Hope and a Strategy Shift in Afghanistan

Is there Hope for Afghanistan? By Linda Robinson, Foreign Policy.

After spending last month in Afghanistan on my fourth trip this year, the situation can best be described as a glass half full. A multifaceted effort in the south, led by a "surge" of U.S. and Afghan troops, has increased security in the southern Pashtun heartland this year. But a steady drumbeat of high-profile attacks, including a brazen assault on the U.S. embassy and assassinations of key Afghan officials, has had an outsized impact on the population by eroding already weak confidence in the Afghan government and the forces supporting it…

A Shift in the Afghanistan Strategy by John Nagl, Foreign Affairs.

In what time it has left, the United States can do more to prepare Afghans for the formidable challenge ahead. Rather than have U.S. and NATO forces clearing areas of insurgents and then handing them off to the Afghans, it is time for Afghan forces to take the lead, with the help of U.S. advisers, in clearing and holding Afghan territory. The United States will not officially leave Afghanistan until 2014. But given the rate of troop withdrawal outlined by the Obama administration, U.S. commanders in Afghanistan must begin recalibrating their strategy now…