Buscador avanzado

An Afghan woman walks on the street during a snowfall in Kabul, Afghanistan, 3 January 2022. REUTERS / Ali Khara

The UN Security Council faces hard choices about the future of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). The UN’s role in Afghanistan has grown more important following the Taliban victory in August 2021 and the shuttering of many embassies and international organisations. UNAMA, originally launched in 2002 after the U.S. toppled the first Taliban government, has stayed in place, acting as a point of contact for engagement with the new Taliban authorities. The mission also has the potential to serve as the “eyes and ears” on the ground for outside powers and aid donors, monitoring the human rights situation and coordinating the work of UN agencies in responding to the country’s economic and humanitarian crisis.…  Seguir leyendo »

Primavera de 2010, atardecer en Qala e Naw, capital de Badghis, noroeste de Afganistán. Después de una intensa jornada de trabajo, recibo la llamada de mi teniente coronel jefe de Batallón, desplegado en la todavía muy precaria base avanzada de operaciones de Sang Atesh, a unos 60 kilómetros de mi cuartel general, y hasta hace unos días dominada por la insurgencia talibán, donde el despliegue de los legionarios españoles, junto a soldados y policías afganos, empieza a llevar la tranquilidad a la zona. Recibo novedades del día. A pesar de las duras condiciones de vida y el clima extremo, la moral de nuestros soldados es elevada.…  Seguir leyendo »

Le 28 décembre 2014, au quartier général de l’OTAN à Kaboul, le drapeau vert de la Force internationale d’assistance à la sécurité (FIAS) a fait place à un autre drapeau vert, celui de la mission Resolute Support, permise par la signature par le président Ashraf Ghani, dès sa prise de fonction fin septembre 2014, de l’accord bilatéral de sécurité avec Washington et de la convention sur le statut des forces de l’OTAN.

Quelque 12 500 hommes resteront en Afghanistan, dont 10 000 Américains, pour poursuivre la formation des forces de sécurité afghanes, alors que les attaques des talibans et autres attentats-suicides se poursuivent.…  Seguir leyendo »

Figura 1. Afganistán: víctimas civiles anuales, 2007-2011

Tema: Los incidentes de los últimos meses en Afganistán han desatado especulaciones sobre un adelanto de la retirada de las tropas internacionales sobre el calendario previsto por la OTAN.

Resumen: Desde que EEUU puso fecha a la retirada de tropas, los gobiernos y las fuerzas que participan en ISAF se preocupan por lo que ocurrirá hasta entonces, mientras que los afganos se preocupan por lo que les ocurrirá después. La coalición ha asumido la estrategia de salida diseñada por EEUU que se desarrolla conforme a un calendario que cada vez tiene menos que ver con las condiciones de seguridad y estabilidad de Afganistán y más con las condiciones políticas y económicas de los países que participan en ISAF.…  Seguir leyendo »

Many are criticizing the Obama administration's decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan in 2013. They say it is too soon.

I say it is not soon enough. After spending the past year working in Afghanistan trying to account for billions of dollars spent there by U.S. taxpayers, I say why wait another year? Let's bring our military and civilian personnel home — now.

Our mission to remove Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders has been accomplished. But our attempts to build a peaceful, more modern and democratic Afghanistan are failing miserably.

Implementing a nation-building plan in a country that is unprepared, unwilling and unable to accept the fundamental components of a democratic state is an impossible mission.…  Seguir leyendo »

Le 21 mars, jour de l'an en Afghanistan, commence le transfert à l'armée afghane de la sécurité du territoire. Le président Karzaï en a ainsi décidé le 7 février à Munich devant l'Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord (OTAN) à la surprise des observateurs. Tout au plus savait-on qu'en 2014 l'Etat afghan assurerait sa propre sécurité et la gestion de l'aide internationale pour la reconstruction.

Hamid Karzaï et le secrétaire général de l'OTAN Anders Fogh Rasmussen se montrent optimistes, bien que d'après les rapports d'experts, les militaires et les policiers afghans soient peu motivés, mal préparés et corrompus, et que les talibans, chassés fin 2001, occupent maintenant les trois quarts du pays.…  Seguir leyendo »

En el recuerdo de los hechos luctuosos que nos han arrebatado a tres de los mejores hombres destacados en misión expedicionaria, es importante afirmar que su sacrificio, y el de tantos otros, no debe ser inútil, que ellos no estarían contentos si se renunciara a la presencia de las Fuerzas Armadas y de Seguridad del Estado en ese martirizado país, y que es posible, y debemos, vencer en Afganistán.

Asistimos a un peligroso juego en los países occidentales, y especialmente en España, sobre el criterio político de los conflictos en que participan las fuerzas expedicionarias españolas. Bien están los debates constructivos reglamentarios sobre política de defensa, en que cada partido representante de una parte de la población española expresa sus anhelos para mayor perfeccionamiento de la defensa de España, y sobre todo para reforzarla, pero no para debilitarla.…  Seguir leyendo »

International conferences are ten a penny; many deliver little more than long communiqués and longer speeches. Today, almost 70 world leaders will meet in London to take forward the international effort to bring peace to Afghanistan — and this conference must and will be different. It must deliver results.

The urgency is clear. A few weeks ago 36 countries in the Nato-led Isaf (International Security Assistance Force) mission agreed to send 37,000 more forces, on top of the 80,000 soldiers in Afghanistan. Right now thousands of international forces are flowing in. This is an important demonstration of solidarity with the Afghan people, and a strong rebuttal to anyone who suggests that our nations are looking for the door.…  Seguir leyendo »

For decades, Europeans have heard an enduring message from the United States: Do more. Carry your weight. Don't make America do all the heavy lifting. And this message has been delivered, loud and clear, once again, on Afghanistan.

An honest assessment would conclude that over the years these complaints have occasionally had some foundation. The United States has played a central role in defending the values and the security of the Euro-Atlantic community -- something for which Europeans are grateful.

But that honest assessment would also conclude that Europe can pull its weight. That Europe can deliver and can be a real partner for the United States.…  Seguir leyendo »

The president will soon announce the deployment of additional U.S. forces to Afghanistan, in a speech likely to emphasize the importance of political progress there. Legitimacy is the most important outcome of a counterinsurgency strategy, not, as some have suggested, an input. It is unfortunate that much of the debate has ignored the role that additional military forces can play in building legitimacy and effective government in a counterinsurgency. Adding forces gives us leverage; military forces are vital to the success of any political strategy because they contribute directly to improving governance as well as to improving security.

The recent American experience in Iraq illustrates how U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

The news from Afghanistan has been grim. The collapse of the second round of the national elections; Hamid Karzai's government tainted by corruption; and, last week, five British soldiers killed by a rogue Afghan policeman in Nad-e'Ali. All the while, Washington continues to dither over its strategy. Small wonder that the British public have lost faith in this war: 57% now think it unwinnable.

However, on the ground in Afghanistan things look a little more optimistic. I have just spent two weeks in Helmand, talking to dozens of civilian stabilisation advisers and military officers. Predictably, everybody complains about the shortage of helicopters (with good reason).…  Seguir leyendo »

As governments reconsider strategies in Afghanistan, stories abound about why achieving progress in this "graveyard of empires" is so challenging: The country is racked by violence and opium production; confidence in the government is weak; its neighbors meddle; and fiercely independent tribes distrust any intruder -- whether from Britain, the Soviet Union, NATO or Kabul.

The World Bank Group's experience in Afghanistan reflects all these problems. This is one of the most difficult environments in which we work. Yet we have seen real, measurable progress: in the health sector, education, community development, microfinance and telecommunications. Since 2002, the World Bank has committed nearly $2 billion to these and other projects and manages, with partners, a $3.2 billion trust fund for 30 donor countries.…  Seguir leyendo »

“I hope people who say this war is unwinnable see stories like this. This is what winning in a counterinsurgency looks like.”

Lt. Col. William F. McCollough, commander of the First Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment, is walking me around the center of Nawa, a poor, rural district in southern Afghanistan’s strategically vital Helmand River Valley. His Marines, who now number more than 1,000, arrived in June to clear out the Taliban stronghold. Two weeks of hard fighting killed two Marines and wounded 70 more but drove out the insurgents. Since then the colonel’s men, working with 400 Afghan soldiers and 100 policemen, have established a “security bubble” around Nawa.…  Seguir leyendo »

I remember interviewing two young Helmand farmers in early 2006. They had travelled to the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, from the remote north of the province looking for work.

I wanted to ask them about the impending arrival of British Forces. As I ran through my questions their faces were blank. They had not heard of British soldiers coming to Helmand, nor had they heard of a country called Britain, its capital London or its famous export, the BBC.

In a country as remote, as impoverished and as poorly educated as Afghanistan, how much does it matter who the country’s president is, how he is elected and whether that election passes standards we regard as basic requirements for democracy?…  Seguir leyendo »

As President Obama and his advisers contemplate a new course for Afghanistan, many commentators are suggesting analogies with earlier conflicts, particularly the war in Vietnam. Such comparisons can be useful, but only if the characterizations of earlier wars are accurate and lessons are appropriately applied.

Vietnam is particularly tricky. While avoiding the missteps made there is of course a priority, few seem aware of the many successful changes in strategy undertaken in the later years of the conflict. The credit for those accomplishments goes in large part to three men: Ellsworth Bunker, who became the American ambassador to South Vietnam in 1967; William Colby, the C.I.A.…  Seguir leyendo »

House minority leader John Boehner has accused President Barack Obama of endangering the mission in Afghanistan by "delaying action" on sending more troops. But present policy would require more troops than America could ever send – as many as 650,000 troops for the next 12 to 14 years, according to the US army and marine corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual metrics. This commitment of time and resources cannot be accomplished at a cost acceptable to Americans.

Many critics of the war, including Boehner, are not asking the right question when it comes to the eight-year campaign in Afghanistan: not whether the war is winnable, but whether the mission constitutes a vital national security interest.…  Seguir leyendo »

Four months after the Sept. 11 attacks, with the Taliban on the run from invading U.S. forces, then-Sen. Joe Biden was the first U.S. elected official to arrive in Kabul. Biden was head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and his first meeting, even before seeing President Hamid Karzai, was with Afghanistan's education minister.

Biden asked how the United States could help, certain that the reply would include funding requests to rebuild war-damaged schools and money for equipment, desks, even pencils. The minister surprised Biden by saying he needed just three things: security, security, security. Without it, he argued, parents wouldn't allow their children to walk the streets to go to school, nor would older students and teachers feel safe enough to drive the roads to attend college.…  Seguir leyendo »

1.- Reform or Go Home.
By David Kilcullen, a former adviser to Gen. David Petraeus and the author of The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One.

Counterinsurgency is only as good as the government it supports. NATO could do everything right — it isn’t — but will still fail unless Afghans trust their government. Without essential reform, merely making the government more efficient or extending its reach will just make things worse.

Only a legitimately elected Afghan president can enact reforms, so at the very least we need to see a genuine run-off election or an emergency national council, called a loya jirga, before winter.…  Seguir leyendo »

The top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, is right to warn that efforts to rebuild that country depend on winning the “struggle to gain the support of the people.” And few issues do more to stoke the resentment of ordinary Afghans than the tens of billions of dollars of foreign aid from which they have seen little or no benefit. They see legions of Westerners sitting in the backs of S.U.V.’s clogging the streets of Kabul and ask themselves what exactly those foreigners have done to improve their daily lives.

Eight years after the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Post asked foreign policy experts whether President Obama should maintain a focus on protecting the population and rebuilding the country, or on striking terrorists. Below are contributions from Jane Harman, Kurt Volker, Gilles Dorronsoro, John Nagl, Ronald E. Neumann, Meghan O'Sullivan and Carl M. Levin.

Jane Harman, Democratic representative from California and former ranking member of the House intelligence committee.

It's too early to abandon a strategy focused on protecting the population and rebuilding the country, a key part of which is Afghan buy-in. We should aim to shrink our ground footprint and focus on training a growing army of willing and courageous Afghans.…  Seguir leyendo »