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The Future of Afghanistan - Ali Jalali. Parameters article, Spring 2006. The parliamentary elections in Afghanistan were the final event of the internationally-sponsored Bonn Accords of December 2001. During the past four years, Afghanistan has made significant progress toward democracy while reconstructing the country’s political, social, and security institutions. These include adopting an enlightened constitution (January 2004), holding a successful presidential election (October 2004) and parliamentary elections (September 2005), while creating a national army and a national police force, dismantling major factional militia units, building a national economy from ground zero, expanding and improving a formal education system, and improving the status and future of Afghan women. Although Afghanistan met all the deadlines of the Bonn Accord, it has not realized the treaty’s ultimate goal of ending the conflict and establishing peace and stability. Roadblocks have included the extent of war damage and a lack of sufficient investment in developing state institutions and the economy. The progress is dramatic but fragile, and it could be lost if the momentum is not sustained. Afghanistan is again at a crossroads. One road leads to peace and prosperity; the other leads to the loss of all that has been achieved. Everything depends on the level of international commitment to help Afghanistan emerge from the dark shadows of the instability and violence of its recent past. Lost opportunities and failure to respond to challenges are unfortunately the hallmarks of Afghanistan’s turbulent history.

Planning Lessons From Afghanistan and Iraq - Colonel Joseph Collins (USA Ret.). Joint Force Quarterly article, Issue # 41, 2nd Quarter 2006. For planners and bureaucrats, Afghanistan and Iraq appear to present a puzzle. In Afghanistan, on one hand, we had little time for planning; we did lots of innovative things on the cheap; our relatively small, international force has taken few casualties; we have had great local and international support; and we are, by most accounts, on the way to a good outcome. On the other hand, in Iraq, we had over a year to plan; our national policy has been expensive and often unimaginative; a relatively large, primarily American force has taken over 18,000 casualties, most of them in the so-called postconflict phase; we have had severe problems with local and international support; and the outcome, although looking up, is still in doubt. A wag might conclude from the above that Americans should avoid planning at all costs. It brings bad luck, stifles creativity, and interferes with our penchant for achieving success through our normal standard operating procedure: the application of great amounts of material resources guided by brilliant improvisation and dumb luck. While the wag’s conclusion is flawed, problems in planning indeed contributed to serious shortcomings connected with Operation Iraqi Freedom. With 3 years of hindsight, it was clear that these shortcomings included ineffective planning and preparation for stability operations, inadequate forces to occupy and secure a country the size of California, poor military reaction to rioting, d looting in the immediate postconflict environment, slow civil and military reaction to a growing insurgency, and problematical funding and contracting mechanisms that slowed reconstruction failure to make effective use of former Iraqi military forces.

The Reconstruction of Afghanistan: A Fight for Survival - Famid Sinha and Teresita Schaffer. Center for Strategic and International Studies newsletter, August 2006. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) that took over operations in the south of Afghanistan from the U.S.-led coalition faces a tough task. Although Afghanistan has made progress in building national political institutions in the past year, many issues remain problematic. Security has declined in many parts of the country, law and order are not well established, and narcotics are still the dominant element in the fragile economy. Donors need to put particular emphasis on crafting an effective approach to narcotics and policing. This summary focuses mainly on security issues in Afghanistan and is based in part on a NATO-sponsored trip to Afghanistan by CSIS’s Ambassador Teresita Schaffer in June 2006.

Afghanistan's Uncertain Transition from Turmoil to Normalcy - Dr. Barnett Rubin. Council on Foreign Relations Special Report, April 2006. Afghanistan’s Uncertain Transition argues that Afghanistan is still far from stability. While the country has reestablished basic institutions of government, it has barely started to make them work. The government and its international supporters are challenged by a terrorist insurgency that has become more lethal and effective and that has bases in Pakistan, a drug trade that dominates the economy and corrupts the state, and pervasive poverty and insecurity. The Afghanistan Compact, approved in January 31, 2006, provides a road map for security, governance, and development over the next five years. The United States should take the lead in ensuring full funding and implementation of the Afghanistan Compact, and develop a coherent strategy toward the Afghanistan-Pakistan relationship. This strategy would entail pushing the Pakistani government to arrest Taliban leaders whose locations are provided by intelligence agencies and taking aggressive measures to close down the networks supporting suicide bombers.

Afghanistan Four Years On: An Assessment - Dr. Sean Maloney. Parameters article, Autumn 2005. In Spring 2004, Parameters published “Afghanistan: From Here to Eternity?” which explored the situation in Afghanistan in early 2003, or a little over one year after the Taliban regime was removed from power. The tone of the piece was guardedly pessimistic and in effect reminded readers that though there had been progress, the possibility remained that overenthusiastic and emotional responses by the international community in the follow-on phase of the campaign could scuttle that success. That article also laid out a number of challenges that would have to be addressed to avoid what the critics increasingly referred to as “another Vietnam." In 2005, the situation in Afghanistan has progressed to the point where guarded optimism is justified. Unfortunately, the perception of the situation on the ground has become distorted through the prism of American partisan politics, particularly during the run-up to the 2004 election. The focus of this rhetoric was and remains issues related to narcotics production and a number of spin-off arguments related to it. Afghanistan is apparently no longer looked at as “another Vietnam”; now it is perhaps “another Colombia." Though the narcotics issue is critical to the future of Afghanistan, public discussion of it in American fora has overridden acknowledgment of other areas of success, areas which are in fact more important than any single issue and which will, in the long run, have a positive effect on counternarcotics operations in the region anyway. This article examines how the situation in Afghanistan has dramatically changed since 2003, and why. It will also suggest that there are new areas for concern which policymakers may wish to focus on beyond the currently salient narcotics problem.

To Create a Stable Afghanistan: Provisional Reconstruction Teams, Good Governance, and a Splash of History - Major Andrew M. Roe, British Army. Military Review article, November - December 2005. The Coalition and NATO face the complex challenge of establishing a legitimate functioning government in Afghanistan that can withstand the withdrawal of Western forces. To meet this challenge, they might look to earlier British efforts to manage the north-West Frontier along Afghanistan’s eastern border. Proven methods the British used in the frontier districts could generate a coherent four-step plan for reconstruction. Indeed, as resources shrink, new, imaginative measures - plus tried and true ones - will be needed to control geographically dispersed tribes to prevent the reemergence of terrorists or armed insurrection.

Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and Defense Policy - Stephen Biddle. US Army Strategic Studies Institute monograph, November 2002. America’s novel use of special operations forces, precision weapons, and indigenous allies has attracted widespread attention since its debut in Northern Afghanistan last fall. It has proven both influential and controversial. Many think it caused the Taliban’s sudden collapse. For them, this “Afghan Model” represents warfare’s future and should become the new template for U.S. defense planning. Critics, however, see Afghanistan as an anomaly—a non-repeatable product of local conditions. This monograph examines the Afghan Model’s actual role in the fall of the Taliban, using evidence collected from a combination of 46 participant interviews, terrain inspection in Afghanistan, and written documentation from both official and unofficial sources. The author, Dr. Stephen Biddle, argues that neither of the main current interpretations is sound: Afghanistan offers important clues to warfare’s future, but not the ones most people think. The campaign of 2001-02 was a surprisingly orthodox air-ground theater campaign in which heavy fire support decided a contest between two land armies. Of course, some elements were quite new. Precision firepower was available in unprecedented quantity and proved crucial for success; special operations forces served as the main effort in a theater of war. In an important sense, though, the differences were less salient than the continuities: the key to success in both Afghanistan and traditional joint warfare was the close interaction of fire and maneuver—neither of which was sufficient alone, and neither of which could succeed without sizeable ground forces trained and equipped at least as well as their opponents.

The Lessons of Afghanistan: Warfighting, Intelligence, Force Transformation, Counterproliferation, and Arms Control - Anthony Cordesman. Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2003. Historians know all too well that it is far easier to rush forward in drawing lessons from history than it is to validate them. This is even truer when the lessons must deal with something as chaotic as war. Moreover, the Afghan conflict is anything but a conventional war. It is an asymmetric war fought with radically different methods, by different sides with different goals and perceptions, and as a theater battle in a broader global struggle against terrorism. While somewhat similar conflicts have taken place in the past, even the Soviet Union’s experience in Afghanistan was so different in terms of the forces on each side, the weapons used, and the alliances in the region, that it is usually difficult to make historical comparisons. The problem of drawing lessons from the Afghan conflict is further complicated by the fact the war is anything but over. The Taliban has been driven from power, but far more ex-Taliban have been dispersed than have been killed or captured. In spite of an ongoing nation building effort, it is far from clear that the Taliban will not eventually resurface in some form. Furthermore, “nation building” in Afghanistan has already become an activity that involves direct fighting between various factions that once opposed the Taliban, and such factions already make active efforts to use US and British forces, peacekeepers, and any other available tool to serve the interests of rival clans, tribes, ethnic groups, factions, and warlords.

Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Lessons of Recent Conflicts in the Middle East - Anthony Cordesman. Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 2004. The very nature of warfare is changing in a region where nations have previously tended to focus on building the largest possible conventional forces and obtaining the most advanced major weapons. On the one hand, the “revolution in military affairs” (RMA), modern technology, professional forces, and jointness are transforming the nature of the conventional capabilities of the US, and inevitably many of its European and regional allies. On the other hand, hostile, and potentially hostile, states are adapting in their own way, as are extremist, radical, and terrorist movements. For all of the advantages the RMA offered in defeating Iraq’s conventional forces and deposing Saddam Hussein, Iraqi insurgents have since found ways to counter many of the advantages of the US and its allies. Similar trends have emerged in Afghanistan, and in the fighting between the US and the Taliban and Al Qaida. Both sides learn and adapt. War remains a duel where both sides must constantly adapt, and one that is becoming steadily more asymmetric with time.

Clausewitz: “On Afghanistan” - Major Frank Sobchak, USA. Military Review article, July-August 2005. The following article, written in the voice of Carl von Clausewitz and addressing the United States and its military leaders, explores the influence of politics on the early phases of Operation Enduring Freedom. Despite official denials that politics did not influence military decisions during the conflict, this article concludes that the military campaign in Afghanistan vindicates Clausewitz’s thesis that war is dominated by politics.

Afghanistan's Transformational Challenge - Diego A. Ruiz Palmer. NATO Review article, Summer 2005. Few aspects of NATO's evolution in recent years better illustrate the link between the Alliance's expanding operational roles and its political and military transformation than NATO's engagement in Afghanistan. Indeed, the fact that NATO is leading the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) so far away from the Alliance's traditional European centre of gravity is indicative of how far and how rapidly NATO's agenda has evolved in the wake of the terrorist attacks against the United States of 11 September 2001.

What Not to Learn from Afghanistan - William Hawkins. Parameters article, Summer 2002. The principal lesson of modern war is the need to operate in combined arms teams to win decisive victories that yield beneficial political change. There are no “silver bullets” that can win wars by themselves, even if fitted with satellite guidance. Nor is war just about blowing things up. War is “politics by other means” with the aim to determine how territory and people are governed, and to what ends rulers direct their resources. This cannot be done from 15,000 feet in the air. Yet there are those who would argue, on the basis of the air campaigns in the Balkans and Afghanistan, that the United States should restructure its armed forces to rely almost entirely on bombers, with some special forces and perhaps some other light troops (preferably foreign) as auxiliaries. This line of argument has been around since Billy Mitchell claimed in his 1925 book Winged Defense, “It is probable that future wars again will be conducted by a special class, the air force, as it was by the armored knights in the Middle Ages. Again, the whole population will not have to be called in the event of a national emergency, but only enough of it to man the machines that are the most potent in national defense.

Democracy and Islam in the New Constitution of Afghanistan - Rand report, 2003. Reports on a conference held to identify ways in which the new constitution of Afghanistan could help put the country on the path to a strong, stable democracy characterized by good governance and rule of law. The participants identified practical ideas for those involved in drafting the constitution, particularly about the treatment of Islam.

Operation Enduring Freedom as an Enabling Campaign in the War on Terrorism - Major John Clement, USA. US Army School of Advanced Military Studies monograph, 2003. James W. Reed wrote “Should Deterrence Fail: War Termination in Campaign Planning” focusing on campaign planning and design. In the article, Reed describes the relationship between terminal and enabling campaigns. The terminal campaign “seeks war termination as an endstate.” James W. Reed defines an enabling campaign as achieving “some intermediate strategic objectives short of termination.” With this in mind, is Operation Enduring Freedom an effective enabling campaign to create conditions for the defeat of terrorism in the Central Command area of responsibility?

Nation Building Lite (Afghanistan) - Michael Ignatieff. Link to New York Times Magazine article, July 2002. Imperialism used to be the white man's burden. This gave it a bad reputation. But imperialism doesn't stop being necessary just because it becomes politically incorrect. Nations sometimes fail, and when they do, only outside help -- imperial power -- can get them back on their feet. Nation-building is the kind of imperialism you get in a human rights era, a time when great powers believe simultaneously in the right of small nations to govern themselves and in their own right to rule the world. Nation-building lite is supposed to reconcile these principles: to safeguard American interests in Central Asia at the lowest possible cost and to give Afghanistan back a stable government of its own choosing. These principles of imperial power and self-determination are not easy to reconcile. The empire wants quick results, and that means an early exit. The Afghans want us to protect them, and at the same time help them back on their feet. That means sticking around for a while.

Insurgency In Iraq And Afghanistan: Change And Continuity - Steven Metz and Raymond Millen. US Army Strategic Studies Institute discussion paper. To understand the insurgencies the United States now faces, whether those in Iraq and Afghanistan or the global one against violent radical Islam, and to develop coherent strategies to counter them, American planners and leaders must ask two questions: Do these insurgencies exhibit the characteristics that have traditionally led to insurgent success or victory? and Do these insurgencies have any characteristics that break with traditional patterns and may allow them to attain success or victory even though they are missing some of the traditional determinants of success?

The “Post Conflict” Lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan - Anthony Cordesman. Testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, May 2004. The current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan has exposed the fact that there is a serious danger in the very term “post conflict:” It reflects critical failures in American understanding of the world it faces in the 21st Century, and in the nature of asymmetric warfare and defense transformation. If the US is to succeed in the conflicts that are likely to shape much of the 21st Century, it must learn from both its successes and mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Strategic engagement requires an objective – not an ideological – assessment of the problems that must be dealt with, and of the size and cost of the effort necessary to achieve decisive grand strategic results. Neither a capabilities-based strategy nor one based on theoretical sizing contingencies is meaningful when real-world conflicts and well-defined contingencies require a strategy and force plan that can deal with reality on a country-by country basis, rather than be based on ideology and theory.

Rebuilding Afghanistan's National Army - Ali Jalali. Parameters article, Autumn 2002. In May 2002, American Green Berets began training the first group of Afghan soldiers for the new Afghan National Army (ANA). This complex mission will take years to accomplish, yet it is expected to contribute greatly to the return of peace and normalcy to Afghanistan. The United States, the main sponsor of the effort, sees the project as an effective alternative to the expansion of international security forces to police the war-devastated country. Further, the United States expects that the ANA will aid in the multilateral struggle against terrorist activity in the region. This is the fourth time in 150 years of Afghanistan’s turbulent history that the country is recreating the state military following its total disintegration caused by foreign invasions or civil wars.¹ The process of rebuilding has always been influenced by the prevailing political and social conditions in the country. The current attempt is not going to be an exception. The profound social transformation of Afghanistan during more than two decades of a devastating war has drastically changed the traditional political and social landscape of Afghanistan. The rebuilding of a national army will have to be intertwined with the creation of a legitimate broad-based government, economic reconstruction, and the demobilization process. This article looks at the challenges facing the creation of a new national army in Afghanistan as well as the opportunities for responding to these challenges. It reviews the experience of the past as well as the recent war-instigated social and political transformation to identify conceptual frameworks for building a national military establishment in Afghanistan.

Nation Building: The Inescapable Responsibility of the World's Only Superpower - James Dobbins. Rand Review article, Summer 2003. We at the Rand Corporation have compiled what we have found to be the most important lessons learned by the United States in its nation-building efforts since World War II. Not all these hard-won lessons have yet been fully applied to America's most recent nation-building efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. We define nation-building as "the use of armed force in the aftermath of a conflict to underpin an enduring transition to democracy." We have compared the levels of progress toward this goal among seven historical cases: Germany, Japan, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. These are the most important instances in which American military power has been used in the aftermath of a conflict to underpin democratization elsewhere around the world since World War II.

Joint Interagency Cooperation: The First Step - Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, USMCR. Joint Force Quarterly article, 2005. This article traces the development of the CENTCOM JIACG through two wars, using it as a case study to highlight the need for better and institutionalized interagency coordination at the operational level, and concludes with practical recommendations for using “every tool in our arsenal” to reduce the likelihood of future terrorist attacks.

Interaction Between Military and Civilian Assistance Providers in Afghanistan, September 2001-June 2002 - Randy study, 2004. Description and evaluation of relief, reconstruction, humanitarian, and humanitarian-type aid efforts in Afghanistan during the most intense phase of military operations, from September 2001 to June 2002. The efforts were generally successful, but there were serious coordination problems among the various civilian and military aid providers. Critical issues, both positive and negative, are identified, and a list of recommendations is provided for policymakers, implementers, and aid providers, based on lessons learned.

Mutual Trust and Respect - Chief Warrant Officer Two Oscar Chaney (USMC) and Chief Warrant Officer Two Kenneth R. Silvers (USMC). Marine Corps Gazette - article, November 2004. Foreign powers have never done well in Afghanistan over time. For us to be successful in Afghanistan, we will have to continue building and working with the Afghan National Army and local Afghan Militia Forces (AMF). From April through July, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 6th Marines (BLT 1/6) fought with AMF forces under the command of Jan Mohammed, the Governor of Oruzgan Province in south-central Afghanistan. Across the six warfighting functions at the tactical level, we had to make several innovations and accommodations to allow us to operate side by side with the AMF. Our BLT commander was a foreign area officer, specializing in central Asian cultures, which gave us an advantage while navigating the language and cultural nuances.

Civil Affairs: Trust and Confidence Earned - Chief Warrant Officer Two Thomas Dye, USN. Marine Corps Gazette article, November 2004. To be successful in combat operations in this global war on terrorism, we have to earn the trust and confidence of the local population. Civil affairs (CA) operations are a key component that will ultimately decide the long-term success or failure of any military operation. Although the 22d Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) (22d MEU(SOC)), supported by the Tarin Kowt Provincial Reconstruction Team, had a very extensive CA program, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 6th Marines (BLT 1/6) felt that we needed our own CA capability to coordinate and implement timely CA as a follow-on to our operations. Since there are no naval surface fires in Afghanistan, we established our shore fire control party as the S–5 (CA) section and began planning for the integration of CA into our operations at the earliest stages.

Report on the Cultural Intelligence Seminar on Afghan Perceptions - US Marine Corps Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities report, December 2001. The participants displayed a high level of optimism that contrasts markedly with the pessimistic attitude of many western journalists regarding the ability of the Afghans to make a go of a post-Taliban government. After six years of Taliban repression, this seems to them to be a very promising opportunity for their nation. They stressed that the Afghan people want to get themselves on their feet and will work hard to do so. They stressed that the U.S. and follow-on multinational efforts should convey their goals clearly and honestly and that all tribes and ethnic groups should be represented fairly in any post-Taliban government.

Social Studies: 21st Century Tribes - David Ronfeldt. Rand comentary / Los Angeles Times article, December 2004. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States is fighting virulent tribalism as much as Islamic fundamentalism. Salafi and Wahhabi teachings calling for jihad against infidels, fatwas from clerics justifying the murder of noncombatants and ultimatums from Sunni insurgents who behead captives all are expressions of extreme tribalism more than Islam. The ways religion gets layered onto tribalism, and vice versa, deeply condition a people's thinking and behavior. A tribe may regard a deity as the ultimate ancestor of its identity. Its religion also may instruct tribal members how to uphold their society and treat one another. It does not determine how they may behave toward outsiders, but religion often supplies the justification.

Mobile C4 in Afghanistan - First Lieutenant R. D. Blake, USMC. Marine Corps Gazette article, November 2004. Infantry battalions require the capability for mobile command, control, communications, and computers (C⁴) beyond a jump command post (CP). A lot of resources are put into C⁴, but we still fight from static CPs, just as we did during World War II with very little improvement on mobile C⁴. The C⁴ capabilities of a typical battalion tactical CP must be leveraged for operating while on the move. The commander and his battle staff must have the ability to place themselves at the points of friction, failure, and transition—anywhere on the battlefield—while maintaining maximum C⁴ capability with their maneuver elements and higher headquarters. Prior to the 22d Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) (22d MEU(SOC)) deployment in February, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 6th Marines (BLT 1/6) developed a C⁴ platform to meet the infantry battalions’ mobility requirements. (See “Mobile Command and Control,” Marine Corps Gazette, March 2004). Four M1123 HMMWVs were fitted with M997 ambulance shelters that allowed ample space for a table, bench seats, overhead speakers, and compartments for mounted radios. Each combat operations center (COC) vehicle is equipped with six very high-frequency (VHF) radios, one enhanced position location reporting system radio, and data networking capabilities. Also, each VHF radio is connected to a speaker box and handset mounted over the bench seats in the rear of the vehicle. This article provides the reader an update on how the COC vehicles performed in combat, and the next step for the Marine Corps to provide this critical capability to infantry battalions.

Air Power Against Terror: America’s Conduct of Operation Enduring Freedom - Benjamin Lambeth. Rand monograph, 2005. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 plunged the United States into a determined counteroffensive against Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist network. This report details the initial U.S. military response to those attacks, namely, the destruction of al Qaeda’s terrorist infrastructure and the removal of the ruling Taliban regime in Afghanistan. It first outlines the efforts of the Bush administration to prepare for war, including pulling together an effective coalition, crafting a war strategy, moving forces and materiel to the region, forging alliances with indigenous anti-Taliban elements in Afghanistan, laying the groundwork for a target-approval process, and planning for humanitarian relief operations. It then follows the unfolding of Operation Enduring Freedom from its beginning, starting with air strikes against Taliban early warning radars, airfields, ground force facilities, and other fixed targets. The author also explains how allied Special Operations Forces (SOF) were successfully inserted into Afghanistan and how those forces, enabled by U.S. air power, were eventually able to work with indigenous friendly Afghan fighters in defeating and routing the Taliban. He then outlines problems that were later encountered in Operation Anaconda — an initiative by U.S. Army forces to push into the high mountains of Afghanistan where hard-core al Qaeda holdouts were known to be regrouping. This was to be a conventional ground force operation, but unexpected resistance and resultant fierce fighting required the emergency summoning of fixed-wing air power. This air involvement proved pivotal in producing a successful outcome and, in hindsight, pointed to the failure of Operation Anaconda’s planners to make the most of the potential synergy of air, space, and land power that was available to them. The author describes some of the friction and conflicts that arose within U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) over how best to use air power in the war. Perhaps the most serious inefficiency had to do with strict rules of engagement and a resultant target-approval bottleneck at CENTCOM that often allowed many important but fleeting attack opportunities to slip away. The author emphasizes, however, several distinctive achievements in this war, including the use of SOF-enabled precision weapons that were effective irrespective of weather, the first combat use of Predator unmanned aerial vehicles armed with Hellfire missiles, and the integrated employment of high-altitude drones and other air- and space-based sensors that gave CENTCOM unprecedented round-the-clock awareness of enemy activity.

Special Operations Forces in Operation Enduring Freedom: Background and Issues for Congress - Edward Bruner, Christopher Bolkcom, and Ronald O’Rourke. Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, October 2001. Special Operations Forces (SOF) are elite, specialized military units that can beinserted “behind the lines” through land, sea, or air to conduct a variety of operations, many of them clandestine. SOF units are expected to play an important role in U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and possibly elsewhere as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. military campaign against terrorists. This short report provides background information and issues for Congress on U.S. SOF units and will be updated as events warrant.

What’s So Special about Special Operations? Lessons from the War in Afghanistan - Colonel John Jogerst, USAF. Aerospace Power Journal article, Summer 2002. Watching the war in Afghanistan and listening to speculation about future US moves, one hears a lot of discussion about US special operations forces (SOF). The consensus seems to be that these forces are tailor-made for the unconventional nature and uncertainty of this war. Every war is unique, but if the uncertainty and chaos of the current war are characteristic of future conflicts, it is important to consider potential lessons from SOF’s success. Lessons learned by SOF over the last two decades and demonstrated in Afghanistan provide some signposts for future conventional forces and the ongoing transformation of the US military.

Imperial Grunts: With the Army Special Forces in the Philippines and Afghanistan - Robert Kaplan. Atlantic Monthly article, October 2005. America is waging a counterinsurgency campaign not just in Iraq but against Islamic terror groups throughout the world. Counterinsurgency falls into two categories: unconventional war (UW in Special Operations lingo) and direct action (DA). Unconventional war, though it sounds sinister, actually represents the soft, humanitarian side of counterinsurgency: how to win without firing a shot. For example, it may include relief activities that generate good will among indigenous populations, which in turn produces actionable intelligence. Direct action represents more-traditional military operations. In 2003 I spent a summer in the southern Philippines and an autumn in eastern and southern Afghanistan, observing how the U.S. military was conducting these two types of counterinsurgency.

Operation MOUNTAIN STORM—Afghanistan, 2004 - Chief Warrant Officer 2 David Pummell, USMC. Marine Corps Gazette article, October 2005. In late March 2004 the 22d MEU(SOC) flew into southern Afghanistan and prepared to conduct operations. Their focus of effort was to push deeper into the country and establish a forward operating base (FOB) near Tarin Kowt, Oruzgan Province, to support the United Nations-sponsored Afghan elections. This central Afghan area was virtually ignored by conventional forces, and the dire security situation halted any hopes of election registration in an area considered by many as “the Taliban’s backyard.” Once established, the FOB would allow the MEU a place from which to launch extensive operations to deny the enemy sanctuary while gaining and maintaining contact with small groups of insurgents operating in the rugged mountain terrain. The MEU had literally taken the fight to the enemy, and they did so with explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) Marines alongside in every mission.

Think Global, Fight Local - Robert Kaplan. Wall Street Journal article, December 2003. Two years ago this month, fewer than 100 men of the Army's 5th Special Forces Group, based out of Fort Campbell, Ky. -- almost all of them non-commissioned officers -- essentially took down the Taliban regime on their own. Along with a handful of Air Force Special Ops embeds, they succeeded where the British and the Soviets before them in Afghanistan had failed, because they had been given no specific instructions. The bureaucratic layers between the U.S. forces and the secretary of defense were severed. They were told merely to link up with the "indigs" (indigenous Northern Alliance and friendly Pushtun elements) and make it happen... Instead of powering-down to a flattened hierarchy of small, autonomous units dispersed over a wide area -- what the 1940 Marine "Small Wars Manual" recommends for fighting a guerrilla insurgency -- we have barricaded ourselves into a mammoth, Cold War-style base at Bagram that drains resources from the fire bases. It is ironic that just as the Pentagon is proposing a more light and lethal worldwide basing posture (with many smaller footprints rather than a few large ones in Korea and Europe), in Afghanistan, whose mountains and tribes make it the most unconventional of battlefields, we have reverted to such an antiquated arrangement.

Afghanistan: Narcotics and U.S. Policy - Christopher Blanchard. Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, December 2004. This report describes the structure and development of the narcotics trade in Afghanistan and explores its relevance to Afghan, U.S., and international security interests, including the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation that the United States make a long term commitment to the stability and security of Afghanistan. The report provides current statistical information on the opium trade, profiles its various participants, explores alleged narco-terrorist linkages, and reviews the U.S. and international policy response since late 2001. The report also considers current policy debates regarding the role of the U.S. military in future counternarcotics operations in Afghanistan; planned opium poppy eradication; and funding issues for Congress.

Afghanistan: Post-War Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy - Kenneth Katzman. Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, December 2004. Afghanistan is a fragile state that appears to be gradually stabilizing after more than 22 years of warfare, including a U.S.-led war that brought the current government to power. Successful presidential elections held on October 9, 2004 are likely to accelerate stabilization and reconstruction. The report of the 9/11 Commission, as well as legislation passed in December 2004 that implements those recommendations (S. 2845, P.L. 108-458), recommends a long-term commitment to a secure and stable Afghanistan; most of these recommendations already form a major part of the U.S. policy framework for Afghanistan. Remaining obstacles to stability include the continued local authority of militias controlled by regional leaders and growing narcotics trafficking. U.S. stabilization measures focus on strengthening the central government, which has been widely viewed as weak and unable to control the many regional and factional leaders. The United States and other countries are building an Afghan National Army; deploying a multinational International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to patrol Kabul and other cities; running regional enclaves to create secure conditions for reconstruction (Provincial Reconstruction Teams, PRTs); and disarming militia fighters. U.S.-led forces continue to combat a low level Taliban-led insurgency, and the insurgency appears to have lost traction over the past year. To build security institutions and foster reconstruction, the United States gave Afghanistan a total of about $1.9 billion for FY2004, most of which was provided in a supplemental appropriation (P.L. 108- 106). Almost all U.S. and international sanctions imposed on Afghanistan prior to and during Taliban rule have now been removed.

Afghanistan: Challenges and Options for Reconstructing a Stable and Moderate State - Richard Cronin. Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, July 2002. Major obstacles to the goal of a stable and ideologically moderate Afghan state include: long standing power aspirations of rival tribal and ethnic groups; the long-term decline of Afghan state institutions that began with the Communist/Soviet occupation decade of 1979-89, and accelerated under the Taliban; the recent rapid increase in opium production and local power struggles for control of the lucrative drug trade; and the resiliency of politicized Islam, as promoted both by the Taliban and other radical Islamist parties, which retains appeal to many Afghans.

Afghanistan’s Path to Reconstruction: Obstacles, Challenges, and Issues for Congress - Rhoda Margesson. Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, September 2002. While continuing to hunt down Al Qaeda forces within Afghanistan, transitional and reconstruction assistance has also moved ahead. An examination of the progress of reconstruction efforts and aid priorities in the last year reveals the complexity of the tasks ahead and raises questions about the the long-term role to be played by the United States. Congress may continue to look at the contributions by and responsibilities of key allies partnering in the efforts within Afghanistan. The current operating environment demonstrates ongoing challenges for the government and people of Afghanistan and for the international community, such as security issues, population movements, food security, environment and infrastructure, health, and education. The many moving parts of the war on terrorism coupled with the uncertainty of developments within Afghanistan make long-term planning and exit strategies impossible at this stage. Still, of potential, immediate interest to Congress are security concerns, support of the transitional administration, oversight and coordination of aid projects, and the plight of women and children.

Afghanistan: The Anatomy of an Ongoing Conflict - Ali Jalali. Parameters article, Spring 2001. The civil war in Afghanistan is a microcosm of the post-Cold War multilateral competition for influence in unsettled regions. The Afghan conflict involves internal armed factions with extensive foreign links, neighboring states that pursue competing strategic interests, and ultra-regional players who have ideological, security, or economic stakes in the chaos. With no central authority in Afghanistan, neighboring countries further their policies by engaging and supporting rival Afghan factions, thus fueling the internal strife and blocking the emergence of a broad-based legitimate government in Afghanistan. The turmoil is both the cause and consequence of state failure in the war-torn country. The result is an attempt to impose a military solution. Armed struggle is not an instrument of a clearly defined policy but a means for open-ended gains in a volatile environment. The trend defies classic norms of warfare and widely accepted military concepts. Instead of war being a "continuation of politics by other means," militarized politics is an extension of war through other channels. Nor does the conceptual paradox end there. The structure of opposing forces and methods of their tactical and operational employment are in stark contrast with conventional models. Militia formations tailored for guerrilla warfare fight conventional battles. Traditional practices regulate the use of new weapons instead of modern technology reshaping outdated procedures. The new follows the old; the past governs the present. This article looks at the dynamics of the Afghan battlefield with an emphasis on the military potential of the major players and their capacity to force peace through military action. It also examines the interplay of political and military aspects of the conflict to identify conceptual frameworks for restoring peace in Afghanistan.

The National Security Archive: The Taliban File - George Washington University. Marking the second anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the National Security Archive at George Washington University today posted on the Web a new collection of recently declassified U.S. documents covering the controversial rise to power of Osama bin Laden's former hosts in Afghanistan, the Taliban. This murky history has particular relevance today, as the Taliban fighters regroup in Afghanistan, and key Taliban leaders remain at large. The Taliban File," is the seventh volume in the Archive's September 11th Sourcebook series, recognized by the National Journal in December 2001 as one of the top five sites on the Web for terrorism information. The collection of 32 documents obtained through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act by Archive research associate Sajit Gandhi details the rise of the Taliban from its meager start in Kandahar to a full fledged military force and ultimate control of the country. The documents discuss Pakistan's support for the Taliban, U.S. dealings with the Taliban, post 9/11 thinking on military strategy in the War on Terror, and the relationship between the assassination of the Northern Alliance Commander Ahmad Shah Masoud and the terrorist attacks of September 11.

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