NATO Training Mission - Afghanistan

A previous blog addressed the issue of tackling corruption in Afghanistan, noting that corruption had been described by a 2009 USAID Report entitled “Assessment of Corruption in Afghanistan” as “a significant and growing problem across Afghanistan that undermines security, state and democracy building, and development.”

In the past month, the Afghan government has made significant progress in addressing the issue of corruption. The Afghan National Police have taken a number of steps to restore confidence in the police with the Afghan people. The recently released Afghan National Police Strategy (ANPS) states that the national interests of Afghanistan and the threats to them entail the need to “eliminate corruption all over the country.” The strategy further identifies corruption as one of the primary problems within the Afghan National Police:

Malcolm Gladwell has published a fourth book that is very similar to his first three books – an easily readable book filled with quirky insights that cause you to reflect and ponder how things work in this world. His first three books – The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers – were thematic books as described in the book jacket of Outliers:

“In The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell changed the way we understand the world. In Blink he changed the way we think about thinking. Outliers will transform the way we understand success.” 

This fourth book, What the Dog Saw and other adventures does not follow an overarching theme, but is instead a compilation of Gladwell’s 19 favorite articles that were previously published in The New Yorker. He breaks these articles into three different categories, as described in the preface to the book:

A previous blog on the Afghan National Police noted that the first-ever Afghan National Police Strategy was approved by Minister of Interior Atmar and published on Tuesday, March 9, 2010. In the past week, there have been two other major documents published – this time by Afghan Minister of Defense Wardak.  The first document is the National Military Strategy (NMS), followed by the Guidance for Operational Planning (GOP). These are the first two documents of the Afghan National Army’s Strategic Defense Planning System (SDPS). The remaining two documents of the documents to be published for the SDPS are the General Staff Planning Guidance (GSPG) and the Defense Capabilities Planning Guidance (DCPG), which are scheduled to be completed by the end of April. In addition to these key documents, the Afghan National Security Policy is also anticipated to be completed by the end of April 2010.

A previous blog described the imperative of protecting the public in the town of Marja as part of Operation Moshtarak – with an emphasis on preventing civilian casualties (CIVCAS) in all International Security Force – Afghanistan (ISAF) operations. This approach of protecting the population is consistent with the Tactical Directive that GEN Stanley McChrystal, the ISAF Commander, published in September 2009:

“…We must fight the insurgents, and will use the tools at our disposal to both defeat the enemy and protect our forces. But we will not win based on the number of Taliban we kill, but instead on our ability to separate insurgents from the center of gravity - the people. That means we must respect and protect the population from coercion and violence – and operate in a manner which will win their support.

Two previous blogs have addressed the issue of Reconciliation and Reintegration in Afghanistan; reconciliation focuses on the ideological leadership of the Taliban and reintegration focuses on the individual fighter. The immediate focus in Afghanistan has been on reintegration efforts in Afghanistan, which are focused on the “small t” Taliban fighters to “receive amnesty, reenter civil society, gain sustainable employment, and become contributing members of the local populace.”

With the success of Operation Moshtarak in the Marja area and the planned operations in the vicinity of Kandahar, reintegration efforts have gained greater attention in the international press. The Heritage Foundation published a backgrounder by Lisa Curtis entitled “Taliban Reconciliation: Obama Administration Must Be Clear and Firm” on March 11, 2010: