Talk When It's Time - Max Boot, Commentary's Contentions
Few outside the Beltway defense community have ever heard of Joe Collins, a retired army colonel who now teaches at the National War College after a stint, from 2001 to 2004, as a deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Rumsfeld Pentagon. But, over the years, I have found him to be a consistent source of clear-eyed thinking about some of our most pressing security challenges. His latest essay on the Small Wars Journal website only confirms that reputation. In it, he pours some cold water on the overheated hopes expressed by so many in recent weeks that negotiations with the Taliban can somehow magically turnaround a failing war effort.
He points out that such talks would have scant prospect of success when the Taliban and related extremists are on the offensive and making gains. "If the Afghan government sits down with the Taliban now, it does so from a position of increasing weakness, and diminished strength," he writes. "To increase the prospects for Kabul's success in negotiation, we will have to reverse that condition. How should we proceed?"
Much more at Contentions.