War in Afghanistan: Campaign Progress,
Political Strategy, and Issues for Congress
Catherine Dale
Specialist in International Security
August 29, 2013
Congressional Research Service
7-5700
www.crs.gov
R43196
CRS Report for Congress
Pr
epared for Members and Committees of Congress
War in Afghanistan: Campaign Progress, Political Strategy, and Issues for Congress
Summary
This is a critical time for U.S. efforts in the war in Afghanistan. In his 2013 State of the Union
address, President Obama announced that the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan would draw
down by an additional 34,000 troops, to about 33,000, by February 2014, and that by the end of
2014 “our war in Afghanistan will be over.” Further decision-making regarding the U.S. force
presence in Afghanistan, including after the end of NATO’s International Security Assistance
Force (ISAF) mission at the end of 2014, is expected later this year. Yet while troop levels tend to
steal the headlines, far more fundamentally at stake is what it would take to ensure the long-term
protection of U.S. interests in Afghanistan and the region.
Arguably, the United States may have a number of different interests at stake in the region:
countering al Qaeda and other violent extremists; preventing nuclear proliferation; preventing
nuclear confrontation between nuclear-armed states; standing up for American values, including
basic human rights and the protection of women; and preserving the United States’ ability to
exercise leadership on the world stage. At issue is the relative priority of these interests, what it
would take in practice to ensure that they are protected, and their relative importance compared to
other compelling security concerns around the globe.
U.S. efforts in Afghanistan include an array of activities: prosecuting the fight on the ground, in
support of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), to counter the insurgency; supporting
Afghanistan’s political process, including the presidential elections scheduled to be held in April
2014; providing assistance to help Afghans craft and grow a viable economy; and facilitating
Afghan-led efforts to achieve a high-level political settlement with the Taliban. At issue is
whether these are the activities best suited to achieve a lasting outcome that protects U.S.
interests, as well as how some or all of these activities might most constructively inform each
other.
As of mid-2013, most Afghan and ISAF commanders suggested that the campaign on the ground
was gaining traction, reflected in the successful security transition to Afghan lead responsibility
for security and in improvements in the ANSF; in the diminished strength of the insurgency; and
in the successful adaptation by coalition forces to new roles and missions. Afghan and ISAF
commanders also shared roughly the same vision of further steps, in which the roles played by the
coalition would diminish in scale and grow more tailored in scope, with a particular focus on
advising and enabling the ANSF.
Yet most observers agree that the long-term sustainability of campaign gains—and the protection
of U.S. interests—would require major changes in the broader strategic landscape. Critical
requirements would include sufficiently responsive Afghan governance; a viable economy that
offers Afghans sufficient opportunities; a regional context that supports rather than undermines
Afghan stability; and a conclusion to the war broadly acceptable to the Afghan people.
This report describes the current strategic context, the state of the campaign, next steps in the
campaign, and what it would take to make campaign gains sustainable; and it offers questions that
may be of help to Congress in providing oversight of further U.S. efforts in Afghanistan.
Congressional Research Service
War in Afghanistan: Campaign Progress, Political Strategy, and Issues for Congress
Contents
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 1
Strategy ............................................................................................................................................ 2
State of the Campaign ...................................................................................................................... 5
Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) ................................................................................. 5
Insurgency ................................................................................................................................. 7
Coalition Forces......................................................................................................................... 8
Next Steps in the Campaign ............................................................................................................. 9
Enabling ..................................................................................................................................... 9
Advising .................................................................................................................................. 10
Making Campaign Gains Sustainable ............................................................................................ 12
Governance .............................................................................................................................. 13
Economics ............................................................................................................................... 16
Pakistan and the Region .......................................................................................................... 17
How Does This End? ............................................................................................................... 18
A Final Word .................................................................................................................................. 20
Contacts
Author Contact Information........................................................................................................... 21
Congressional Research Service
War in Afghanistan: Campaign Progress, Political Strategy, and Issues for Congress
Introduction
In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama stated that by February 2014, another
34,000 U.S. troops would come home from Afghanistan, and that by the end of 2014, “our war in
Afghanistan will be over.”1 While troop levels and drawdown curves tend to steal the headlines,
more fundamental is the question of how coherently all the facets of U.S. engagement in
Afghanistan fit together as part of a single political strategy aimed at bringing the war to an
acceptable conclusion.
Recent months have witnessed a great deal of activity. Afghanistan’s security transition received a
jumpstart on June 18, 2013, when the Afghan government and NATO announced Milestone 2013,
a marker that recognized Afghan exercise of lead responsibility for security across all of
Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s political transition, a continuation of the political process launched in
Bonn twelve years ago, was further catalyzed in July 2013 when Afghan President Hamid Karzai
signed two election laws recently passed by the Afghan parliament, refining the legal and
oversight frameworks that will govern the presidential and provincial council elections scheduled
for 2014, and the parliamentary elections scheduled for 2015. Afghanistan’s economic transition
toward greater self-sufficiency received reinvigorated attention from the international donor
community in July 2013, at the one-year anniversary of the Tokyo Conference on Afghanistan.
Regionally, renewed efforts in 2013 related to Afghan-Pakistani border security suggested the
prospect, at least, of fruitful bilateral and regional collaboration. And reinvigorated reconciliation
efforts, aimed at achieving a political settlement of the conflict, took center stage in June 2013
with the opening of a Taliban political office in Doha, Qatar, which coincided directly with the
Milestone 2013 announcement.
Less immediately obvious, amidst all this vigorous activity, is what if anything these various
threads add up to; and how if at all they might best reinforce each other to lay a foundation for
future stability in Afghanistan. From a U.S. perspective, a central question concerns how the
security gains of the campaign on the ground might best be leveraged to shape the political
landscape and catalyze broader political progress, in order to protect U.S. interests over the long
term, at an acceptable cost.
This report briefly summarizes the strategic context for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan; analyzes
recent campaign progress, remaining campaign requirements, and steps that might be required to
make those gains sustainable; and provides questions that may be of use to Congress in exercising
oversight of the war in Afghanistan.2
1 President Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President in the State of the Union Address,” Washington, DC, February
12, 2013, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/02/12/remarks-president-state-union-address.
Most U.S. forces in Afghanistan serve in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, while some others,
including some Special Operations Forces, serve under direct U.S. command. The U.S. four-star commander in
Afghanistan has dual-hatted responsibility for U.S. efforts and the NATO mission. The war in Afghanistan began in
late 2001 with a U.S.-led coalition military operation designed to remove Afghanistan’s Taliban-led regime and to
prevent future terrorist safe havens, in the wake of the terrorist attacks launched by al Qaeda from Afghanistan on
September 11, 2001.
2 This report is based in part on the author’s extensive experience on the ground in Afghanistan with NATO ISAF
including, most recently, two and a half months in spring/ summer 2013, for which opportunities the author remains
grateful. For further analysis related to Afghanistan, see additional CRS reports by, or consult directly, Amy Belasco,
Susan Chesser, Catherine Dale, Kenneth Katzman, Alan Kronstadt, Rhoda Margesson, Moshe Schwartz, Curt Tarnoff,
(continued...)
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War in Afghanistan: Campaign Progress, Political Strategy, and Issues for Congress
Strategy
For the U.S. government, fundamental components of strategy for the war in Afghanistan include:
• U.S. national security interests in Afghanistan and the region;
• the minimum essential conditions—political, economic, security—that would
need to pertain in Afghanistan and the region in order to protect U.S. interests
over the long run;
• current and projected U.S. approaches, until and after 2014, for helping Afghans
establish and sustain those conditions;
• the timeline by which, and extent to which, Afghans are likely to be able to
sustain those conditions with relatively limited support from the international
community;
• risks to U.S. national security interests if Afghans are unable to do so; and
• the importance of this overall effort—given its likely timeline, risks, and costs—
compared to other U.S. priorities.
In practice, the Obama Administration has reasonably consistently articulated two core goals for
the war—to defeat al-Qaeda and to prevent future safe havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan.3 Yet
the Administration has made some refinements and changes in emphasis over time. In his 2013
State of the Union address, President Obama described the goal as “defeating the core of al
Qaeda”, a new and narrower formulation.4 And between 2010 and 2011, in its “1230” reports to
Congress, the Department of Defense (DOD) revised its description of the strategic architecture
of goals, objectives and activities, subtly narrowing the scope of ambition.5
(...continued)
and Liana Wyler.
3 See for example President Barack Obama, Remarks by the President on a New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan,
Washington, DC, March 27, 2009, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-
President-on-a-New-Strategy-for-Afghanistan-and-Pakistan/; and President Barack Obama, Remarks by President
Obama in Address to the Nation from Afghanistan, May 1, 2012.
4 Emphasis added. See President Obama, State of the Union, 2013.
5 DOD’s “1230” reports are based on P.L. 110-181, §1230 and 1231, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal
Year 2008, as amended. The two 1230 reports issued in 2010, in April and November, echoed the language that had
emerged from the strategic review conducted by the Administration in late 2009 – that is, two core goals, defeating al
Qaeda and preventing its return, together with a number of objectives to support the goals. The objectives included,
among others, reversing the Taliban’s momentum and denying it the ability to overthrow the Afghan government; and
strengthening the capacity of Afghanistan’s security forces and the Afghan government so that they could take
responsibility for Afghanistan’s future. The 1230 report issued in April 2011, the first issued after the Afghanistan
Pakistan Annual Review (APAR) conducted by the Administration in late 2010, retained most of the language from the
2009 review and the 1230 reports from 2010, but significantly altered the emphasis. The report identified a core goal:
to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and to prevent its capacity to threaten the United
States and U.S. Allies in the future.” The status of “denying safe haven to al Qaeda” was shifted from a goal to a
supporting objective. The objective concerning the Taliban was modified to remove reference to reversing the
Taliban’s momentum, thus emphasizing the remaining half of the objective, preventing a Taliban overthrow of the
government – a formulation that pointedly leaves open the prospect of arriving by peaceful means at a political power-
sharing arrangement that includes the Taliban. In addition, in the April 2011 report, the 2010-era objective of
strengthening Afghan security force and government capacity was downgraded to a passive opportunity – further
degradation of the insurgency by U.S. and coalition forces would “create time and space for Afghan capacity to grow,”
(continued...)
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The basic framework for most recent U.S. government civilian and military efforts on the ground
in Afghanistan dates back to 2009, when General Stanley McChrystal took command of NATO’s
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and was tasked to conduct an initial strategic
assessment. That assessment, and the subsequent ISAF campaign design it informed, were based
on the Administration’s two core goals as well as on the novel prospect of more troops, more
civilian expertise, more resources, more high-level leadership attention, and relatively unlimited
time.6
Since then, at least six major constraints have been introduced:
• In December 2009, in a speech at West Point, President Obama announced that a
troop surge would take place, but that those surge troops would begin to draw
down in July 2011.
• In November 2010, at the NATO Lisbon Summit, the Afghan government and the
NATO Allies, including the United States, agreed to pursue a formal process,
called Transition, in which responsibility for security would shift over time to the
Afghan Government. This process was to begin shortly thereafter—in early
2011—and to be completed by the end of 2014.
• In a June 2011 speech, President Obama announced parameters for drawing
down U.S. surge forces. From the surge peak of about 100,000 U.S. troops, the
U.S. troop commitment in Afghanistan would decrease by 10,000 troops by the
end of 2011, and by a further 23,000 by the end of September 2012, declining to
a total of 68,000 by that date. Afterwards, the pace of further drawdowns would
be “steady” and at some point the mission would change “from combat to
support.”
• In May 2012, at the NATO Chicago Summit, the Afghan government and NATO
added a new step to the formal Transition process, Milestone 2013: Afghans
would assume lead responsibility for security throughout Afghanistan by mid-
2013, and at that point, international forces would shift to playing a primarily
supporting role.
• In January 2013, during President Karzai’s visit to Washington, DC, he and
President Obama announced that Milestone 2013 would be reached earlier—in
spring, not summer, 2013.
• And in February 2013, President Obama announced that the U.S. troop
commitment in Afghanistan would draw down by 34,000 more troops by
February 2014—leaving approximately 33,000 troops in Afghanistan—and that
by the end of 2014, “our war in Afghanistan will be over.”7
(...continued)
without committing the coalition to actively facilitating that growth. See Department of Defense, Progress Toward
Security and Stability in Afghanistan, April 2010, November 2010, April 2011, and October 2011.
6 From an Afghan perspective, the experience of war and conflict is now decades-long, but concerted, coordinated
efforts by the international community are arguably quite recent. See General Stanley McChrystal, COMISAF’s Initial
Assessment, August 30, 2009, available in redacted form from the Washington Post, at
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/Assessment_Redacted_092109.pdf. The author was part
of the McChrystal Assessment team.
7 See President Barack Obama, Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on the Way Forward in Afghanistan
(continued...)
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War in Afghanistan: Campaign Progress, Political Strategy, and Issues for Congress
At the same time, the timeline for the declared commitment of the international community to
Afghanistan has been extended well past 2014. In November 2011, at the International
Conference on Afghanistan held in Bonn, the international community pledged broad support
until 2024, through the so-called Decade of Transformation following Transition. In May 2012, at
the NATO Chicago Summit, participants affirmed that NATO’s security partnership with
Afghanistan would not end with the current campaign. The U.S.-Afghan Strategic Partnership
Agreement (SPA), signed in May 2012—a statement of mutual commitment in multiple arenas—
is scheduled to remain in force until 2024. And President Obama, during his early 2013 press
conference with President Karzai, iterated that U.S. forces would remain engaged in Afghanistan
after 2014, in “two long-term tasks”—albeit “very specific and very narrow” ones—including
“first, training and assisting Afghan forces and second, targeted counterterrorism missions against
al Qaeda and its affiliates.”8
Questions that might help inform the debates about U.S. strategy for Afghanistan include:
• What interests does the U.S. government have at stake in Afghanistan and the
region, and in what priority order? Where if at all on that list should the
following concerns figure: countering al Qaeda and other violent extremist
organizations; preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction;
preventing nuclear confrontation between nuclear-armed states; standing up for
core U.S. values including human rights and the protection of women; preserving
and strengthening U.S. ability to exercise leadership on the world stage?
• How appropriate are declared U.S. goals and objectives regarding Afghanistan
for protecting U.S. interests?
• How consonant are the ways and means currently being employed with those
declared goals and objectives?
• To what extent if any might longer-term U.S. and international commitments
balance the risks associated with near-term disengagement?
• Given the full panoply of U.S. national security interests and broader concerns,
what should be the relative priority of Afghanistan and its region, between now
(...continued)
and Pakistan, West Point, NY, December 1, 2009, available at available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/
remarks-president-address-nation-way-forward-afghanistan-and-pakistan; NATO Lisbon Summit Declaration, Lisbon,
Portugal, November 20, 2010, available at http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_68828.htm?mode=
pressrelease; President Barack Obama, Remarks by the President on the Way Forward in Afghanistan, Washington,
DC, June 22, 2011, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/06/22/remarks-president-way-
forward-afghanistan.; Chicago Summit Declaration issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the
meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Chicago, May 20, 2012, available at http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/
official_texts_87593.htm?mode=pressrelease; Joint Press Conference by President Obama and President Karzai,
Washington, DC, January 11, 2013, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/01/11/joint-press-
conference-president-obama-and-president-karzai; and President Obama, State of the Union, 2013.
8 See Afghanistan and the International Community: From Transition to the Transformation Decade, Conference
Conclusions, the International Afghanistan Conference in Bonn, December 5, 2011; Chicago Summit Declaration; Joint
Press Conference; and Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement between the United States of America and the
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, May 2, 2012, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/
2012.06.01u.s.-afghanistanspasignedtext.pdf.
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and 2014, and after 2014, for the U.S. government? What would be an acceptable
cost?
State of the Campaign
The basic premise of the campaign is to build up competent Afghan forces (ANSF), while
reducing the scale of the insurgent threat to proportions that those Afghan forces can manage in
the future with very limited support from the international community. By most Afghan and
coalition accounts, the basic logic of the campaign has proven to be sound—based on the overall
improvement of Afghan forces, degradation of the insurgency, and adaptation by coalition forces.
Indeed, many observers contend that if the campaign were not working, it should be discontinued
immediately—not gradually—given its high cost in terms of lives and resources.
Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF)
The ANSF are not a monolith, but in general, both ANSF and coalition commanders describe
marked positive changes over the calendar year to date.
By the end of 2012, most Afghan forces, and particularly the Afghan National Army (ANA),
already had basic warfighting skills. What they displayed, by mid-2013, was growing confidence
that manifested itself in initiative, planning, and execution. ANA Corps Commanders, for
example, compellingly described coherent visions and specific plans for the counter-insurgency
(COIN) campaigns that they were leading.9
That new confidence was, in part, the product of necessity. The drawdown of 33,000 U.S. troops
in 2012, and the very visible base consolidations and closures that accompanied it, galvanized the
conviction of Afghan security leaders at all levels that coalition forces were, indeed, going home,
and led many to take on greater responsibility. Many ANSF commanders have described taking
on missions they were initially not sure they could handle, then being convinced by their success
to take on even more.10
In a further recent change, by mid-2013, not only were the ANSF initiating more operations,
those operations were more likely to generate positive effects, as the ANSF increasingly applied
lessons learned from previous operations. For example, over the winter from 2012 to 2013, the
ANA 205th Corps conducted the Kalak Hode (“determined strike”) series of operations in
Kandahar, Zabul, and Uruzgan provinces—combined arms efforts of unprecedented scale. One
major lesson they learned was that sequential operations with long pauses for re-set gave the
enemy a chance to re-group; so their follow-on Strong Border series of operations, in 2013, was
designed to include a continuous cycle of planning and execution.11
Many observers suggest that one important way to gauge ANSF progress is through their
“resilience”—that is, their ability to recover in the face of setbacks. A loss of some kind, however
9 Interviews with 201st ANA Corps Commander Major General Waziri; 203rd ANA Corps Commander Major General
Yaftali; 205th ANA Corps Commander Major General Hamid; and 215th ANA Corps Commander Major General
Malouk, 2013.
10 Ibid., and interviews with other Afghan officials, 2012 and 2013.
11 Interviews with ANSF and ISAF officials, 2013.
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hard, it is argued, is not catastrophic as long as the ANSF do not lose confidence in their own
ability, and Afghan people do not lose confidence in the ANSF. Anecdotal evidence during the
2013 fighting season suggests growing resilience. For example, in spring 2013, the 2nd Brigade of
the 201st ANA Corps, based in Kunar province, had an observation post (OP) at a remote location
overrun by insurgents, at the same time that it was conducting a deliberate operation in Marawara
district. Though the losses at the OP were heavy, the ANSF were able to retake the OP, and
reported reasonable confidence in their ability to continue to execute the campaign.12
Another recent development has been far greater integration of effort across the ANSF in
planning and execution. Not long ago, it was not uncommon for the Afghan Army and police to
get into firefights with each other. By mid-2013, combined Army/police planning and operating
had become the norm. Many Afghan civilian and security officials have reported that weekly or
bi-weekly provincial-level security shuras, which bring together, under the chairmanship of the
Provincial Governor, the leaders of the various Afghan forces operating in a province, have
significantly catalyzed unity of effort. As of mid-2013, some officials at the Ministry of Interior in
Kabul continued to repeat the mantra that “it takes the Army three days to respond, when the
police get in trouble”, but most accounts closer to the ground suggest a somewhat different
picture, in which Afghan forces frequently come to the aid of other forces when they get in
trouble, without waiting for a “cipher” (an order) from Kabul or a prod from coalition forces.13
In principle, unity of effort requires some shared understanding of the division of labor—and of
resources—across Afghan forces. In practice, as of mid-2013, such “layered security”—the
distribution of roles and responsibilities—looked different from place to place, depending in part
on the security challenges and developmental state of each Afghan force, in each area. For
example, as of mid-2013: the ANA were still struggling in many places to come off of check
points (CPs), waiting for available and capable Afghan uniformed or local police (AUP, ALP) to
take their places; the AUP and ALP were being employed interchangeably in many places,
particularly at CPs along major routes, rather than reserving the ALP to fill their original mandate
of thickening the lines in outlying areas; some of the Afghan Border Police (ABP) were hunkered
down, doing little, beyond the operational reach of other Afghan forces and, in one province,
apparently beyond the notice of the Provincial Governor; and the Afghan National Civil Order
Police (ANCOP), though highly-trained, continued to frustrate other Afghan forces with their
direct reporting chain back to Kabul and their short rotation cycles. In turn, by all accounts,
including their own, “personalities”—whether the strong, nationally inclined Commanders of
some ANA Corps, or cult-of-personality police chiefs such as Abdul Raziq in Kandahar, and
Matiullah Khan in Uruzgan—appeared likely to continue to play an outsize role in the Afghan
security arena for some time.14
Most observers suggest that ultimately, the ANSF will need a systematized division of labor, in
order to size and resource the total force efficiently and effectively. Yet for now, many suggest, it
may be sufficient that Afghan security leaders in any given place share a vision of what security
should look like there, and of who should do what to provide it.
12 Interview with the 2nd Brigade, 201st ANA Corps Commander, and other ANSF officials, 2013.
13 Interviews with ISAF and Afghan officials, 2013.
14 Interviews with ANSF officials, Afghan civilian officials, and ISAF officials, 2012 and 2013. One frustrated District
Chief of Police, in Kandahar province, said, “Take my 900 ANCOP and just give 100 guys who are here all the time!”
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In addition to capabilities, confidence, resilience, and unity of effort, sheer capacity also affects
ANSF effectiveness. The current target endstrength for the ANSF, as agreed by the Afghan
government and supported by the international community, is 352,000. Afghan and ISAF officials
estimate that that target is not likely to be reached until 2017, given the projected development
timeline for the Afghan Air Force. At the May 2012 NATO Chicago Summit, participants agreed
that after the conclusion of the NATO ISAF mission at the end of 2014, the ANSF would begin a
“gradual managed force reduction” to a “sustainable level” of 228,500. But after Afghan and
NATO officials raised concerns about both the timing and drawdown slope of that plan, it is now
expected that the ANSF target endstrength will remain at 352,000 for at least several years
more.15
Insurgency
For many observers, the state of the insurgency is a critical factor in gauging campaign progress
to date. Changes in the insurgency tend to be neither linear over time, nor evenly distributed
geographically. Insurgent activity tends to follow a cyclical pattern: an annual fighting season,
which runs roughly from the end of the poppy harvest in the spring until the weather turns cold in
the fall, followed by a lull in activity during the winter typically used for rest and recuperation.
Geographically, the insurgent threat has been concentrated, though not exclusively, in the largely
Pashtun-populated eastern and southern areas of Afghanistan, which offer easy access across the
border to safe havens in Pakistan. In turn, spurred by the 2009 McChrystal Assessment, the
campaign adopted geographic priorities that focused in general on population centers and
commerce routes, and specifically on the south, the Taliban’s traditional homeland.16
As of mid-2013, the insurgency was certainly not defeated—and it continued to enjoy the ability
to recruit, as well as the luxury of safe havens in Pakistan. But by most accounts, including their
own, insurgent networks had been degraded and their costs of doing business inside Afghanistan
had risen substantially. For example, some insurgents had been forced to use longer and more
treacherous transit routes, and it had grown more expensive to pay some lower-level fighters.17
Further, Afghan and coalition officials report that as security responsibility has shifted to Afghan
forces, and as the coalition and other components of the international community visibly continue
to reduce their efforts, the insurgency has increasingly targeted those Afghans who might pose the
greatest existential threat to insurgent success: the ALP; the ground-up, local anti-Taliban
movements born of frustration with Taliban intimidation; and Afghan civilian officials at the
national, provincial, and local levels. To some extent, this shift of focus has rendered some
insurgent political rhetoric less coherent, as the insurgency loses its ability to cast the
international “occupiers” as the enemy and struggles to explain why it is killing fellow Afghans.
By many accounts the insurgency as a whole is increasingly fractured—divided politically in its
views regarding political settlement efforts, and divided operationally regarding targeting.18
15 See Chicago Summit Declaration, May 20, 2012. Interviews with Afghan and ISAF officials, 2013. See DOD,
Security and Stability in Afghanistan, July 2013.
16 See McChrystal Assessment, 2009; and Interviews with ISAF officials, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013.
17 Interviews with ISAF officials, 2013.
18 For example, some insurgent leaders might view targeting international organizations as the priority because it might
draw more support from the insurgency’s international “donors,” while other insurgent leaders might view targeting
local Afghan security forces as the priority because such forces most directly challenge the insurgency’s influence and
ability to operate. Interviews with ISAF and Afghan officials, 2013.
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Coalition Forces
As the U.S. government, NATO, and the Afghan government consider the possibility of a post-
2014 coalition force presence in Afghanistan, most observers agree that a prerequisite for any
such presence is the ability of coalition forces to adapt to the advisory and enabling roles they
would be required to play. In theory, if effective adaptability is beyond the coalition’s ability, then
further presence should not be considered.
In practice, the trajectory of adaptation, while uneven, has been rapid and, by many accounts,
effective. Just a few years ago, coalition forces fought largely unilaterally, pulling along with
them handfuls of Afghan forces when available. In 2009, the McChrystal Assessment called for
full, shona ba shona (“shoulder to shoulder”) unit-partnering—coalition and Afghan units living,
planning, and executing together, 24/7—and the troop density provided by the coalition troop
surge made it possible to partner on a large scale. But partnering was never an end in itself, and
when Afghan capabilities permitted, coalition forces generally began stepping back and shifting
into unequal partnerships in which Afghan forces increasingly played leading roles. For at least
the last year, coalition forces have been refocusing on tailored advisory and enabling activities
and re-organizing accordingly.19 As of mid-2013, coalition commanders at all levels were
conducting a robust internal debate about the effects that they still needed to generate, largely
indirectly; and the circumstances under which they should step back into the fight, or step back
further from it.
Some observers point out that adaptation has been born of necessity, catalyzed by troop
drawdowns and associated base consolidations and closures—in particular the “surge recovery”
of U.S. troops in 2012—which made it impossible to continue doing business in the same way. In
2013, many ISAF commanders point out that the pace of change seems to be faster than ever
before—they no longer have the luxury of arriving in theater, assessing for 30 days, making
decisions, and then executing. Instead, they must make continual significant adjustments to their
force posture, priorities and approaches.20
Questions that might help inform the debates about the current state of the campaign include:
• What are the most helpful ways to gauge campaign progress, and in particular, to
evaluate qualitative arenas including ANSF confidence, resilience, and unity of
effort?
• What are the most helpful ways to evaluate the strength of the insurgency? In
particular, what does one learn from considering numbers of insurgent attacks,
the sophistication and scale of attacks, the insurgency’s stated intent, the kinds of
targets the insurgency is choosing, and/or fracturing within the insurgent ranks?
19 Interviews with ISAF and Afghan officials, 2009 - 2013. While sourcing, organization, and employment for the
advisory/ enabling mission have varied by troop contributing nation and Military Service, one basic element is the use
of small teams that embed with much larger Afghan units or HQs, or regularly visit them, to provide some combination
of advisory support, oversight, and access to enablers. The U.S. Army, for its part, introduced Security Force
Assistance Brigades (SFABs) – streamlined, smaller brigades that typically use their own organic troops, from the
brigade HQ and subordinate units, to form advisory teams. The SFAB’s smaller size precludes, by definition, “doing it
themselves.” And the use of organic teams, many have suggested, has allowed clearer command and control, compared
to the use of a brigade combat teams (BCT) supported by advisory teams sourced either by individual augmentees or
from a different brigade.
20 Interviews with ISAF officials, 2013.
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• What are the most helpful ways to gauge the effectiveness of coalition forces,
particularly when most of the effects the coalition seeks to generate are indirect?
Next Steps in the Campaign
As of mid-2013, most ISAF and Afghan commanders envisaged a further trajectory for the
campaign in which coalition forces would continue to play supporting roles beyond the end of the
NATO ISAF mission, but those roles would be ever more tailored in scope and smaller in scale.
At the same time, debates continued among the Afghan Government, the U.S. government, and
NATO, about possible parameters for a U.S. “enduring presence” after 2014, and a follow-on,
post-2014 NATO Resolute Support Mission that would succeed ISAF.21 While both the internal
debates and the broader public discussions about them tend to fixate on a single number of troops,
more fundamentally at stake is the purpose of any post-2014 presence, including missions,
authorities, and duration. In a word, what more would need to be done? Two broad roles—
enabling and advising—are frequently mentioned as components of any post-2014 coalition
engagement.
Enabling
“Enabling” efforts by coalition forces generally refer to helping the ANSF integrate, and rely on
in practice, their own organic enablers. Most observers agree that Afghan forces will do things
differently, and with different tools, than coalition forces have done, and Afghan forces may
simply decide not to do some things altogether. Enabling is distinctly an art not a science—its
core challenge is ensuring that a viable “bridge” is in place, between reliance on coalition and
Afghan enablers, strong and sturdy enough to maintain Afghan confidence.
In the intelligence arena, for example, conventional wisdom suggests that Afghan forces will not
enjoy the scope and scale of signals intelligence (SIGINT) that they have seen coalition forces
employ, but Afghan forces will have access to much more finely-tuned human intelligence
(HUMINT) due to their far closer cultural ties with local populations. While the ANSF may not
be able to pinpoint insurgent presence in a particular compound, the thinking goes, they should be
able to identify the relevant village, and then use door-to-door techniques to narrow their search.
But the coalition faces hurdles in enabling ANSF intelligence. One hurdle is cultural—
encouraging the ANSF to conduct genuinely intel-driven operations, that is, basing their
operations squarely on the understandings provided by intelligence, rather than simply “leaping in
the back of a pick-up truck and going off to fight.” Another hurdle is determining when, if ever,
during the ANSF’s transition to reliance on Afghan sources, the coalition should still provide
information to the ANSF based on its own assets. For example, in spring 2013, the ANSF in
Uruzgan had general information about a threat, but the coalition, from its own assets, received
specific information about an imminent attack against the ANSF; the coalition chose to provide
the information in an appropriate form because, according to one ISAF official, “to do otherwise
would have been unethical.”22
21 The Afghan government has made clear that it must formally give permission for any coalition force presence after
2014 – a U.S.-Afghan Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) and a NATO-Afghan status of forces agreement (SOFA).
22 Interviews with ISAF and Afghan officials, 2013.
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Most practitioners and observers cite “air” among the toughest challenges to ANSF reliance on
their own organic enablers. The Afghan Air Force (AAF) is not expected to be fully fielded and
mission capable for several more years, and even when it is, both its capacity and its capabilities
will be relatively limited. For example, in the enabler arena of fires—the use of weapons and
other systems to create a specific lethal or nonlethal effect on a target23—the ANSF have relied
significantly on coalition close air support (CAS), both rotary and fixed-wing, and are eager to
have their own CAS capability. A more realistic solution to the ANSF need to be able to deliver
fires, most agree, is a combination of some CAS and the use of ground-based systems. By mid-
2013, Afghan and ISAF commanders reported, the ANA in some areas had made significant
progress integrating D-30 Howitzers and mortars.24
The enabler arena of casualty evacuation (CASEVAC)—critical for saving lives, and also, over
the longer term, for protecting recruitment and preventing attrition—was the top concern for a
number of ANA Corps Commanders during the first half of 2013. The development timeline and
capacity limitations of the Afghan Air Force make the prospect of a CASEVAC system that relies
wholly on air assets unrealistic. Conventional wisdom suggests that in the future, the ANSF will
conduct CASEVAC using some combination of air and ground. Yet even that more balanced
approach would still require a fairly complex system, including functioning ground and air
transportation; finely honed point-of-injury skills; and available trauma care, whether military or
civilian. Building such a system is plausible, many agree, but will take some time.25
Advising
As Afghan forces increasingly played lead roles, and coalition forces scaled back their activities,
a popular rhetoric emerged among coalition forces of “less is more”—that is, of letting Afghan
forces try first, and even fail at times. That message, many considered, merited underscoring—it
can be hard, it was argued, for hard-charging U.S. commanders on the ground to step back, “lead”
from behind, and let host nation forces solve problems on their own timetable. One unintended
result of the “less is more” message was that the concept of “advising” became conflated with the
idea of simply “doing less.”26
In practice on the ground—and increasingly in coalition theory as well—advising can refer to a
number of different, complementary activities. These include:
23 Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Operations, August 11, 2011, p. xiv, available at http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/
jp3_0.pdf.
24 Interviews with ISAF and ANSF officials, 2013.
25 Interviews with Afghan and ISAF officials, 2013. In mid-2013, Afghan and ISAF officials illustrated the challenges
of building enabler bridges with a cautionary tale from Jagatu, Wardak province. There, some Afghan police took
enemy fire, and one was wounded. The police reached up their own chain of command to make a request to the
Ministry of Defense (MoD), for rotary wing CASEVAC support. The MoD was unable to provide assets right away,
and as the day progressed, it ran into the obstacle that Afghan Mi-17s do not fly at night. Meanwhile, a request for
support was passed to ISAF. But ISAF had no forces anywhere nearby on the ground, and could not send helicopters
into the apparent middle of nowhere; so ISAF declined to support. The wounded Afghan police officer bled out and
died. Some of the Afghan police were reportedly furious ... not with ISAF, but with their own system. The story
highlights the need for realistic but sufficient bridges from coalition to Afghan enablers that protect the Afghan force
and help it maintain its confidence.
26 Interviews with ISAF officials, 2012 and 2013.
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• fostering more effective ANSF leadership through mentoring relationships at the
appropriate levels;
• helping the ANSF build effective staffs—that is, creating not only effective
individual staff sections, such as intelligence, planning, or public affairs, but also
the ability to work together effectively;
• fostering Afghan unity of effort—as an objective in its own right, not an
afterthought—particularly at the provincial level; and
• providing tailored ministerial support, including both technical assistance and
appropriately senior-level managerial mentorship, in order to help Afghans build
prioritized, basic systems. Such systems might include planning; resourcing
against plans; personnel systems that reward merit in promotions and
assignments, select out incompetence, and support operational cycles that help
protect against attrition; and logistics systems that properly anticipate future
needs and avoid hedging against future uncertainty. Such work requires patience
and the recognition that systems cannot simply be built overnight.27
Questions that might help inform the debates about next steps in the campaign include:
• Just how good do the ANSF need to be to contend effectively with anticipated
residual insurgent threats and to sufficiently protect the Afghan people? What
total ANSF endstrength, and what force mix, would that require over time?
• What would be the minimally sufficient mix of enablers that would allow the
ANSF to protect the Afghan people? In order to ensure that Afghan confidence
does not suffer significantly, as the ANSF work to integrate and rely on their own
organic enablers, which enablers should be prioritized? And what direct enabler
support, if any, and for how long, should the coalition be prepared to provide?
• To what extent if any might the ANSF assume some greater risk, functionally or
geographically? That is, are there some things that the ANSF is currently
planning to be able to do, that may not be utterly necessary? Are there some areas
of Afghanistan in which it might be acceptable for ANSF coverage to be thinner,
or even non-existent?
• How sharply defined must the division of labor among Afghan forces be, and by
when will it be necessary to achieve such clarity? In particular, what should be
the role of the Afghan Local Police—initially designed to be a community-based
force to “thicken the lines” in outlying areas, but increasingly focused, like all the
other ANSF, on the campaign priorities of population centers and commerce
routes—in that mix?
• How important is it to provide as much clarity as possible about the scope, scale,
and duration of future U.S. commitment of all kinds, in order to bolster the
confidence of, and discourage hedging by, the ANSF, the Afghan leadership and
27 Interviews with ISAF officials, 2013. Most observers regard the trajectory of coalition support to ministries as
lagging behind the trajectory of coalition support to ANSF unit on the ground. Coalition countries, spurred in part by
the perceived absolute need to keep very basic systems running, for years placed hundreds of personnel at a time in the
Afghan security ministries, often effectively performing Afghan ministerial jobs. That orientation persisted well after
coalition forces, at the tactical level, had begun to shift toward more indirect, supporting roles.
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the Afghan people; to send a clear signal of resolve to the insurgency; and to
catalyze commitments from other coalition partners? To what extent if any might
clear signals of commitment help assuage pervasive Afghan fears of
abandonment?
• What is the most appropriate way to project future requirements for U.S. and
other coalition advisory and enabling support to the ANSF, including how those
requirements might change in quantity and quality over time, given the non-
linearity of ANSF development and the unknown future disposition of the
insurgency? What might be the risks of getting it wrong? What would be the best
way to ensure that a serious troop-to-task analysis is factored into the debates
regarding a potential post-2014 U.S. and coalition force presence in Afghanistan?
• Concerning future counter-terrorism (CT) requirements, from a U.S. perspective,
to what extent should the primary impetus be to retain the ability to take out
targets directly, if needed? To what extent should it be, instead, to make sure that
high-end Afghan forces have CT capabilities sufficient to keep such threats in
check?
• In addition to enabling and advising, and CT, what other purposes might a post-
2014 U.S. force presence in Afghanistan need to serve, toward meeting core U.S.
goals—for example, serving as a deterrent to those who would challenge
Afghanistan’s sovereignty, or providing leverage for U.S. supporting efforts to
Afghanistan’s political process?
• What is the most helpful way to think about the relationship between further
coalition troop drawdowns and Afghan confidence? Under what conditions if any
might Afghan forces simply choose not to undertake a mission from fear of
failure; or to cede territory altogether as too difficult to control; or to make local-
level accommodations with insurgent forces in areas they do not feel confident
they can control? Under what conditions if any might the ANSF—altogether
differently—undertake too-ambitious operations in which they not merely fail,
but fail so catastrophically that it destroys their confidence in their own abilities,
or the confidence of the Afghan people in the ability of the ANSF to protect
them? When if at all might the coalition be in danger of staying too long?
• To what extent might the requirements of retrograde—ensuring the safe return
home of the troops, and the appropriate and responsible disposition of materiel—
be expected to impinge on the time and attention of leaders and troops still
needed for the campaign? Practitioners and observers point out that retrograde
from Afghanistan may prove far more complicated than from Iraq, given
Afghanistan’s difficult terrain; its relative dearth of transportation infrastructure;
and the lack of a “Kuwait” next door, to pause in, on the way home.28
Making Campaign Gains Sustainable
Most observers agree that while campaign progress may deliver security gains, the longer-term
sustainability of those gains will depend on key facets of the broader strategic landscape,
28 Interviews with ISAF and DOD officials, 2012 and 2013.
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including governance, economics, Pakistan and the region, and whether and how the war is
brought to a close. At issue is what it would take in each of these areas, at a minimum, to protect
security gains and make them sustainable.
Governance
Many Afghans and outside observers suggest that sustainability requires an architecture of
responsive governance to direct the ANSF and hold them accountable; to provide access to justice
and the rule of law; to ensure some minimum foundation of economic viability and opportunity;
to inspire the trust of regional neighbors; and to earn at least the tacit confidence of the Afghan
people. Yet today, the practice of governance in Afghanistan is more accurately characterized as
personalized rule: not everyone loses, and indeed many benefit, but the exercise of governance, in
general, is neither predictable nor based on the rule of law.
One fundamental challenge to the practice of responsible governance in Afghanistan is simply
capacity. Afghan officials and international practitioners generally agree that Afghanistan’s highly
centralized system of budgeting, decision-making and distribution functions in fits and starts. In
practice, some of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces have become expert in shaking resources loose from
Kabul—through what amounts to effective lobbying with Kabul-based ministries.29
But in many other cases, including some that might be considered urgent, the system is less
responsive. Panjwayi district of Kandahar province provides a striking example. Panjwayi, a key
approach to Kandahar city—a focal point of the campaign—was long an insurgent sanctuary. In
early 2013, elders in Zangabad, Panjwayi—emboldened in part by the appointment of a new
District Chief of Police (DCoP) originally from their own area, whom they trusted enough to ask
for help—decided to stand up to persistent Taliban intimidation. The DCoP helped rally a broader
ANSF response, including the establishment of many more Afghan local police. In the wake of
the uprising, Kandahar Provincial Governor Toryalai Wesa visited Panjwayi, called for greater
access to schools and clinics to help solidify the security gains, and pledged to seek support from
the relevant ministries in Kabul. While Kandaharis themselves were able to build or repair a
number of schools and clinics, Kabul was slow to provide operations and maintenance funds, or
personnel to staff the facilities. So as part of the solution, ANA soldiers were assigned to teach
school in Panjwayi—a creative solution but not a sustainable one.30
Another even more pernicious challenge to responsive governance is corruption, not only in the
sense of individual rent-seeking behaviors, but more broadly in the sense of the pervasive,
voracious contestation for political and economic power and influence, which consistently
cannibalizes the formal Afghan state. Major players within the formal system—from Provincial
Governors including Gul Agha Sherzai of Nangarhar and Atta Mohammad Noor of Balkh, to
Police Chiefs Matiullah Khan of Uruzgan and Abdul Raziq of Kandahar—draw on that system to
distribute patronage.
As of mid-2013, perhaps nowhere was the contestation for power and influence more visible than
it was in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. The area featured multiple tribes striving for
29 Interviews with Afghan and U.S. officials, 2012 and 2013.
30 As one ISAF official quipped, “Good thing we taught ‘em how to read!” Interviews with Afghan civilian, ANSF, and
ISAF officials, 2013.
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ascendancy, untold potential poppy profits at stake, the deeply vested interests of the Akundzada
family with its close ties to the Presidential Palace in Kabul, the use of district-level
governorships and police chief posts as pawns in the power struggle at the expense of local order,
a Taliban all too eager to take advantage of any local-level political vacuums, and a relatively new
Helmand Provincial Governor eager to broker a big-tent solution in northern Helmand if only
President Karzai would give him significantly expanded gubernatorial authorities. As one ISAF
commander observed, “It’s Helmand—it will always be corrupt!”31
The international community has struggled for years with the tension between Afghanistan’s need
for some reasonable foundation of governance, and the inherent challenges of supporting the
construction of such a foundation from the outside. One of the main conclusions of the 2009
McChrystal Assessment was that governance needed to be on par with security as a focus of the
campaign, in order for the campaign to succeed. The basic theory was that the primary arbiter of
lasting stability in Afghanistan is the Afghan people—the extent to which they accept the system
and are able to hold it accountable. But subsequent efforts by the international community were
distinctly uneven in both intent and effects. They included attempts to define the minimal
governance requirements at the district level by focusing on the tashkil (personnel roster); to
create positive and negative incentive structures to shape the activities of key powerbrokers; to
build capacity in key ministries, all too often by doing the work directly; and to nudge the Afghan
system into replacing local officials deemed by local residents to be truly up to no good.32
Meanwhile, many Afghan thought leaders have pointed to a potentially powerful remedy to help
correct perceived power imbalances and the lack of accountability—the growing, and
increasingly organized and powerful, voices of Afghan civil society organizations, women’s
groups, media outlets, private sector pioneers, religious authorities, and traditional local councils.
Many Afghans suggest that these voices have great potential to help hold governance in check—if
they are given time to develop. And while some support from the international community would
be welcome, they say—including technical and advisory support, and continued guarantees of
basic security—it is Afghans who would do, indeed are doing, the lion’s share of the work.33
Many observers suggest that the Afghan presidential elections scheduled to be held in April 2014
offer an opportunity to catalyze constructive changes in Afghan governance.34 Some frame the
elections as not merely an opportunity but also a concern, arguing that egregious perceived failure
in either the process or the outcome could sharply derail Afghan confidence in the future and
exacerbate widespread hedging behaviors. Others caution that the elections ought not to be
regarded as a panacea, stressing that Afghanistan’s capacity and corruption challenges cannot be
solved overnight, and encouraging a view of the elections as a catalyst of a longer-term,
constitutionally-based political process.
U.S. policy was arguably slow to recognize the criticality, in the eyes of many Afghans, of the
2014 elections, but that perception has notably shifted. At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee
hearing in July 2013, for example, Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan
Ambassador James Dobbins argued: “ ... we must be clear that our main priority for the coming
31 Interviews with Afghan and ISAF officials, 2013.
32 See McChrystal Assessment, 2009; and Interviews with ISAF officials, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013.
33 Interviews with Afghan thought leaders, 2012 and 2013.
34 The presidential elections are mandated by the Afghan Constitution. The Constitution provides that a President may
serve only two terms, rendering President Karzai ineligible to contest the elections.
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year is neither the military transition, nor the reconciliation process, but rather the political
transition that will occur when Afghan people choose a new president and a new president takes
office next year.”35
Questions that might help inform the debates about Afghan governance include:
• How “good” does good Afghan governance need to be? What would be sufficient
in the eyes of Afghans?
• How do Afghans envisage “accountability” and the mechanisms necessary to
make it work? What might the U.S. government do to support their vision?
• What kind of durable stability can be achieved in a system based in part on self-
interested powerbrokers largely unconstrained by accountability mechanisms?
What impact might relatively unchecked corruption have in the longer-run on
security and economic development?
• How might the international community most effectively speak with one voice to
leverage the potential opportunities of the Tokyo Mutual Accountability
Framework—a pointed set of commitments, part of the Tokyo Declaration, aimed
in part at countering corruption?
• How critical are the 2014 Afghan presidential elections to the future development
of Afghan governance? At a minimum, how good do the process and the outcome
need to be, so that the Afghan people maintain basic confidence in the system, or
at a bare minimum do not reject that system outright?
• What forms of support to the Afghan electoral process might it be appropriate for
the U.S. and other international partners to provide, such as helping ensure safe
and secure conditions throughout the campaigning and election seasons; offering
technical support to help ensure accountable, functioning electoral mechanisms;
urging that the elections be conducted in accordance with the Afghan
Constitution; and/or encouraging broadly participatory elections?
• From a U.S. perspective, how might the democratic advantages of a broadly
participatory process with many candidates best be reconciled with the potential
advantages in terms of stability of the emergence of a consensus candidate?
• What opportunities might there be, post-election, for the international community
to work with Afghanistan’s new leadership, which may also include new
ministerial and gubernatorial appointees—and which might, in the wake of the
elections, be more accountable to the Afghan people—to support the further
development of a Constitutionally-based Afghan political process?
• To what extent do alternative voices in Afghanistan—including civil society, the
private sector, the media, and traditional local authority structures—have the
potential to contribute to a system of checks and balances by which the Afghan
people can hold government accountable? In particular, how important is the
protection of women to that emerging system? To what extent if any, and in what
35 See Ambassador James Dobbins, Senate Foreign Relations Committee full hearing “Transition in Afghanistan,” July
11 2013, transcript.
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ways, might the international community support the further development of
such voices?
Economics
Afghanistan’s future economic viability is critical for ensuring that security gains are sustainable
over the longer-term. In principle, Afghanistan’s natural resources, agricultural potential, and
human capital could form the basis for a viable future economy. But Afghanistan is on an
ambitious timeline, trying to achieve significant economic self-sufficiency by 2024—first of all
by improving its ability to generate, collect, and spend revenues—and by any measure that will
be a stretch.36
Efforts by the international community to help Afghans foster a working economy have been
decidedly mixed. Years of relatively indiscriminate spending by the international community led
to an array of unproductive or counterproductive results, including an inability to track money
spent; the flow of assistance funds out of the country; the distortion of labor markets; investment
in systems or components that Afghans did not want or could not sustain; and the empowerment
of “thugs.”37
Recent years have witnessed somewhat stronger collaboration both between the international
community and the Afghan Government, and within the international community, aimed at
crafting and pursuing a single approach toward further economic development. The so-called
Kabul process encouraged a shared focus on prioritized Afghan systems including infrastructure,
transportation, financial mechanisms, the judicial sector, and human capital. At the July 2012
Tokyo Conference, participants pledged support through the Decade of Transformation and
affirmed their commitment to the Kabul Process principles.38 Meanwhile, a corresponding
paradigm shift among practitioners on the ground echoed the same theme of “making Afghan
systems work.” That shift, many noted, was driven in part by necessity, as international assistance
funding diminished and—more strikingly—international civilian presence on the ground was
curtailed.39
Questions that might help inform the debates about Afghanistan’s economy include:
• While commitments from the U.S. government and NATO have extended the
timeline of “commitment” out to 2024, will this provide sufficient time for
Afghans to build a largely self-sustaining economy?
36 For solar year (SY) 1392, the Afghan government expects to collect approximately $2.5 billion in domestic revenues.
Afghanistan’s budget for SY 1392 is $6.8 billion, which includes some international support, in addition to domestic
revenues. The budget does not reflect substantial off-budget assistance from international grants and loans. See
Ministry of Finance, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 1392 National Budget, available at http://mof.gov.af/en/
documents.
37 Interviews with ISAF, U.S., and coalition officials, and Afghan thought leaders, 2009 - 2013.
38 Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Towards a Self-Sustaining Afghanistan: An Economic
Transition Strategy, November 29, 2011; Afghanistan and the International Community: From Transition to the
Transformation Decade, Conference Conclusions, the International Afghanistan Conference in Bonn, December 5,
2011; and Tokyo Declaration: Partnership for Self-Reliance in Afghanistan, from Transition to Transformation, from
the Tokyo Conference on Afghanistan, July 8, 2012.
39 Interviews with U.S., Afghan, and other international officials, 2011 - 2013.
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• What legal constructs and accountability mechanisms would have to be in place
and what other minimum conditions met, in order for Afghanistan to maximize
the potential of its mineral resources and potential agricultural productivity?
• Given that most observers agree that it will take time for Afghans to develop the
ability to generate, collect, and spend revenues, and that international assistance
is likely to diminish significantly in the near term, what are the risks to Afghan
stability in the near term? To what extent and in what ways might the
international community help mitigate any such risks?
• How might the real, palpable prospect of economic viability boost prospects for
progress in other critical arenas—security transition and the political process?
What impact, in turn, might the absence of a plausible economic future have on
those arenas?
• Professions of commitment notwithstanding, how much assistance are members
of the international community likely to provide to Afghanistan through 2024,
given the significant financial pressures and competing demands that they are
likely to face at home?
Pakistan and the Region
Most observers agree that it is hard to imagine a stable Afghanistan in isolation.
The country most intimately intertwined with Afghanistan’s future is Pakistan. The relationship is
necessarily an intimate one—the international border between them—the British-drawn Durand
Line—cuts through territory inhabited, on both sides, by sizable ethnic Pashtun populations. Yet
the relationship is also fraught—Afghan insurgents have long taken advantage of the largely
porous border to enjoy safe haven and other forms of support inside Pakistan; and Afghanistan
has frequently served as an arena for proxy contestation between the nuclear-armed states of
Pakistan and India.
Many practitioners point to great potential for a mutually beneficial Afghan-Pakistani future
strategic partnership, based on mutual recognition of sovereignty and shared interests in
economic opportunity and security. Yet to date, observers note, a fundamental lack of good faith
persists. That gap at the strategic level, many point out, increases the volatility of tactical-level
border disputes; frustrates efforts to reduce or eliminate safe havens that directly support
insurgent activities in Afghanistan; and complicates Pakistan’s involvement in efforts to broker a
political settlement in Afghanistan.
U.S. government policy has long recognized the central importance of Pakistan to Afghanistan’s
future, but has struggled to formulate an effective, strategically-grounded approach for shaping
regional dynamics. One major premise of the 2009 McChrystal Assessment was that Pakistan
would need to take some action to help curb the use of safe havens in Pakistan by Afghan
insurgents, in order for the campaign to succeed. Based on that premise—and with greater force
density and a more robust command architecture—ISAF intensified its efforts to foster trilateral
(Afghan-Pakistani-ISAF) mil-to-mil contacts at the tactical level, including border coordination
meetings, and at the operational level, including planning conferences.40 Those outreach efforts
40 One aim of those conferences, only very partially realized, was the conduct of “complementary” operations
(continued...)
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experienced major setbacks in the wake of the May 2011 U.S. operation that targeted Osama bin
Laden, and the November 2011 border incident at Salala, Pakistan, in which a number of
Pakistani soldiers were killed or wounded. In 2013, ISAF significantly enhanced its focus on
fostering Afghan-Pakistani bilateral engagement, yet both tactical-level challenges such as cross-
border fires, and strategic-level challenges including a fundamental lack of good faith, persisted.41
The Afghan-Pakistani bilateral relationship is part of a much broader regional fabric,
encompassing not only immediate neighbors including Iran and some Central Asian states, but
also major players including China, India and Russia. Most observers suggest that durable
stability in Afghanistan will depend in part on broader regional dynamics.
Questions that might help inform the debates about Pakistan and the region include:
• What impact if any would closer Afghan-Pakistani mil-to-mil ties be likely to
have on the broader, civilian-led, Afghan-Pakistani strategic partnership? What
implications might that hold for U.S. engagement?
• What opportunities might there be to leverage the security and economic interests
of major regional players such as China in support of bringing the war in
Afghanistan to an end and providing an enduring foundation for stability?
• What impact if any would stability in Afghanistan—or its absence—be likely to
have on other key U.S. national security concerns in the region including
potential future proliferation in Pakistan, or a possible Pakistani-Indian nuclear
confrontation?
• How robustly developed is U.S. strategic thinking about the South Asian region?
Might it be useful to take a renewed hard look at U.S. national security interests
in the region; at the enduring interests of all major regional stakeholders; at an
appropriate future vision for the region; and at the combination of tools of
national power that might be applied over time to most effectively help realize
that vision?
How Does This End?
Most agree that the war in Afghanistan, with all its related challenges and underlying causes, is
unlikely to end a decisive victory on the battlefield. But broad disagreement persists regarding
how the conflict might be resolved in a way that lays a lasting foundation of stability in
Afghanistan and—from a U.S. perspective—protects U.S. interests over the long-term.
A prominent current approach to war termination, the Doha process, is based on a rather narrow
concept of “reconciliation”—a high-level, top-down deal between the Afghan leadership and the
Taliban, against a relatively short timeline. As most frequently described, those efforts seek to
(...continued)
conducted simultaneously on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border, designed to leave insurgents nowhere to seek
sanctuary.
41 Interviews with ISAF officials, 2009 – 2013. See Investigation into the Incident in Vicinity of the Salala Checkpoint
on the Night of 25-26 Nov 2011, redacted, a report by Brigadier General Stephen A. Clark, U.S. Central Command,
December 26, 2011, available at http://www.centcom.mil/images/stories/Crossborder/
report%20exsum%20further%20redacted.pdf.
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identify common ground between the primary belligerents, and to use discrete confidence-
building measures, in specific functional or geographic areas, as steps toward a formal agreement.
The June 18, 2013, opening of the Taliban political office in Doha, Qatar, was a major event in
this process—though by many accounts it went terribly awry, infuriating many Afghans, when the
Taliban insisted on portraying the office as the political representation of the Afghan people and
themselves as representatives of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the country’s formal name
under Taliban rule.42
U.S. policy broadly supports this approach to reconciliation, framing it as “Afghans talking to
Afghans.” U.S. officials have articulated three U.S. “red lines” for the outcome of any such
process—that insurgents renounce violence, renounce al Qaeda, and accept the Afghan
Constitution.43
Meanwhile, a number of Afghans have suggested that any such deal—between the current
government, which they do not trust, and the Taliban leadership, which they fear—would hardly
be likely to provide most Afghans with an inspiring shared vision of the future. Consequently,
some Afghans and a number of outside observers have suggested that a more fruitful approach
might be to recast war termination as a longer-term political settlement process, one that brings to
bear the full participation of the Afghan people. In such a process, based on an inclusive national
dialogue among all key sectors of society, Afghans might agree amongst themselves on a shared
future vision of Afghanistan—one that includes former Northern Alliance members and southern
Pashtuns, urban and rural populations, tribal elders and members of Afghanistan’s burgeoning
youth population. That national dialogue, many Afghans stress, is already underway.44 A longer
timeline might help dispel the apparent sense of urgency that leads insurgent leaders to up their
“asks” and prompts the Afghan leadership to seriously consider potentially detrimental
compromises. And a plausible future vision—even though not yet realized—might help dispel the
grim uncertainty that prompts so many Afghans to hedge, for example by seeking support from
patronage networks, or exploring emigration opportunities, or acquiescing in local-level
accommodations with insurgents.45
Most broadly, many practitioners and observers point to the absence of a robust strategic logic
linking together the roles of the Doha process, the campaign on the ground, the elections and
broader political process, economic development, and regional dynamics, into a single overall
approach.
Questions that might help inform the debates about how the war ends include:
• What strategic logic, if any, links, over time, the campaign on the ground,
Afghanistan’s political process including the upcoming elections, further
economic development, regional dynamics, and some form of reconciliation with
42 Many suggest that the Doha office opening went awry in another sense, by effectively trumping and overshadowing
the announcement and celebration of Milestone 2013 that took place on the same day.
43 U.S. policy initially framed these red lines as conditions that must be met before the Taliban began to participate in
any negotiations process. Interviews with U.S. officials, 2011 - 2013.
44 Presidential Advisor Dr. Ashraf Ghani has long been a leading advocate for fostering a robust national dialogue. He
practices what he preaches, traveling widely across Afghanistan. He pointedly observes that a vibrant dialogue is
indeed underway, even though most of the international community fails to recognize it because most of them don’t
speak Dari.
45 Interviews with Afghan thought leaders, 2012 and 2013.
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War in Afghanistan: Campaign Progress, Political Strategy, and Issues for Congress
the Taliban? How might these elements best inform each other over? Which of
the elements would actually be required, and which might be optional, in order to
ensure some foundation of stability in Afghanistan and to protect U.S. interests
over the longer term?
• How necessary, if at all, is the achievement of a formal political agreement
among former belligerents, to Afghanistan’s stable future? Is it essential, and if
so, does the timing matter? Is it, instead, a potentially helpful catalyst for
Afghanistan’s further political development, but not essential to it?
• Alternatively, to what extent if any might the pursuit of a formal political
agreement between former belligerents have negative repercussions in other
arenas, for example security, emerging national dialogue, political participation,
or economic investment? How should these potential costs and benefits be
balanced?
A Final Word
Looking ahead, some suggest that it is much easier, and in many ways more reassuring, to picture
Afghanistan two years out than to try to visualize it five years out. Two years out, it is not hard to
imagine, an Afghanistan—though still beset with great challenges—that enjoys an ever more
competent ANSF, ever more reliant on its own enablers; better security in population centers and
along commerce routes; and a new political leadership enjoying some sort of a honeymoon
period. That vision, many would agree, is at the very least plausible.
Five years out, the picture seems much more difficult to predict. The image easiest to visualize
may be that of Afghanistan as a palimpsest of overlapping, often competing, and sometimes
mutually contradictory dynamics: self-regulating, roughly inclusive traditional forms of
organization and dispute resolution at the local level; a highly centralized governance architecture
based on the Bonn process that still struggles with insufficient capacity; a highly articulated
system of informal power and influence networks, reaching inside and outside government,
making decisions and distributing resources; some emerging institutions, particularly the Army,
with truly national equities, impatient with others who do not share the same values; some limited
economic opportunity, tempered by hedging behaviors driven by lingering uncertainty about the
future; and some increasingly organized popular voices including those of the media and civil
society writ large; together with some measure of continued though deeply diminished
international support, and a whole array of deepening, sometimes-constructive and sometimes-
adversarial, relationships with neighboring states. Further, it is not hard to imagine such a
palimpsest either as a foundation for nascent stability, or as a set of precursors for civil war.
It seems reasonable to suggest that choices made in the near term, by the U.S., by the rest of the
international community, and most of all by Afghans, will powerfully shape the interplay of all
the major Afghan stakeholders a little further down the road.
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Author Contact Information
Catherine Dale
Specialist in International Security
cdale@crs.loc.gov, 7-8983
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