NATO in the Crucible : Coalition Warfare in Afghanistan, 2001-2014
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During more than a decade of involvement in security operations in Afghanistan, the member nations of NATO experienced a tremendous amount of internal discord. With constant requests for additional forces and repeated (inaccurate) assurances that the insurgency was on its last legs, the coalition struggled to maintain an alliance. Member nations held different objectives and levels of commitment, and many were unwilling to take casualties. Meanwhile, external pressures ranging from global terrorism incidents to the financial crisis further tested their resolve. The author examines here why NATO maintained cohesion despite these challenges. She explores the history and evolution of NATO, examining the facts that shaped the Afghanistan experience. And she goes deep inside the reality on the ground to show how the heat of battle, the drive to succeed, and the fear of failure allowed fifty nations, against all odds, to build trust and camaraderie.
Counterinsurgency Scorecard Update : Afghanistan in Early 2015 Relative to Insurgencies Since World War II
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Afghanistan and Its Neighbors after the NATO Withdrawal
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The planned reductions in NATO troop numbers in Afghanistan through 2015 and a possible final withdrawal in the near future brings up numerous pressing questions about the security and national interests of not just Afghanistan, but of the broader region itself. The problem of a chaotic Afghanistan - or of an outright Taliban victory - is of great concern not only to immediate neighbors such as Iran, Pakistan, and the former Soviet Central Asian republics to the north, but also to those countries in the region with Afghanistan-related security or economic concerns, such as China and India. Further abroad, Russian, American, and European interests and plans for dealing with the fallout from Afghanistan must also be taken into account as these major powers have enduring interests in Afghanistan and the surrounding region. This book puts the prospects for short- and mid-term security dynamics at the core of its analysis, with each case being placed in the proper contemporary historical, economic, and political context. This book offers a comprehensive, nuanced, and timely account of the security situation in an around Afghanistan.
American State-Building in Afghanistan and Its Regional Consequences : Achieving Democratic Stability and Balancing China's Influence
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This book calls for rethinking U.S. policy toward promoting Afghanistan as a regional economic hub in Southwest and Central Asia as it fits within the broader national security interest of the regional states. It argues for defining Afghanistan within the U.S. national security interests in Southwest and Central Asia, including Iran, and offers critical strategic tools for Washington to support political openness and reforms that can balance China and Russia, as well as more effectively manage Iran's regional behavior. It links the U.S. policy approach in Southwest and Central Asia as the 'missing leg' of Washington's East Asia policy. This book defines the strategic interests of each of Afghanistan's neighboring states and key regional actors to explain why a rethinking of the U.S. role in Afghanistan can assist the emergence of a new regional order in Southwest and Central Asia, which in turn can embolden a free market economy and a growing political openness superior to authoritarianism and Islamist militancy.
The Strategic Lessons Unlearned from Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan : Why the Afghan National Security Forces Will Not Hold, and the Implications for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan
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US Army War College. Strategic Studies Institute (US)
The wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were lost before they began, not on the battlefields, where the United States won every tactical engagement, but at the strategic level of war. In each case, the U.S. Government attempted to create a Western-style democracy in countries which were decades at least away from being nations with the sociopolitical capital necessary to sustain democracy and, most importantly, accept it as a legitimate source of governance. The expensive indigenous armies created in the image of the U.S. Army lacked both the motivation to fight for illegitimate governments in Saigon, Baghdad, and Kabul and a cause that they believed was worth dying for, while their enemies in the field clearly did not. This book examines the Afghan National Security Forces in historical and political contexts, explains why they will fail at the tactical, operational and strategic levels of war, why they cannot and will not succeed in holding the southern half of the country, and what will happen in Afghanistan year-by-year from 2015 to 2019. Finally, it examines what the critical lessons unlearned of these conflicts are for U.S. military leaders, why these fundamental political lessons seem to remain unlearned, and how the strategic mistakes of the past can be avoided in the future.
High Command : British Military Leadership in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
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This book explores the circumstances that led to Britain's support of the United States in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how the Ministry of Defence coped with challenges including rivalry and diffuse responsibility among the Service Chiefs, lack of clear strategy, and weak domestic political support.
NATO in Afghanistan : Fighting Together, Fighting Alone
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Modern warfare is almost always multilateral to one degree or another, requiring countries to cooperate as allies or coalition partners. Yet as the war in Afghanistan has made abundantly clear, multilateral cooperation is neither straightforward nor guaranteed. Countries differ significantly in what they are willing to do and how and where they are willing to do it. Some refuse to participate in dangerous or offensive missions. Others change tactical objectives with each new commander. Some countries defer to their commanders while others hold them to strict account. This book explores how government structures and party politics in NATO countries shape how battles are waged in the field. Drawing on more than 250 interviews with senior officials from around the world, the authors find that domestic constraints in presidential and single-party parliamentary systems - in countries such as the United States and Britain respectively - differ from those in countries with coalition governments, such as Germany and the Netherlands. As a result, different countries craft different guidelines for their forces overseas, most notably in the form of military caveats, the often-controversial limits placed on deployed troops. Providing critical insights into the realities of alliance and coalition warfare, the book also looks at non-NATO partners such as Australia, and assesses NATO's performance in the 2011 Libyan campaign to show how these domestic political dynamics are by no means unique to Afghanistan.
L'Afghanistan en transition : une approche politique
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Cet ouvrage pose clairement le contexte sociopolitique et historique dans lequel sont survenus les principaux evenements de cette derniere decennie en Afghanistan et tout particulierement ceux ayant fait suite au 11 septembre 2001. L'auteur y aborde avec rigueur les enjeux de la transition qui caracterise le passage de la tradition vers la modernite, ainsi que ceux ayant trait au processus de democratisation dans une societe tribale et traditionnelle. Dans une perspective sociologique, il analyse ces deux problematiques a travers la complexite des contextes multi-ethniques en Afghanistan. L'auteur parvient a demontrer le caractere inefficace de l'intervention militaire internationale sous l'egide des Etats-Unis et l'affaiblissement en matiere de credibilite de la communaute internationale dans leur action en Afghanistan.
NATO in Afghanistan : The Liberal Disconnect
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This book examines NATO's role in the campaign and the difficult diplomacy involved in fighting a war by alliance. It uncovers in the process a disconnect between initial high liberal hopes for the new Afghanistan and a lack of realism about the military campaign prosecuted to bring it about. It concludes that, along the way, the alliance has lost its struggle to define itself as a vigorous and relevant entity on the world stage and proposes strategies by which the NATO allies can recover their common purpose.
Dynamic Change : Rethinking NATO’s Capabilities, Operations and Partnerships
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The Wrong War : Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan
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America cannot afford to lose the war in Afghanistan, and yet Americans cannot win it. In this definitive account of the conflict the author provides a practical way out. His book shows the consequences when strategic theory meets tactical reality. He takes the reader on a battlefield journey from the mountains in the north to the opium fields in the south. He shows why the Taliban fear the ferocity of our soldiers. Each chapter, rich with vivid characters and gritty combat, illustrates a key component of dogged campaigns that go on for years. These never-ending battles show why idealistic theories about counterinsurgency have bogged us down for a decade. The official rhetoric denies reality. Instead of turning the population against the Taliban, our lavish aid has created a culture of entitlement and selfishness. Our senior commanders are risk-averse, while our troops know the enemy respects only the brave. A fighter who understands strategy, the author builds the case for changing course. As long as we do most of the fighting, the Afghans will hold back. Yet the Afghan military will crumble without our combat troops. His conclusion is sure to provoke debate : remove most of the troops from Afghanistan, stop spending billions on the dream of a modern democracy, transition to a tough adviser corps, and insist the Afghans fight their own battles.
The Good War : NATO and the Liberal Conscience in Afghanistan
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This book tackles the issue of NATO in Afghanistan, exploring NATO's evolution in the 1990s and blending NATO's transformation from a reactive defense organization into a proactive risk manager with the ethic of liberalism. It raises questions, such as why an alliance built upon the territorial defense of Europe ended up in Afghanistan.
From the Hindu Kush to Lisbon : NATO, Afghanistan, and the Future of the Atlantic Alliance
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Bruised by its mission in Afghanistan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is entering the heralded phase four of transition to Afghan leadership which offers hope of an orderly extraction and an opportunity to reflect on lessons of the Alliance's undoubtedly most difficult mission. Conveniently, NATO has opened the process of consultation and deliberation that will result in a new Strategic Concept that the heads of state and government will adopt at the November 2010 Lisbon summit. In short, it is time to take stock of the Atlantic Alliance and its future missions. Without doubt, after seven years of Afghan engagement NATO will now expand its global glaze and emphasize its comprehensive engagement with other organizations and partner countries. Afghanistan is unfinished business, however, and the credibility of the new NATO greatly depends on how well NATO handles the Afghan end game. NATO may need comprehensive thinking to extract itself from Afghanistan but it is open to question whether NATO's general approach should be equally comprehensive. It is this double movement of Afghan extraction and Conceptual engagement that is analyzed in this book.
Afghan National Security Forces : What It Will Take to Implement the ISAF Strategy
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Center for Strategic and International Studies (US)
President Barack Obama's new strategy for Afghanistan is critically dependent upon the transfer of security responsibility to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). His speech announcing this strategy called for the transfer to begin in mid-2011. However, creating the Afghan forces needed to bring security and stability to the region is a far more difficult challenge than many realize and poses major challenges that will endure long after 2011. A successful effort to create effective Afghan forces, particularly forces than can largely replace the role of US and allied forces, must overcome a legacy of more than eight years of critical failures in both force development and training, and in the broader course of the US effort in Afghanistan. Such an effort much also be shaped as part of an integrated civil-military mission, and not treated simply as an exercise in generating more Afghan military and police forces. Success will be equally dependent on strategic patience. There is a significant probability that the ANSF will not be ready for an significant transfer of responsibility until well after 2011. Trying to expand Afghan forces too quickly, creating forces with inadequate force quality, and decoupling Afghan force development from efforts to deal with the broad weakness in Afghan governance and the Afghan justice system will lose the war. America's politicians, policymakers, and military leaders must accept this reality - and persuade the Afghan government and our allies to act accordingly - or the mission in Afghanistan cannot succeed.
Risking NATO : Testing the Limits of the Alliance in Afghanistan
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Rand Corporation (US)
NATO's success in Afghanistan - or lack thereof - will have significant implications for the alliance itself. Success could promote the image of a capable global security alliance. Failure, or even an indeterminate outcome, would cloud the alliance's own future. The authors examine the risks, commitments, and obligations of the current mission in light of NATO's history and with an eye toward the future, as well as the effects on the alliance's internal dynamics. Drawing on a wide range of sources, the authors describe how NATO came to be involved, concerns and tensions that have developed over the investments and risks that member and nonmember states have in the operation, management of the expectations of nations and peoples, and the need for a coherent, comprehensive, and coordinated long-term strategy. The list of issues NATO faces is long and daunting and extends beyond the borders of the member countries. If the goal is indeed to look toward the future, however, the alliance must confront them; failure to do so would risk the long-term success and sustainability of the alliance.