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Opening Thoughts

  1. Ronald E. Neumann, The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2009), 217.
  2. Eric Edelman, Understanding America's Contested Primacy (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, 2010), 77.

Introduction

  1. This work relies heavily on Joseph J. Collins, The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: A Study in the Use of Force in Soviet Foreign Policy (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1986); "Afghanistan: The Path to Victory," Joint Force Quarterly 54 (3d Quarter, 2009), available at <http://www.ndu.edu/press/lib/images/jfq-54/16.pdf>; "No Reason to Quit: Afghanistan Requires Our Greater Effort and Will, Not Less," Armed Forces Journal 147, no. 3, October 2009, available at <http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2009/10/4266860/>; "Afghan Reconciliation," Armed Forces Journal, March 2010, available at <http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2010/03/4491210/>; and "The Way Ahead in Afghanistan," Armed Forces Journal, July 2010, available at <http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2010/07/4653525>.

Chapter 1

  1. The best readily available sources for geographic, economic, and demographic information on Afghanistan are U.S. Department of State, Background Note: Afghanistan, March 2010, available at <http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5380.htm>; and Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, pages on Afghanistan, October 2010, available at <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/af.html>.
  2. U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), "Remarks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in a Moderated Conversation" [with Secretary Hillary Clinton and Ambassador William Taylor, the moderator], May 13, 2010, available at <http://www.state.gov/secretary/ rm/2010/05/141825.htm>. The U.S. Geological Service estimates the value at $1 trillion.
  3. I first heard Lieutenant General Eikenberry say this in 2005 both in Kabul and in Washington, DC.
  4. For a standard source on modern-day Pashtun tribal issues, see Tom Johnson and M. Chris Mason, "No Sign until the Burst of Fire: Understanding the Pakistan-Afghanistan Frontier," International Security 32, no. 4 (Spring 2008), 41–77.
  5. See Thomas Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 26–27.
  6. Louis Dupree, Afghanistan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 125–127.
  7. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, 2d ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 32.
  8. On Abdur Rahman Khan, the Iron Emir, see Martin Ewans, Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics (New York: Harper Perennial, 2002), 98–111. The quotation can be found in Dupree, Afghanistan, 415.

Chapter 2

  1. The rivalry between eastern and southern Pashtuns is highlighted in Barfield.
  2. Troop strength for the "Army of the Indus" from ibid., 114.
  3. For a précis of the Anglo-Afghan wars, see ibid., 111–163; and Ewans, Afghanistan: A Short History, 59–117. On how Abdur Rahman Khan ruled and how he used the subsidy, see Barnett Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), 48–53.
  4. Rudyard Kipling, "The Young British Soldier," available at <http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/kiplin11.html>.
  5. Ewans, 118–119.
  6. On the civil war, see Barfield, 188–195.
  7. U.S. Embassy, Kabul, Policy Review: A U.S. Strategy for the '70s, 1, annex, June 1971. Emphasis in the original has been removed. Similar formulations were repeated up until the late 1970s. See also analysis in Henry S. Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 1st ed. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1983), 51–52.
  8. Rubin, 52.
  9. Larry Goodson, Afghanistan's Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Taliban (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001), 25.

Chapter 3

  1. For an eyewitness analysis of the coup, see Louis Dupree, "Red Flag Over the Hindu Kush, Part II: The Accidental Coup or Taraki in Blunderland," American Universities Field Staff Review, no. 45, September 1979.
  2. Patrick Garrity, "The Soviet Military Stake in Afghanistan: 1956–1979," Journal of the Royal United Services Institute (September 1980), 33.
  3. Working Transcript of the Meeting of the Politburo, Re: Deterioriation of the Conditions in DRA and Possible Responses from Our Side, March 17, 1979. This document can be found in the Storage Center for Contemporary Documentation, Moscow, Fond 89, Perechen 25, Dokument 1. The English translation was done under the auspices of the Norwegian Nobel Institute for their 1995 Nobel Symposium, Oslo, September 1995.
  4. For an excellent summary of Soviet decisionmaking on the invasion based largely on declassified documents, see Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison, Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 35–49.
  5. Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Memorandum, Subject: Regarding Events in Afghanistan during 27–28 December 1979, number 2519–A, dated December 31, 1979, 1. This document can be found in the Storage Center for Contemporary Documentation, Moscow, Fond 89, Perechen 42, Dokument 10. The English translation here was done under the auspices of the Norwegian Nobel Institute for their 1995 Nobel Symposium, Oslo, September 1995.
  6. On the salience of the year 1979, see Dan Caldwell, Vortex of Conflict: U.S. Policy Toward Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011), 23–26.
  7. Some sources put the highest Soviet troop strength at 115,000. On invasion and subsequent fighting, see Collins, The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, 77–164, and Bradsher, 169–239; on Soviet tactics, Lester Grau, ed., The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1995); and on mujahideen tactics, Ali Ahmad Jalali and Lester Grau, The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahidin Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps Combat Development Command, 1998).
  8. Bruce Reidel, Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of the Global Jihad (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2011), 27.
  9. Collins, The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, 145.
  10. For a précis of all of the Peshawar Seven groups, see Goodson, 189–193.
  11. See, for example, Artemy Kalinovsky, "Afghanistan Is the New Afghanistan," Foreign Policy, September 2009, available at <http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/09/04/ afghanistan_is_the_new_afghanistan>.
  12. Two excellent books about contemporary war in Afghanistan use "graveyard of empires" in their titles. David Isby, Afghanistan, Graveyard of Empires: A New History of the Borderlands (New York: Pegasus Books, 2010); and Seth Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009).
  13. There are also articles trumpeting the Vietnam-Afghanistan parallel. For one example, see Tom Johnson and M. Chris Mason, "Saigon 2009," Foreign Policy, August 20, 2009, available at <http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/08/20/saigon_2009>. The Vietnam analogy does not carry water where the scope and scale of the conflict are concerned. Another anomalous item in that comparison is the salience of Soviet and Chinese security assistance and the existence of a massive and highly professional North Vietnamese army. This modern, mechanized army was the final instrument of defeat for the South Vietnamese government, not indigenous South Vietnamese guerrillas. There is no such factor in the current conflict in Afghanistan.
  14. Brookings Institution, Afghanistan Index, October 2010, figure 4.12, shows Tali-ban approval ratings totaling 10 percent; available at <http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/Programs/FP/afghanistan%20index/index.pdf>. The strength of today's Taliban is the author's estimate, based on conversations with various intelligence analysts. On current Taliban troop strength, see the Associated Press story by Slobodan Lekic, "Taliban Numbers Unaffected by Allied Troop Surge," Boston Globe, January 7, 2010, available at <http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2011/01/07/taliban_numbers_unaffected_by_allied_troop_surge/>.

Chapter 4

  1. For a short but excellent account of Najibullah's competition with the mujahideen, see Ewans, 238–260.
  2. Ibid., 252.
  3. Rashid, 27–28.
  4. Ewans, 255.
  5. Grisly pictures of Najibullah's demise can be found in ibid., plate 34, near page 149.
  6. Goodson puts the percentage of terrain controlled by the Northern Alliance at only 3 to 10 percent of the country. Goodson, 86.
  7. Olivier Roy as quoted in Donald Wright et al., A Different Kind of War: The U.S. Army in Operation Enduring Freedom, October 2001–2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, May 2010), 19.
  8. As broadcast on Radio Sharia, Kabul, and recorded in Asne Seierstad, The Bookseller of Kabul (New York: Back Bay Books, 2003), 80–83.
  9. A summary on the zoo can be found in National Geographic News, June 10, 2002, available at <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/06/0610_020610_kabulzoo_2.html>.
  10. For a concise assessment of sociocultural change under the Taliban, see Goodson, 127–132.
  11. On Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, see Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Alfred Knopf, 2006), 99–120.
  12. On Osama in Sudan and Afghanistan, see ibid., 145–300.
  13. Reidel, Deadly Embrace, 55. Citing Gilles Doronsoro, Reidel claims that bin Laden married one of Mullah Omar's daughters. Other books regard the marriage as an unsubstantiated claim. See William Maley, The Afghanistan Wars, 2d ed. (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009), 213.
  14. Jones, 93.
  15. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2004), 67.
  16. The fatwa is analyzed in Bernard Lewis, "License to Kill: Osama bin Ladin's Declaration of Jihad," Foreign Affairs (November/December 1998), available at <http://www. foreignaffairs.com/articles/54594/bernard-lewis/license-to-kill-usama-bin-ladins-declarationof-jihad>.
  17. Ibid.
  18. The 9/11 Commission Report, 116–117.
  19. Ibid., 66.

Chapter 5

  1. A version of a complete al Qaeda strategy is laid out in Bruce Reidel, The Search for Al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology, and Future (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2010), 121–133. Reidel believes that al Qaeda sought as a first strategic step to entice the United States to engage in "bleeding wars" in Afghanistan and Iraq.
  2. For the full text of the Public Law 107–40, passed by the 107th Congress, "To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States," September 18, 2001, see <http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ pkg/PLAW-107publ40/html/PLAW-107publ40.htm>.
  3. James Dobbins (Ambassador), After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2008), 47.
  4. The author acknowledges help on understanding Pakistani thinking from Dr. Thomas F. Lynch III of NDU's Institute for National Strategic Studies.
  5. For an interesting look at the early war, see Stephen Biddle, "Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare," Foreign Affairs (May 2003), available at <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/ articles/58811/stephen-biddle/afghanistan-and-the-future-of-warfare>.
  6. Remarks by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, National Defense University, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC, January 31, 2002, available at <http://www. defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=183>.
  7. The best critical work on this subject is Sean Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda (New York: Berkley Books, 2005). The Army's official assessment can be found in Donald Wright et al., 127–179.
  8. Jones, 127.
  9. For the full text of the December 2001 Bonn Agreement, formally known as the Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-Establishment of Permanent Government Institutions, see <http://www.afghangovernment.com/AfghanAgree-mentBonn.htm>.
  10. For an inside account of the Bonn process, see Dobbins, 51–97. For an account of life in Kandahar in the early postwar period and dominance of local warlords, see Sarah Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan after the Taliban (New York: Penguin Press, 2006).
  11. The current United Nations Security Council Resolution 1943, October 13, 2010, is available at <http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/unsc_resolutions10.htm>.
  12. James Dobbins et al., America's Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2003), 156–159.

Chapter 6

  1. As reported in FM 3–24 Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3–33.5, Counterinsurgency (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), paragraph 1-2, 2. All subsequent citations to this document will be the University of Chicago Press version.
  2. Robert Taber, War of the Flea: The Classical Study of Guerrilla Warfare (Washington, DC: Brassey's, Inc., 2002), 20.
  3. The most basic text was by Mao Zedong, trans. Samuel B. Griffith II, On Guerrilla Warfare (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000).
  4. The best analysis of the typology of insurgency can be found in Bard E. O'Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism: From Revolution to Apocalypse, 2d ed., revised (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005).
  5. David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006), 63.
  6. Ibid., 54.
  7. The authors of FM 3–24 credit Max Manwaring, the author of the SWORD Model, or the Manwaring Paradigm, for this insight on legitimacy. The Manwaring Paradigm emphasizes the importance of legitimacy. The manual's analysis of legitimacy can be found in FM 3–24, paragraphs 1-113 through 1-120, on pages 37–39. One can find a summary of Manwaring's legitimacy-centered model in Edwin Corr and Stephen Sloan, eds., Low-Intensity Conflict: Old Threats in a New World (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), 12–16.
  8. FM 3–24, paragraph 1-116, on page 38.
  9. Ibid., paragraphs 5-7 through 5-49, on pages 154–173.
  10. For counterinsurgency (COIN) as the combination of various types of military operations (offense, defense, and stability operations), see the first illustration in FM 3–24, figure 1-1, 35.
  11. Mark Moyar, A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq (New Haven: Yale University Press and Yale Library of Military History, 2009), 1–13. These pages briefly summarize various approaches to counterinsurgency. The short quotation is on page 3.
  12. The author thanks Jacqueline Hazelton of Harvard's Belfer Center for assistance in clarifying issues related to population-centric COIN and counterguerrilla-focused efforts.
  13. T.X. Hammes, in The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century (St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2006), popularized the term fourth generation warfare, or evolved insurgency.
  14. The following article stresses the importance of multiple lines of operation, with Information Operations running throughout all of them: LTG David Barno, USA, "Fighting ‘the Other War': Counterinsurgency Strategy in Afghanistan, 2003–2005," Military Review 87, no. 5 (September–October 2007), available at <http://usacac.army. mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20071031_art006.pdf> .
  15. David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), xiii–xix, 28–38.
  16. Private conversations between the author and intelligence analysts, 2009 and 2010. The late Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, also believed that charitable donations to the Taliban were more lucrative than drug-trafficking. This fact was a staple of his public presentations.
  17. On the dominance of narcotics-related issues in the war in Afghanistan, see Gretchen Peters, Seeds of Terror: How Heroin is Bankrolling the Taliban and Al Qaeda (New York: Thomas Dunne Books of St. Martin's Press, 2009), 14–20.
  18. FM 3–24, paragraphs 5-90 to 5-116, on page 188–197; and David Kilcullen, Counterinsurgency (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 51–83.
  19. Galula, 11–28.
  20. FM 3–24, paragraph 1-67, 22–23, discusses troop-to-population ratios.

Chapter 7

  1. On comparative development, see the UN Development Program's Human Development Index and report, available at <http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/>. This report includes economics, education, health, security, and many other factors. Afghanistan has consistently been in the bottom 10 countries in the world. Along with the Department of State Background Notes, and the CIA World Factbook, there are many statistics on aid to Afghanistan on USAID's Web site at <http://afghanistan.usaid.gov/en/index.aspx>.
  2. Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart, Fixing Failed States (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 75.
  3. For a new study on the evolution of NATO's commitment to Afghanistan, see Andrew Hoehn and Sarah Harting, Risking NATO: Testing the Limits of the Alliance in Afghanistan (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2010), 25–40.
  4. The current Constitution of Afghanistan, Afghan Year 1982, can be found in English at <http://www.afghan-web.com/politics/current_constitution.html> and its 1964 predecessor at <http://www.afghan-web.com/history/const/const1964.html>.
  5. Author's calculation using the U.S. Embassy chart and an estimate of 28 million Afghans. Note that U.S. assistance throughout this operation has been more than the equal of all other aid from all other sources. International funds do not include non-U.S. international security assistance expenditures unless they are reflected in national aid totals.
  6. Dobbins et al., 146, 157–158.
  7. USAID statistics are from <http://afghanistan.usaid.gov/en/index.aspx> and a presentation by General Petraeus at RUSI, October 15, 2010, available at <http://www.rusi. org/events/past/ref:E4CB843C349F2E>.
  8. Kenneth Katzman, Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, August 17, 2010), 88–90, available at <http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL30588_20100817.pdf>.
  9. Prior to 2004, the PRTs had a chain of command separate from troop units. That was ended by Lieutenant General Barno, in part to create more unity of command and in part to free up Civil Affairs assets.
  10. Written comment of anonymous NATO Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) reviewer to the author, November 18, 2010.
  11. U.S. figures to 2009 come from Kenneth Katzman, Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, September 17, 2010), table 21, 91. Foreign data are adapted from Brookings, Afghanistan Index, table 3.15, available at <http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL30588.pdf>.
  12. Hoehn and Harting, 33.
  13. USAID statistics at <http://afghanistan.usaid.gov/en/index.aspx>.
  14. Galula, 6–7.
  15. Data from U.S. Central Command, various briefings.
  16. For data on casualties and causes of death, see Brookings, Afghanistan Index, tables 1.21 and 1.22, available at <http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/Programs/FP/afghanistan%20index/index.pdf>.
  17. SHAPE reviewer.
  18. Examples of night letters are in a USCENTCOM release, available at <http:// centcom.dodlive.mil/2010/08/29/taliban-aims-to-hinder-development-by-threateningcivilian/>.
  19. Testimony of (former) Under Secretary of State James K. Glassman before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, March 10, 2010, available at <http://mountainrunner.us/files/congress/testimony/SFRC_20100310-GlassmanTestimony100310p.pdf>.
  20. United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Annual Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, August 2010, available at <http://unama.unmissions.org/ Portals/UNAMA/Publication/August102010_MID-YEAR%20REPORT%202010_Protection%20of%20Civilians%20in%20Armed%20Conflict.pdf>; and Brookings, Afghanistan Index, figure 1.29.
  21. A short history of ISAF can be found at <http://www.isaf.nato.int/history.html>.
  22. Greg Miller and Josh Partlow, "U.S., Afghanistan Plan to Screen Cash at Kabul Airport to Prevent Corruption," The Washington Post, August 20, 2010, available at <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/20/ AR2010082004049.html>.
  23. ISAF J1 statistics from NTM–A briefing at NDU; and Brookings, Afghanistan Index, table 1.27.
  24. Conversations with various active and retired senior officers from USCENTCOM and U.S. Forces–Afghanistan, 2008.
  25. See account in Ronald E. Neumann, The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2009), 41–50.
  26. Sean Maloney, "Afghanistan: Not the War It Was," Policy Options (Canada), (November 2010), 44.
  27. Various ABC–BBC and Asia Foundation Polls, 2005–2009. For January 2010 ABC–BBC polls, see <http://abcnews.go.com/images/PollingUnit/1099a1AfghanistanWhereThingsStand.pdf>; and for October 2009 Asia Foundation polls see <http://asiafoundation.org/resources/pdfs/Afghanistanin2009.pdf>.

Chapter 8

  1. Many senior officials in Afghanistan dislike the surge term for various reasons. It is used here because it is commonly used in the United States. One should exercise great caution in drawing analogies between the Afghan surge and the complicated events of the surge in Iraq.
  2. Conversations between the author and two senior NSC officials, as well as a scholar who later participated in the review, spring 2010. This is also discussed in detail in Bob Woodward, Obama's Wars (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 40–44.
  3. Woodward, 88–90, 99–109.
  4. White Paper of the Interagency Policy Group's Report on U.S. Policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, March 27, 2009, available at <http://www.whitehouse. gov/assets/documents/Afghanistan-Pakistan_White_Paper.pdf>. The short quotation is on page 6.
  5. General Stanley A. McChrystal, USA, COMISAF's Initial Assessment (declassified and redacted), August 30, 2009, available at <http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/ politics/documents/Assessment_Redacted_092109.pdf>.
  6. Michael E. O'Hanlon, "Staying Power: The U.S. Mission in Afghanistan, Beyond 2011," Foreign Affairs (September/October 2010), 70.
  7. The best record of Washington decisionmaking at this point is Woodward, Obama's Wars.
  8. Eric Schmitt, "U.S. Envoy's Cables Show Worries on Afghan Plans," The New York Times, January 25, 2010, available at <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/world/ asia/26strategy.html?_r=1&ref=karl_w_eikenberry>.
  9. Greg Jaffe, Scott Wilson, and Karen de Young, "U.S. Envoy Resists Increase in Troops," The Washington Post, November, 12, 2009, available at <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111118432.html>.
  10. President Obama, "Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on the Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan," West Point, New York, December 1, 2009, available at <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-address-nation-wayforward-afghanistan-and-pakistan>.
  11. Brookings, Afghanistan Index, figure 1.15.
  12. O'Hanlon, 71; latest strength figures are in the unpublished Headquarters, ISAF, Public Affairs Message Guidance (unclassified), November 18, 2010.
  13. Presentation by a U.S. Army general officer in a nonattribution setting, Washington, DC, February 2, 2011.
  14. West Point speech.
  15. A nonattribution presentation by a U.S. Army general officer at National Defense University, February 7, 2011.
  16. For a précis of NTM–A's accomplishments and problems, see NTM–A, Year in Review: November 2009 to November 2010, available at <http://www.ntm-a.com/documents/ enduringledger/el-oneyear.pdf>.
  17. Multiple conversations with a senior USAID employee deployed in Regional Com-mand–East for multiple tours, summer and fall 2010.
  18. The plan is available at <http://www.comw.org/qdr/fulltext/0908eikenberryandm cchrystal.pdf>.
  19. The late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke also confirmed increased pressure on the enemy in his remarks at The Atlantic's and National Journal's Washington Ideas Forum, held at the Newseum, Washington, DC, October 1, 2010. The author here draws on his own notes from the presentation. See also Dexter Filkins, "U.S. Uses Attacks to Nudge Taliban Toward a Deal," The New York Times, October 14, 2010, available at <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/world/asia/15afghan.html>.
  20. ISAF Joint Command–Afghanistan, "Afghan, Coalition Forces Tally Another Successful Month in Afghanistan," news release, IJC Public Affairs Office, October 1, 2010.
  21. ISAF, Public Affairs Message Guidance. For a pessimistic interpretation of late fall security developments in Afghanistan, see "Special Report: November 2010 in Afghanistan," NightWatch, January 30, 2011.

Chapter 9

  1. Much of this section draws on Collins, "Afghan Reconciliation" and "The Way Ahead in Afghanistan." The author admits to being a conservative and an optimist on Afghanistan. Many are more pessimistic and favor a rapid drawdown. Some of their works are cited below.
  2. For a recent estimate that puts Taliban strength at only 25,000, see Slobodan Lekic, "Taliban Strength Unaffected by Allied Surge," The Washington Post, January 6, 2011, available at <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2011/01/06/ AR2011010602522.html>.
  3. Peter Bergen et al., The Year of the Drone: An Analysis of U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan, 2004–2010, available at <http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/drones>.
  4. U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), "Remarks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai," May 13, 2010, available at <http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/05/141825.htm>. On the Biden trip, see Ray Rivera, "Biden Assures Karzai of Aid from U.S. Beyond 2014," The New York Times, January 11, 2011, available at <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/ world/asia/12afghan.html>.
  5. Operation Enduring Freedom casualty data can be found at <http://icasualties.org/oef/>.
  6. Author's notes of General Kayani's presentation at the New America Foundation, Washington, DC, March 25, 2010.
  7. From ISAF J1 statistics. See also, Brookings, Afghanistan Index, figure 1.27, 14, and the December 2010 update of the index at <http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/ Programs/FP/afghanistan%20index/index.pdf>.
  8. On U.S. polls, see The New York Times, October 15 and 16, 2010, summarized at <http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/afghan-war-is-off-the-voters-radar/>.
  9. Jens Ringsmose and Christopher Schnaubelt, "Sharing the Burden in Afghanistan? An Appraisal of NATO's ISAF Mission," unpublished paper, September 2010, 1, 17–18, cited with the permission of Dr. Schnaubelt. See also Andrew Hoehn and Sarah Harting, Risking NATO: Testing the Limits of the Alliance in Afghanistan (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2010), 51, figure 4.
  10. This was the cost estimate in the President's final decision memorandum before the surge. See Woodward, 390.
  11. David S. Cohen, U.S. Department of Treasury, "Treasury Official on Terrorist Finance in Afghanistan, Pakistan," available at <http://www.america.gov/st/texttransenglish/2010/January/20100128150308eaifas0.2595026.html#ixzz0zhrc8EXS>.
  12. Alex Rodriguez and Laura King, "Reconciliation Efforts with Afghan Militants Face Major Obstacle," Los Angeles Times, June 29, 2010, available at <http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/29/world/la-fg-pakistan-haqqani-20100630/3>.
  13. Scott Shane, "Pakistan's Plan on Afghan Peace Leaves U.S. Wary," The New York Times, June, 27, 2010, available at <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/world/asia/28taliban.html>.
  14. Ruth Rene, ed., Afghanistan in 2010: A Survey of the Afghan People (San Francisco: Asia Foundation, 2010), 18, figure 2.2; 72, figure 7.1.
  15. Michael Hastings, "The Runaway General," Rolling Stone, June 22, 2010, available at <http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236>.
  16. Detailed reports on the National Solidarity Plan can be found at <http://www.nspafghanistan.org/>.
  17. The communiqué of the Kabul International Conference on Afghanistan, July 2010, available at <http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/UNAMA/Documents/Kabul%20Conference%20Communique.pdf>.
  18. For the basic COMISAF COIN Contracting Guidance, see <http://www.isaf.nato.int/images/stories/File/100908-NUI-COMISAF%20COIN%20GUIDANCE.pdf>.
  19. James Risen, "U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan," June 13, 2010, available at <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html>. In Karzai's May 13, 2010 presentation at USIP, there was speculation by his party that the value of the minerals may be as much as $3 trillion. See transcript at <http://www. state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/05/141825.htm>. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the total at $1 trillion. See Under Secretary Stephen Hormats, "Remarks at Afghanistan Minerals Roadshow," September 29, 2010, available at <http://www.state.gov/e/rls/rmk/2010/149240.htm>.
  20. For a thoughtful examination of Indian-Afghan relations, see C. Christine Fair, India in Afghanistan and Beyond: Opportunities and Constraints (New York: Century Foundation, 2010).
  21. Sandy Berger and Richard Armitage, chairs, Independent Task Force Report: U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, November 2010), 21. The author of this monograph was a member of the task force but disagreed with some of its conclusions.
  22. Ibid., 38.
  23. See the official declaration by NATO's heads of state entitled Lisbon Summit Declaration, available at <http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_68828.htm?mode=pressrelease>. For Karzai's statement, see the transcript at USIP, "Remarks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai," May 13, 2010, available at <http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/05/141825.htm>.
  24. U.S. Army general officer, February 7, 2011.
  25. For a different view that argues for an immediate and rapid drawdown of U.S. troops, see Afghanistan Study Group, A New Way Forward: Rethinking U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Afghanistan Study Group, 2010), available at <http://www.afghanistanstudygroup.org/read-the-report/>. For a critique of this report, see Joseph Collins, "No Way Forward: Afghanistan Study Group Report Falls Short," Armed Forces Journal, November 2010, available at <http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2010/11/4858188>.
  26. U.S. Army general officer, February 2, 2011.
  27. For Mullah Omar's guidance, see Code of Conduct for the Mujahidin of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, August 2010, an unclassified document translated by the U.S. Government's Open Source Center, August 2010.
  28. Dexter Filkins, "The Taliban Don't Seem Ready to Talk," The New York Times, January 23, 2010, available at <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/weekinreview/24filkins.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=dexter%20filkins%20king%20of%20saudi%20arabia&st=cse>.
  29. David Rohde, "7 Months, 10 Days in Captivity," The New York Times, October 18, 2009, available at <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/world/asia/18hostage.html?pagewanted=2&sq=david%20rohde%20october%202009&st=cse&scp=1>.
  30. Peter Bergen, "The Front: The Taliban-Al Qaeda Merger," The New Republic, October 19, 2009, available at <http://www.tnr.com/article/world/the-front>.
  31. Claudio Franco, "The Tehrik-E Taliban Pakistan," in Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field, ed. Antonio Giustozzi (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 282. For a more authoritative statement by a leader of the Pakistani Taliban, see Chris Allbritton, "Pakistan Taliban Commander Vows to Expand Fight," Reuters, September 29, 2010, available at <http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SGE68R0IU.htm>. For a full exposition of the complex al Qaeda–Taliban relationship, see Reidel, The Search for Al Qaeda, 61–84, 116–124.
  32. For details on the progress of the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan in 2010, see their first year anniversary report, available at <http://www.ntm-a.com/documents/enduringledger/el-oneyear.pdf>.

Chapter 10

  1. See interview with Major General Curtis M. "Mike" Scaparrotti, USA, commander of Regional Command–East (RC–East), June 3, 2010, available at <http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4628>. General Scaparrotti and his civilian deputy, Dawn Liberi, noted that there would be nearly 300 civilian experts in RC–East by the end of 2010. A recently returned commander of a brigade in that region spoke in spring 2010 to an NDU audience concerning the unity of effort on stability operations and reconstruction that takes place at every level of command. There is competent staffing on all lines of operation—security, stabilization, development, government, rule of law—down to the brigade level. The best figures on civilian strength appear in Brookings, Afghanistan Index, table 1.15, 9.
  2. A mea culpa: for 4 years in the first Bush administration, I worked hard to keep defense and military assets out of counternarcotics work. Our thought then was that combating the insurgency was much more important than eradication efforts. The truth is that counternarcotic operations are essential for good counterinsurgency and for lowering governmental corruption and improving governance. I still believe that there is little need for eradication work until the drug lords' infrastructure has been demolished.
  3. The irreplaceable text on this subject is Peters, Seeds of Terror.
  4. Robert B. Oakley and T.X. Hammes, Prioritizing Strategic Interests in South Asia, INSS Strategic Forum, no. 256 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, June 2010), 1.
  5. This paragraph is a slightly revised version of the author's letter to the editor on Afghanistan issues in Joint Force Quarterly 58 (3d Quarter, 2010).