from Center for Preventive Action

Afghanistan's Uncertain Transition from Turmoil to Normalcy

Council Special Report
Concise policy briefs that provide timely responses to developing crises or contributions to current policy dilemmas.

Overview

Afghanistan’s Uncertain Transition argues that Afghanistan is still far from stability.

While the country has reestablished basic institutions of government, it has barely started to make them work. The government and its international supporters are challenged by a terrorist insurgency that has become more lethal and effective and that has bases in Pakistan, a drug trade that dominates the economy and corrupts the state, and pervasive poverty and insecurity. The Afghanistan Compact, approved in January 31, 2006, provides a road map for security, governance, and development over the next five years. The United States should take the lead in ensuring full funding and implementation of the Afghanistan Compact, and develop a coherent strategy toward the Afghanistan-Pakistan relationship. This strategy would entail pushing the Pakistani government to arrest Taliban leaders whose locations are provided by intelligence agencies and taking aggressive measures to close down the networks supporting suicide bombers.

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Afghanistan

Democracy

Download the Spanish language version of this report [PDF], translated by the Real Instituto Elcano.

More on:

Afghanistan

Democracy

Reviews and Endorsements

Rubin, the best of a handful of American scholars on Afghanistan before September 11, still knows Afghanistan better than anyone else.

New York Review of Books

Rubin is perhaps the most authoritative scholar on Afghanistan in the United States. ... The fact that several of Rubin’s recommendations have already been implemented is a testament to his work. If followed, Barnett Rubin’s panoply of recommendations in such areas as security, governance, rule of law, economics and social development would go a long way.

Survival, journal of the International Institute for Strategic Studies

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