Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: Intervention

Intervention

Karzai’s legacy may surprise us

AAN •

Dawn/Washington Post, 6 April 2014 In an article looking at the legacy of President Hamed Karzai, AAN's Martine van Bijlert requests some more balance: “In the beginning, Karzai was viewed through rose-tinted glasses,” said Martine van Bijlert, co-director of the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network. “Now, there’s a very negative view of him, particularly in the […]

AAN in the Media Read more

External Publication: Einiges besser, nichts wirklich gut (Some things better, nothing really good)

Thomas Ruttig •

WeltTrends, January/February 2014 In this German-language article, AAN’s Thomas Ruttig attempts to draw a balance of the twelve years of the US/NATO-led intervention in Afghanistan. Looking at the security situation, the state of the insurgency, achievements and shortcomings in reconstruction, the economy and institution building and at the often-overlooked social situation of the population. He concludes that […]

Special Reports Read more

Some Things Got Better – How Much Got Good? A review of 12 years of international intervention in Afghanistan

Thomas Ruttig •

2013 marked the year in which the international community started to wrap up many of the initiatives to re-build Afghanistan – arguably the biggest international effort since the post-Word-War-II Marshal Plan. But where did this effort leave the country? For AAN’s year-end piece, co-director Thomas Ruttig has summarised what has happened, what has been achieved – […]

International Engagement Read more

Advice to Libya on advisors: just say no!

Kate Clark •

Those watching or listening to the news from Libya can only hope for a speedy and peaceful resolution. At AAN, we were concerned to hear that the Libyan people, having suffered more than four decades of dictatorship and now six months of war, are about to be descended upon by western ‘stabilisation advisors’, as AAN […]

War and Peace Read more

Guest Blog: We are One Tribe – and Live in The Society of Intervention

Michael Daxner •

A critique of intervening half-education, in reply to Major Jim Gant’s much-read blog and paper ‘One Tribe at a Time’. By Prof. Michael Daxner (*) Important notice for the readers: it is unusual for blogs to annotate them with references from scientific literature. However, I will use some special terms that may raise your interest […]

International Engagement Read more

An Honest Transfer or ‘The Devil May Care’?

Thomas Ruttig •

‘Transfer of Security Responsibility’ is one of the latest buzzwords in Afghanistan. It is part of the NATO strategy also sometimes described as ‘Afghanisation’. But, maybe, the latter resounds too closely with the term ‘Vietnamisation’. So, it is more probable that we will have to get used to yet another acronym: TSR. The ‘TSR’ concept […]

War and Peace Read more

Recommended readings: 114,000 plus…

Thomas Ruttig •

With the US troop surge and announcements at and around the London conference that additional troops will be deployed from other NATO countries, NATO and its allies are now exceeding the number of troops the Soviet Union had sent to occupy the country between 1979 and 1989. This does not include contractors from private military […]

War and Peace Read more

Wondering where all of this is going

Martine van Bijlert •

Back in Kabul, I am struck by the sense underlying most conversations that things are happening above people’s heads, out of their reach and largely unseen. The London conference seems to have confused more than it has clarified and the questions that are always latently present are becoming more pronounced: What are the foreigners doing? […]

International Engagement Read more

An Ugly Kind of Security

Thomas Ruttig •

The new security regulations announced in the US already draw criticism. Rightly so because they smell like racial and political profiling – plus a pinch of the bad old ‘axis of evil’ thinking. All citizens of Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen plus ‘nations considered “state sponsors of terrorism”’ […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Subscribe to receive updates from the Afghanistan Analysts Network

Sign up