#Afghanistan

A picture of an Afghan soldier; A picture of U.S Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel after touching down in Afghanistan; a picture of Afghan president Hamid Karzai; a picture of members of the Taliban (as represented in their own promotional video); a picture of Secretary of Defense Hagel in Afghanistan before his meeting with President […]

Earlier posts have commented on the Obama administration’s defective foreign policy apparatus as well as its highly dysfunctional management of the war in Afghanistan (here and here).  Both problems are conjoined, a point that is amply underscored in Vali Nasr’s forthcoming book, The Dispensable Nation.  Nasr served as a key adviser to the embattled Richard […]

The idea of arming the Syrian rebels is being chatted up once again.  The debate will wander and focus in many theoretical directions. Yet essentially the decision will focus on one key pivot: is the goal a short-term or long-term victory? The safe bet: short-term considerations will win out. The U.N. proclamation that the one […]

As values of certain ideas fluctuate with fashion and practicality, so has that of COIN, or counter-insurgency, one of the principal war-fighting approaches in recent years for U.S.-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such is the main argument in Fred Kaplan’s recent Foreign Affairs (Jan/Feb 2013) essay “The End of the Age of Petraeus: The […]

    With the French military intervention in Mali shifting to a more sustained action, the reality of the long, hard slog in the Mali region has triggered inevitable questions by diplomats, policy planners and many others as to what defines success – and what comes next?  Most mouthed answer: “Somalia.”  That’s correct.  The place […]

Dr. Peter Jones is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. He is also an Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He has held various positions related to international affairs and security at the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, the […]

This film is riveting. It is a fictional look at the hunt for and eventual killing of Osama bin Laden, the man who is believed to have masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. Jessica Chastain rightfully won the best actress in a drama at the Golden Globes. She has also […]

  In light of France’s recent involvement in Mali, questions about the trajectory and length of this war are naturally coming to the fore. For me, a phrase that I keep thinking about is “the law of conservation of problems,” which comes from an environmental science text I once used. Featured in the text to […]

According to new media reports (here and here), the Pakistani army has revised its doctrinal handbook to give priority to the country’s burgeoning internal security challenges.  The change appears, at least on the surface, to represent a fundamental shift away from the “India-centric” orientation that General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the powerful army chief, has long […]

Even as President Obama trumpets his plans to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan in two years’ time, he also insists (though in a sotto voce way) that he wants to maintain a limited but long-term military presence focused on counter-terrorism missions and training Afghan security forces.  Of course, this is the same promise he […]

With President Obama’s second term around the corner, it is a perfect moment to look back at the administration’s so-called “light footprint” strategy – a military strategy characterized by the use of targeted tactics like drone strikes and the avoidance of large-scale, on-the-ground intervention.  As journalist David Sanger summarized it in a video interview, it […]

The Syrian rebels, or opposition, or the Syrian National Coalition (the name this motley assembly of Sunnis, Salafists, jihadists, and foreign insurgents) agreed to take on in Doha as a prerequisite for U.S. support (money PLUS guns), successfully launched a surface to air missile (SAM) about ten days ago, bringing down a Syrian government aircraft. […]