Afghanistan has long been a crossroads of world cultures, economies, politics, and militaries. RAND's early research on Afghanistan examined the 1980s Soviet military campaign and the subsequent fundamentalist Islamic regime. Since Operation Enduring Freedom, the 2001 U.S. military effort to rout the Taliban and find Osama bin Ladin's Al Qaeda network, RAND has engaged the new Afghan government, military, and people to support reconstruction, counterinsurgency, and nation-building efforts.
Journal Article
This article examines ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) operations in Afghanistan as a way to get at the strategic disconnects in ends, ways, and means.
Commentary
The Taliban view incarceration foremost as a means to attract new recruits and enhance the jihadist resolve and ideological purity of their own members, writes Arturo Munoz.
Commentary
Afghans in general are much more optimistic about their future than we Americans are about ours, write James Dobbins and Craig Charney.
Commentary
There is a growing recognition among senior Taliban leaders that they are losing momentum in parts of southern Afghanistan, their longtime stronghold, writes Seth Jones.
Announcement
The AcademyHealth Board of Directors gives the Health Services Research (HSR) Impact Award to recognize research that has had a significant impact on health and health care. This year, RAND's Invisible Wounds of War study and Terri Tanielian were named winners.
Report
The "Americanization" of NATO's mission in Afghanistan may prove crucial to the future of Afghanistan, but the alliance could suffer long-term harm by being relegated to the position of junior partner to the United States.
News Release
The "Americanization" of NATO's mission in Afghanistan may prove crucial to the future of Afghanistan, but the alliance could suffer long-term harm by being relegated to the position of junior partner to the United States.
Commentary
One can legitimately argue for reducing the United States' commitment to the Afghan war, but it makes no sense to denigrate the tactics and techniques best designed to counter an insurgency, writes James Dobbins.
Commentary
We have come through wars, depressions, natural and man-made disasters, indeed higher levels of domestic terrorist violence than that we face today, writes Brian Michael Jenkins.
Report
Considers use of the C-27J Spartan to deliver mission critical, time sensitive cargo and passengers in Iraq and Afghanistan and how to improve the resupply routes and the air tasking procedures the Army uses there.
Report
The Afghan government and NATO can improve security in Afghanistan by leveraging traditional policing institutions in rural villages and mobilizing the population against insurgents. However, action needs to happen quickly to take advantage of a growing amount of local resistance against the Taliban across Afghanistan.
Report
Approaches to counterinsurgency from 30 recent resolved campaigns show that good counterinsurgency practices tend to "run in packs" and that historically, the balance of selected good and ineffective practices perfectly predicts the outcome of a conflict.
Report
Some view DNA as a useful way for the U.S. Department of Defense to keep track of a large and ever-growing number of people as it executes its mission. However, serious questions remain about the technical requirements, policy and legal ramifications, and costs and benefits of this tool compared with other biometrics.
Commentary
The Afghan government has embarked on a high-stakes gamble: Try to negotiate with the leaders of the various insurgent networks to end the nine-year-old Afghan war. The notion of the Kabul government cutting a deal with the Taliban is fiercely controversial, write Wali Shaaker and John Parachini.
Report
Militaries from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Denmark, and Israel all see a role for heavy forces, including tanks, in irregular warfare and hybrid warfare environments because they reduce operational risk, minimize friendly casualties, and provide an intimidation factor against adversaries.
Commentary
President Obama's declaration last week that a change in personnel will not mean a change in policy suggests that the administration took only some of the lessons contained in Michael Hastings' Rolling Stone article, writes Celeste Ward Gventer.
Commentary
By replacing Gen. Stanley McChrystal with Gen. David Petraeus, U.S. President Barack Obama has treated the most recent symptom of his Afghan malaise—an insubordinate, or at least indiscreet, general. He has not, however, addressed the underlying malady, writes James Dobbins.
Report
Building on a framework for integrating civil and military counterinsurgency (COIN), this volume presents an approach to the civil component, illustrated with three case studies from Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
News Release
The rising number of terrorist plots in the United States with links to Pakistan – most recently the failed car-bombing in New York City – is partly a result of an unsuccessful strategy by Pakistan and the U.S. to weaken the range of militant groups operating in Pakistan.
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