too Big to Fail?

By Harlan Ullman

The best-known sound bites from the George W. Bush presidency ranged from “mission accomplished” to “you are either with us or against us.” For the moment and given the financial crises, the equivalent slogan from President Barack Obama’s young administration is “too big to fail.”

Petraeus the Next Eisenhower?

By Arnaud de Borchgrave

U.S. President Barack Obama has scaled back the scope of the Afghan war, now about to enter its ninth year, to a limited military objective: deny al-Qaida a safe haven. And since we are now told there are fewer than 100 al-Qaida terrorists in Afghanistan — the rest are in Pakistan’s tribal areas — a […]

Tempering Afghan Optimism

By Don Snow

The recent announcements and statements of support for President Obama’s “surge” in Afghanistan have left me a bit confused, and I wonder if readers can help me out here. Something just does not compute.

Obama’s Afghanistan Strategy Panel Transcript

Afghanistan Panel Event Speakers: Kimberly Kagan, President, Institute for the Study of War LtCol Gregory Lemons, Atlantic Council Marine Corps Senior Fellow; veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq wars David Sedney, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia Damon Wilson, Vice President and Director, International Security Program, Atlantic Council

Afghanistan Deadline: What Happens in July 2011?

By James Joyner

Most of the postmortems of President Obama’s Afghanistan strategy speech focused on the announcement of an 18 month timetable after which a drawdown and handover to local forces would begin. Opposition Republicans took the president at his word and warned about signaling weakness, whereas critics in his own party saw the deadline as a cynical […]