October, 2008

In a marked shift from earlier positions, members of the Pak-Afghan jirga gave up ‘renunciation of violence’ as a pre-condition for negotiations as they formally announced their decision to hold talks with the Taliban.

Negotiations between U.S., NATO, and/or Afghan government officials and the Taliban may be on the table in Afghanistan.

Related to the previous post on the summer activities of NBA players, it is worth taking a close

We'll mark the opening tip of the NBA season by pointing to the offseason involvement of NBA players in good causes related to conflict and development:

Over the weekend, the Pakistani military claimed significant strategic gains in Bajaur after the capture of strategically important towns such as Lowi Sam, Rashakai and Khazana.

Is it possible for Iran and the United States to enter into a new era of diplomatic relations where both work to end the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and make progress towards Israeli-Palestinian peace? 

DoD photo by Cherie Cullen.

Marvin Weinbaum of the Middle East Institute has written an op-ed in today's Washington Post about the U.S. policy towards Pakistan's safe havens and highlights the pros and cons of cross-border raids:

Thomas Johnson and Chris Mason have published a timely article in the Atlantic Monthly arguing that success in Afghanistan requires a district by district approach:

by Greg Sanders

Flickr photo by mafic used under a Creative Commons license. 

While participants won’t often say so, civil conflict is often driven by profit motives rather than any larger ideals.  Control of a country’s key resources is often either a direct goal of warring parties or a secondary goal that gives them the income to pursue their main interests.  So what happens when prices of a country’s export rise on the world market?  Does the increased profitability mean wars will be fought more viciously and with better funding?  Alternately, does the chance to make a decent income through conventional work calm things down?

Slate has an article on just that question, prompted by a new paper by economists Oeindrila Dube and Juan Vargas.  The answer seems to depend on how labor intensive the good is.  The paper specifically studied Colombia and found that goods which provide a lot of jobs, like raising coffee beans, tend to diminish conflict when prices go up.  “The researchers estimate that an additional 500 deaths may have resulted from the increased conflict that came from lower coffee prices.” By comparison, capital intensive goods which provide high paying jobs but in limited numbers, such as oil, tend to drive conflict when prices rise.

Pakistan is about to begin discussions with the IMF over the terms of an expected bailout package. And not soon enough considering the increasingly alarming reports about Pakistan's economic situation over the last few days.

Karin von Hippel, CSIS senior fellow and codirector of the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project, narrates pictures from her recent trip to Afghanistan. The slide show accompanies her report, Confronting Two Key Challenges in Afghanistan.

The fall issue of Faith and International Affairs, published by the council on Faith and International Affairs, has a wealth of articles that relate to our work on religion (see last year's PCR report Mixed Blessings). Most pertinently, former USAID Administrator J.

"The moral hyperventilation of celebrities in Darfur hasn't helped and probably has hindered. But who needs empirics when there is a good story to tell?"

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Karin von Hippel just returned from a week-long, NATO-sponsored tour of Afghanistan with a small group of researchers from Europe and North America. The group visited Kabul, two provinces in the North (Mazar-e Sharif in Balkh and Kunduz), and two in the South (Kandahar and Uruzgan). They were briefed by dozens of military officials, a handful of international civilians, and a smaller number of Afghans (this was due to the trip overlapping with Eid-ul-Fitr as well as NATO concerns about security).  Below, she analyzes two key challenges for Afghans and their coalition partners.  This is followed by a short photo-journal of the trip.

Summary

In mid-October, several prominent senior officials – including Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – publicly voiced skepticism about the situation in Afghanistan.  On Thursday, 16 October, Mullen concluded, “The trends across the board are not going in the right direction,” and remarked that next year would be even tougher. This public airing may be necessary to ensure that all actors are fully focused on critical reforms necessary for success: the U.S. government has itself launched a number of key reviews of the situation in Afghanistan, which should be released shortly after the U.S. Presidential elections.

Given the large number of excellent studies addressing many of the important governance, security and development challenges for Afghanistan,[1]  this report will focus on two key areas that have only recently been in the spotlight.  The first is whether and how to talk to the Taliban, and the second concerns the lines of authority for the U.S. and coalition forces. Resolving these two issues would make a fundamental contribution to the overall goal of the mission, which is to build a safe, secure and effective Afghan state.

Background

The PCR Project has been working on both Afghanistan and Pakistan for most of the last decade as part of the project’s focus on countries in conflict and transition.[2]  The situation on the ground in Afghanistan is perhaps the most challenging and complex of all stabilization operations undertaken since the end of the Cold War. Promoting democracy and development in one of the world’s poorest countries, where only 28% of its 33 million people can read and write (this figure drops to 4% in many rural areas), and which has endured over three decades of civil war would be difficult enough if that were the extent of the problem.  Throw in a bloody insurgency - one that is highly decentralized, rapidly evolving, linked with international narcotics and transnational terrorist networks, and which has a sophisticated strategic communications capacity - and the results are daunting. 

Coalition deaths have climbed to 920 since the start of the conflict, and some of these come from countries where the publics are not fully convinced of the urgency of the mission.  The Afghan death toll for its civilians, police officers and soldiers is far greater than this, though not as well documented.  While everyone may now be fully seized that “something must be done” - which is critical - consensus still needs to be reached among and between the Afghan government and international partners on several key governance, security and development challenges, two of which are discussed more fully below. 

Hardliner clerics across the jurisprudential spectrum in Pakistan issued a powerful fatwa against suicide bombings in the country - a few years ago when a moderate group of ulema had issued a similar edict, they had been roundly condemned by their more conservative colleagues).

The U.S. actions in Iraq have never been free from criticism. However, this piece by Matthew Sherman offers a careful analysis of past U.S. actions and makes several suggestions on how to proceed with this complicated situation. Sherman argues "for a more tailored approach to U.S. assistance in Iraq in light of shifting political realities."

Full info below the jump.

The UN Information Center and UNDP’s Washington Liaison Office would like to invite you to attend a UN Washington Roundtable on Monday, October 20.  The topic will be “A Turning Point for Afghanistan: Implementing the New National Development Strategy.”

Our Roundtable will feature Kathleen Cravero, Director of UNDP’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery; Wolfgang Weisbrod-Weber, Director of the Asia and Middle East Division at the UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations; Vance Serchuk, Legislative Assistant for National Security Policy to Senator Joseph Lieberman; and Alexander Thier, Senior Rule of Law Advisor at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

In her chapter in ‘Strategic Asia 2008-9’, Polly Nayak outlines U.S.

The PCR Project hosted a teleconference event this morning on Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence and its role in Pakistani security and politics. Audio of the discussion is available here.

Pakistani Parliament House at night. Flickr photo taken by Khalid Bin Ismail, used under a Creative Commons License. 

James Traub of the New York Times Magazine will be at CSIS on October 20th to discuss his new book, The Freedom Agenda: Why Am

Last week I mentioned that Robert Gates' address at NDU had echoes of Thomas Barnett. Barnett recently weighed in with his thoughts:

USAID is proud to announce the upcoming launch of the 2008 USAID Development 2.0 Challenge. The Challenge will reward the best ideas with an invitation to present them before senior officials at USAID and a grant of as much as $10,000 for the winning solution.

It is no longer a secret that President Karzai’s government wants to hold talks with the