Afghanistan: The Third Way

A wise reader asks:
Where does some one articulate the “third” strategy in Afghanistan in any detail? I know the two strategies of COIN and Withdrawal have lots of problems, but I want to hear more about the alternative. Can the US establish some sort of deterrence by being able to escalate and deescalate the conflict [...]

Has anything changed?

[Go  to Part Two if you already follow COIN/ Strategy debates in Afghanistan]
Part One:
Some readers may not be aware of this, but  the US is now fighting  ”Population Centric Warfare” in Afghanistan,  not the “Enemy Centric Warfare” that people normally associate with military operations. The difference between the two is the difference between “killing people and breaking S***” on [...]

Taliban “gets” Pop-Centric Warfare

US strategy in Afghanistan is quite simple: convince the Afghani people that they should side with the pro-American Afghani government.  Whereas in WWII America was fighting “Enemy-Centric” warfare, meaning it wins by obliterating the German and Japanese Army, in Afghanistan it’s  fighting “population centric” warfare, whereby it achieves victory by  winning over the Afghani population and convincing them to side with [...]

What Dominoes?

There are logical arguments supporting American Counter-Insurgency Strategy in Afghanistan –  the best one being (in my view) that unless the Taliban are kept from power and Afghanistan governed by a pro-US  government, there is a chance that al-Qaeda could and would use Afghani territory to plot terrorist attacks against the US.  After all, this is why America invaded in the [...]

Interview with AQ leader in Afghanistan

Al-Jazeera recently did a 45_minute_interview with the leader of  Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.   As_I’ve_said_before,  (in my view) between 90 and 99% of the strategic information that the USG wants and needs to know about enemy goals and intentions is widely available open-source.  It’s not a matter of recruiting spies  in back-alleys or breaking into safes James Bond-style, but rather opening [...]

Who needs a safe haven?

In a post that can only be described as dope, Matt Yglesias  synthesizes a number of recent  articles and posts on the signifigance of safe havens in plotting terrorist attacks against the US:
And as per Spencer’s point, not only is a safe haven not necessary, it’s not sufficient either. A safe haven in the mountains in Central [...]

Where have I heard this before?

Stephen Walt at ForeignPolicy.Com makes_a_point on Afghanistan I’ve been constantly repeating:
In fact, we have only one vital national interest in Afghanistan: to prevent Afghan territory from being used as a safe haven for groups plotting attacks on American soil or on Americans abroad, as al Qaeda did prior to September 11. It might be nice to [...]

Britain, Afghanistan, and the ’special relationship’

Editor’s  Note:  Joining MediaShack is my good friend Monty, a Tommy  who has spent lots of time in Egypt and Syria and has good Arabic skills.   Monty is one of those wicked cool Europeans that like both American and European football.   His only problem is, for some reason, he chose a crap team to root for- [...]

Non monsieur le President, Je suis desole….

Under President Obama, the US is  going to shift its focus from Iraq to Afghanistan, the argument being that we need to “finish what we started.”    One of the key aspects of this new strategy is to convince the NATO countries to send more troops to Afghanistan.   Convincing them to do so, however, is going to [...]

Is the “Good War” Worth Fighting?

Former British FSO Rory Stewart has an excellent op-ed in the NY Times framing the coming challenge in Afghanistan.  He starts off by making a critical point: Do we actually have to “win” in Afghanistan?  Or why do we need to “beat” the Taliban to win?  Why can’t winning be defined as something like “not doing [...]

Does Christopher Hitchens Read Media Shack?

Two days ago I posted  that the US should buy and burn all the Opium in Afghanistan because trying to stop Afghan farmers from growing their only crop drives them straight into the insurgency.  Yesterday, Christopher Hitchens said the same thing:
This is why it is peculiar of us, if not bizarre and quasi-suicidal, to insist that its main [...]

If the US is doomed in Afghanistan…..

then why not talk to the Taliban and try and work out some kind of accommodation?  As I have said previously, they are not natural enemies of the US and there was no reason the Taliban had to be made enemies of the US in the first place- and Abdel Bari Atwan agrees with me.  
Today, [...]

Qaradawi and Zawahiri United Against the Shia

Jordanian journalist Mohamed Abu Rumman has a very interesting op-ed analyzing the latest Al-Qaeda tape in the September 21st edition of Al-Ghad newspaper.  Abu Ramen always has good analysis so I have translated the key points.
Key Analysis Points (The Bolded words are added by me)
  NEW EMPHASIS ON IRAN AND ITS ALLIES: The tape’s heavy focus [...]