Why Afghanistan’s War Defies Solutions by Max Fisher and Amanda Taub - New York Times

The generals publicly supported their intervention in Afghanistan, but in private they worried they were trapped. After 16 years, they feared they had produced “a recipe for endless war,” according to an American ambassador who met with them. But the generals, the ambassador said, “felt there was no alternative, no realistic alternative” than to continue fighting a doomed mission.

Those generals were Pakistani. Their meetings with the ambassador, Tom Simons, took place in 1996. Mr. Simons recounted the experience to the journalist Steve Coll in 2002, one year into an American mission in Afghanistan that has now also lasted 16, and which President Trump announced on Monday that his administration would extend.

There is a reason that Afghanistan’s conflict, then and now, so defies solutions.

Its combination of state collapse, civil conflict, ethnic disintegration and multisided intervention has locked it in a self-perpetuating cycle that may be simply beyond outside resolution.

“I’m not saying that state formation will never work in Afghanistan, but externally building, as we’re trying to do it, cannot work,” said Romain Malejacq, a political scientist at the Center for International Conflict Analysis and Management in the Netherlands.

American-led efforts, despite some successes, have ended up reinforcing and accelerating the broader cycles of violence and fragmentation that have been growing since the state’s collapse in the early 1990s…

Read on.

Trump’s Afghan Gamble Now Rests On General He Doubted by Mujib Mashal - New York Times

The commander in chief and his commander fighting the uphill war in Afghanistan have never met.

Even after months of delay, when President Trump convened his national security team to complete his Afghanistan strategy, the commander, Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., was conspicuously absent.

That distance reflects a remarkable shift in America’s longest war. Mr. Trump’s predecessors overcame even the most awkward relationships for regular briefings with their field commanders.

When General Nicholson, a 61-year-old combat veteran described by peers as a “thinker warrior,” was asked at a news conference in Kabul on Thursday if he had directly briefed the president, he said: “I provide my input through the chain of command, and this system works well.”

In many ways, General Nicholson’s career has been shaped by the war. He took command in Afghanistan during the Obama administration, is on his fourth tour and even met his wife because of their shared interests in the country.

The general got most of what he had sought in the strategy announced by Mr. Trump: increases in American military trainers and air support in targeting the Taliban, without deadlines.

But Mr. Trump emphasized that he had been reluctantly persuaded to perpetuate the war, which he has described as a total disaster — not exactly a vote of confidence in General Nicholson. “My original instinct was to pull out,” Mr. Trump said. “And historically, I like following my instincts.”

Now, the task of ensuring that Mr. Trump’s gamble does not blow up in his face falls on General Nicholson, making the tightrope he has been walking even more wobbly.

The general, who had pleaded with the Obama administration not to reduce his resources, got little attention from the Trump White House for months. And just a few weeks ago, word leaked that Mr. Trump had talked of firing him — for little of his own doing. So while General Nicholson may be newly empowered, he has also been undermined in the eyes of his Afghan partners…

Read on.