While Afghanistan may be emerging from the period of great uncertainty that followed the fraud-ridden presidential run-off of June 2014, it is far from out of the woods.
Twelve years of war and billions of dollars spent in Afghanistan have neither eliminated the country’s insurgency nor dealt effectively with any of the regional irritants that have historically motivated Afghanistan’s neighbors to lend their support to various actors in the conflict.
Stability in Afghanistan and the future of its government depend on the United States and its Afghan and other allies providing security for the Afghan people. Calls for an Iraq-style “troop surge” ignore the immediate need for a comprehensive political strategy to fix Afghanistan’s fragile security structure, dysfunctional system of government, and unstable borders.
William Maley speaks about the security stalemate in Afghanistan.
On May 8, the Carnegie Endowment hosted a panel on "Threats to Transition in Afghanistan: Old and New" that included presentations by Ambassador Teresita Schaffer from the Center for Strategic & International Studies, William Maley from the University of New South Wales, and Marvin Weinbaum from the Middle East Institute.
