MER Article The Problem with "Hearts and Minds" in Afghanistan US strategy in Afghanistan sits upon a precipice. Eight years after the United States invaded the Taliban-controlled portion of Afghanistan in response to the horrific events of September 11, 2001, Washington and its allies find themselves waging a war of unknown character, for unclear purposes, against an ill-defined enemy. As B. D. Hopkins • 13 min read
MER Article The New (and Old) Classics of Counterinsurgency Two weapons today threaten freedom in our world. One -- the 100-megaton hydrogen bomb -- requires vast resources of technology, effort and money. It is an ultimate weapon of civilized and scientific man. The other -- a nail and a piece of wood buried in a rice paddy -- is deceptively simple, the wea Laleh Khalili • 21 min read
Current Analysis Catcher's Mitt Pakistan lies at the heart of President Barack Obama’s plan to wind down America’s war in Afghanistan. If -- as he avers -- the “overarching goal” is to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the war will be fought mainly in Pakistan. With fewer than a hundred fighters Graham Usher • 10 min read
Current Analysis More Troops Won't Do It For the past two months, President Barack Obama has been weighing Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request to send an additional 40,000 troops to Afghanistan to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat” al-Qaeda. That same effort, according to Obama, entails ensuring that the Taliban can’t regain control of the coun Chris Toensing • 2 min read
MER Article The Afghan Triangle The Pakistani army’s operation in the Swat Valley in northwest Pakistan is the most sustained in five years of selective counterinsurgency against the local Taliban. The toll already is immense: 1.9 million internally displaced, including tens of thousands housed in tents on parched plains; 15,000 s Graham Usher • 13 min read
MER Article From the Editors (Summer 2009) At least 60 people were killed in the South Waziristan region of Pakistan on June 23 by a US drone attack. The dead were among those attending a funeral for a suspected Taliban commander who, along with six other people, had been killed by a drone earlier that day. Since The Editors • 5 min read
Current Analysis The Pakistan Taliban A severed head is waved before a baying crowd. The camera zooms in to show a second bloodied corpse, the eyes gouged out and a wad of cash stuffed in the mouth, swinging from a pole. He is one of 29 “criminals, drug pushers, bootleggers and extortionists” executed for running Graham Usher • 14 min read
MER Article Afghan Wonderland The international occupation of Afghanistan is in bad shape. US casualties are up -- at times the ratio of killed and wounded to troops deployed is equal to that in Iraq, though of course the total numbers are not. Taliban attacks are intensifying, and now include frequent suicide bombings. Kidnappi Christian Parenti • 11 min read
Current Analysis Afghanistan's Presidential Elections Less than a month before George W. Bush's second bid for the White House, his protégé and partner in post-Taliban Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, faces an election that both men hope will not only establish the legitimacy of Karzai's presidency but also prove the Bush administration's claim that the war- M. Nazif Shahrani • 9 min read
MER Article Afghan Women and Girls Still Held Hostage When asked what she desired most for Afghanistan’s future, “Nadia,” a Kabul university student, didn’t hesitate. “First, we wish the girls who live in the provinces would have schools -- not just grades one through five at most. Second, we wish that they would collect all the guns Zama Coursen-Neff • 11 min read
MER Article Afghan Women When we are hungry, nobody listens, but when we are fighting, they send us loads of firearms and artillery. Why? -- Zubaida (April 1998) Saba Gul Khattak • 11 min read
MER Article Pakistan Between Afghanistan and India Radical Islam and the activities of jihadi groups have been central to Pakistan’s relationship with Afghanistan as well as India. But the Pakistani military was already turning against such groups for internal reasons, before the US assault on al-Qaeda and the Taliban and this winter’s confrontation Hamza Alavi • 18 min read
