Obama's New "Af-Pak" Strategy: Can "Clear, Hold, Build, Transfer" Work?
This paper evaluates the viability of the “clear, hold, build and transfer” approach in Afghanistan in light of the structural challenges to each element and the pressure to deliver results in a short time-frame amid difficult security conditions.
The Taliban Beyond the Pashtuns
Although the Taliban remain a largely Pashtun movement in terms of their composition, they have started making significant inroads among other ethnic groups. In the fifth edition of CIGI's "Afghanistan Papers," author Antonio Giustozzi says that emerging relationships between Taliban and non-Pashtun groups could "turn northern and western Afghanistan into a mess."
A Plan to Stabilize Afghanistan
Afghanistan’s problems are well known: rampant insecurity, endemic corruption, deep-seated poverty and weak governance. Unfortunately most of the strategies advanced to address these issues have lacked clear, effective and culturally-adapted implementation frameworks, making them more like wish lists than concrete roadmaps. Based on wide experience and engagement in Afghanistan’s state-building project since 2001 – in the United Nations, Afghan government, and civil society – the author provides a broad outline for a new strategy to stabilize Afghanistan. This new approach will not require massive new infusions of resources, but rather robust political will and resolve among both Afghans and international actors, something that is increasingly in short supply.
Ending the Agony: Seven Moves to Stabilize Afghanistan
In January, donors renewed commitments to Afghanistan and presented new strategies to combat the Taliban, improve governance and limit corruption. But progress will depend on Afghan leadership. This paper proposes seven policy initiatives to refocus the country's domestic reform agenda, overcome post-electoral distrust, and lay the groundwork for a rejuvenated partnership between the Afghan government and the international community.
Afghanistan’s Alternatives for Peace, Governance and Development: Transforming Subjects to Citizens & Rulers to Civil Servants
The policies of the United States and its international partners in Afghanistan during the past eight years have proven wrong-headed and ineffective in delivering the promised peace, stability and democratic governance. This paper critically examines the underlying assumptions behind these failing policies and explores alternative approaches to rescue Afghanistan’s war-to-peace transition.
Afghanistan: Looking Forward
In this first edition of CIGI’s Afghanistan Papers series, Ambassador Ronald E. Neumann acknowledges the flaws in the current strategies for Afghanistan’s transition and calls for a greater focus on implementation.