It’s all about numbers and stats

A comprehensive overview over Afghanistan statistics related to insurgency/counterinsurgency activity from 2002 until 2008 by Anthony H. Cordesman from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
For more recent stats see especially the status report 2009.

The McChrystal Report – a link collection

The report by General Stanley McChrystal, date 30th of August.

These three articles in the Economist ask whether to “surge” or to go “surgical”, thereby presenting the two opposing parties when it comes to the future strategy in Afghanistan. While the one side, represented by Vice President Joe Biden, Obama’s security adviser James Jones and a [...]

The McChrystal Report – a summary

40.000 – from Kabul to Washington this number achieved media attention a number gets not that often (except maybe the Down Jones: 10.000 break through). 40.000 this is the speculated number of troops the new ISAF Commander General McChrystal wants to finally win the war in Afghanistan. McChrystal’s report on the situation in Afghanistan is [...]

Asia Society Task Force Report

In April this year the Asia Society published a Task Force report (led by Barnett Rubin and Thomas Pickering, the team including Ahmed Rashid and Peter Bergen among others) on the strategy the US administration should take on AfPak. It can be downloaded here.
The presentation of the report was recorded on video and included a [...]

Exit Strategy – I

CATO has recently published their Exit Strategy from “the graveyard of Empires”. Written in detail and with good insight by Malou Innocent and Ted Galen Carpenter.

Police and Security Reliability in Pakistan

Of interest especially again after the recent events at GHQ Pindi, where internal security seems to have failed – Hassan Abbas in a report from April 2009 argues that focusing on the police (financially and taking responsibilities away from them that shouldn’t be theirs like guarding VIPs etc.) would, in combination with a focus on [...]

The Bonn Conference – History and Impact

From a review by Ahmed Rashid (”Afghanistan: On the Brink” in the New York Review of Books) I turned towards another assessment by Barnett Rubin – his pragmatic comments on the targets set by the US and during the Bonn conference, written in 2006 but already addressing many points some pundits pretend to have invented only recently.