CIAO DATE: 02/2012
Volume: 1, Issue: 4
September 2010
Diplomacy Before and After Conflict (PDF)
Marc Grossman
Conflict is a universal condition,1 older than diplomacy. While conflict is a constant in human history, the nature of armed conflict, and especially the nature of 21st-century warfare, has been transformed. General Rupert Smith identified these changes in his book The Utility of Force: "The ends for which we fight are changing; we fight amongst the people; our conflicts tend to be timeless; we fight so as not to lose the force; on each occasion new uses are found for old weapons; the sides are mostly non-state."
Afghanistan: Opportunities and Risks (PDF)
Ashraf Ghani
The conflict in and around Afghanistan is entering a decisive phase. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), armed with a new counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine and resources to conduct a forceful campaign, is engaging in a counteroffensive against the insurgency. Drawing on lessons learned from their own past insurgencies both regionally and globally, the insurgents are also constantly changing tactics. The inevitable clashes between the use of force and use of violence will exact a heavy cost in human lives this year.
A "Net Shift" for Afghanistan (PDF)
John Arquilla
Some three millennia ago, the Persian philosopher Zoroaster dubbed mountainous Afghanistan "the land of the high flags." But there is far more to its identity than the powerful shaping influence of terrain upon its culture; there is above all the paradox of the Afghan peoples themselves. Xenophobic from time immemorial, they are nonetheless a mix of Aryans, Greeks, Chinese, Indians, Mongols, and others. Quintessentially isolationist, their country has always been a crossroads of trade and conquest. Indeed, the great city of Kandahar—the true capital of the Taliban—is named after Alexander the Great, who tarried there. And so for all the cool distance conveyed by the notion of the "high flags," the deeper story of Afghanistan is one of a mass mixing of peoples and of a crucial hub in the infrastructure of East-West interconnection. In short, it is a land comprised of dense, ancient social and physical networks.
Analytics and Action in Afghanistan (PDF)
Thomas Blau, Daryl Liskey
In fragile states such as Afghanistan where governments are weak and violent actors threaten civil peace, the United States finds itself trying to establish stability on the ground in the short term and under fire. In this difficult situation, the U.S. Government has sought "transformation," which has become a central concept of operation. This concept unifies civilian and military stabilization operations to mitigate the root causes that drive instability. Other things being equal, this is more attractive than treating the symptoms of instability after they appear.
Afghanistan: Long-term Solutions and Perilous Shortcuts (PDF)
Ali Jalali
This summer, a series of interconnected events is expected to strongly influence the political and security landscape of Afghanistan, with potentially fateful consequences. In May, some 1,600 delegates (women among them), including government and elected officials, tribal elders, religious personalities, community leaders, and civil society activists met in Kabul to advise the government on basic terms for negotiation with the armed opposition and ways to accommodate reconcilable insurgents. This was to be followed in July by an international conference in Kabul called for by the London Conference in January.1 The Kabul meeting was attended by foreign ministers from neighboring countries and by Afghanistan's leading partners. The delegates made commitments to improve governance, security, and development in Afghanistan under Afghan leadership.2 Meanwhile, the U.S.-led coalition launched a major military effort to enhance security and facilitate effective governance in Kandahar, the second largest Afghan city and the spiritual home of the Taliban.
Recalibrating the Afghan Reconciliation Program (PDF)
Amin Tarzi
In December 2001, the framers of the Bonn Agreement laid out a plan to end conflict in Afghanistan, heal a divided, wounded nation, and bring about lasting peace.1 However, 9 years later, stability remains elusive, and these goals have yet to be fully realized. Theories abound but are ever evolving as to how to make progress; bright new ideas are mixed with transplanted success stories but yield unsatisfactory results. One area that has warranted much attention is the promotion of national reconciliation. Reintegration and reconciliation are recognized as key strategies to conducting a successful counterinsurgency. Reintegration focuses on individuals within enemy ranks who can be incentivized to abandon their allegiance to the cause; reconciliation offers amnesty and political position to enemy leadership to bring them into the fold.
Countering Taliban Information Operations in Afghanistan (PDF)
Tim Foxley
Even 9 years after international intervention in Afghanistan, little is understood about the tribes and ethnic groups that make up the country. How they react, think, feel, and prioritize remain largely unknown quantities, and therefore international attempts to influence them are perhaps unsurprisingly proving problematic. But perception is everything in Afghanistan, and information activities are playing an increasingly important part in shaping perception and generating support for insurgents and counterinsurgents alike, both inside and outside the country. Hundreds of different groups and actors are at work, from the diverse component parts of the Afghan populace to the array of governmental, military, and nongovernmental organization (NGO) elements of international effort. All are communicating—some even coherently. All are influencing—some intentionally, some unintentionally.
Afghanistan: The German Factor (PDF)
James Bindenagel
In December 2009, President Barack Obama revised the American strategy for Afghanistan. He announced an increase of 30,000 American troops for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Concurrent with this increase, he also announced the planned withdrawal of U.S. Armed Forces beginning in 2011. In the 18-month period between the influx and drawdown, NATO must act collectively to counter the full range of threats against Alliance members from terrorist attacks and to build capacity for the Afghanistan government to self-govern effectively.
Matthew Parin
Against the backdrop of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a changing strategic environment in the broader Middle East, political leaders now are confronting the difficult question of how to achieve long-term stability. The toppling of the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan and removal of Saddam Hussein from Iraq displayed the capability of America's military to marshal overwhelming conventional force against its enemies. However, this overwhelming capability soon was eclipsed when this same force struggled to secure durable peace either in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Colombia: Learning Institutions Enable Integrated Response (PDF)
Thomas Marks
Current emphasis in irregular warfare highlights whole-of-government response and the imperative for "learning institutions." Only by being the latter can the former engage in the timely, flexible mastery of constantly changing circumstances imperative for successful implementation of the "ends-ways-means" methodology. Few countries have worked harder or made greater steps in this direction than Colombia.
Blind Ambition: Lessons Learned and Not Learned in an Embedded PRT (PDF)
Blake Stone
Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) and their much smaller and operationally leaner dependencies, embedded PRTs (ePRTs), have made meaningful and lasting contributions to U.S. postconflict reconstruction and stabilization efforts in Iraq since their inception in November 2005.2 This article presents the observations and experiences of one person on a single ePRT operating in the same expanse of Southern Baghdad Province over a period of 18 months from the tail end of the "Baghdad Surge" in late 2008 through the Council of Representatives election and transfer of power in March 2010. Toward that end, what follows is mostly anecdotal and does not necessarily reflect what surely were different experiences and operational realities on other PRTs and ePRTs in other parts of Iraq.
Complex Peace Operations and Civil-Military Relations: Winning the Peace (PDF)
Scott Lyons
With the failure of the U.S. military and Coalition Provisional Authority to stabilize Iraq after the successful 2003 invasion, military analysts have noted that a lesson learned is a need for better coordination between the civilian and military powers. This book by Robert Egnell explains how civil-military integration improves both military effectiveness and operational success.
Civil-Military Relations: Theory and Practice (PDF)
Joseph Collins
Civil-military relations are a hardy perennial in the study of politics, international relations, and interagency policymaking. In the Clinton era, we worried about a military too big for its camouflaged britches and a potential "crisis" in civil-military relations. Compounding the strife was statistical proof that the officer corps increasingly self-identified as Republicans. In the post-9/11 era, we worried about an overly reticent military leadership whose professional expertise was muffled by civilians, who allegedly micromanaged military plans and operations. Much of the recent analysis reads like a political version of People magazine with larger than life admirals and generals—Anthony Zinni, William Fallon, and David Petraeus, for example— jousting with cabinet officers and making "power plays." Retired officers have created their own controversies, endorsing political candidates and even calling for the resignation of cabinet officers. Often absent from these vivid articles are an analysis of the theoretical foundations of civil-military relations or accurate data on what the military actually thinks and believes. Two new books do a great job in filling in some of those blanks. Both books came from officers associated, as I was years ago, with the Department of Social Sciences at West Point. All three of the authors are from the Military Academy's "second graduating class," alumni officers who came back to teach at the Academy and then returned to the Army to reinforce its corps of Soldier-thinkers.