Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Paper Series
November 2009
A Fundamentally Flawed
Summary: The key flaw in
Afghan Policy
the current allied policy in
James Kunder1
Afghanistan is the obses-
sive focus on defeating the
The Transatlantic Taskforce on Devel- actions in Afghanistan, both military
Taliban rather than focus-
opment, chaired by Gunilla Carlsson and developmental. One can only
ing on the real problems and Jim Kolbe, has rightly emphasized wish the new administration success in
of illiteracy, social depriva- that 21st century development thinking its undertaking, but I fear that by not
tion and rural feudalism of must take into account “conflict-prone, sufficiently linking development and
post-conflict, and crime-ridden states.” stability operations in Afghanistan, U.S.
which the Taliban are really
These states tend to remain poor, fail President Barack Obama and his team
an epiphenomenon. Policy to harness development investments, may make exactly the same mistake
makers must also put and prevent or reverse development in that his predecessor did by misreading
neighboring countries. Nowhere are Afghan realities.
aside misleading analo-
these dynamics more profound than
gies with Iraq, however in Afghanistan, the subject of a Ger- Forget all the specific policy debates
tempting they may be, and man Marshall Fund of the United States about overly aggressive bombing, about
consider Afghanistan in its (GMF)-sponsored transatlantic seminar anti-poppy tactics, about cross-border
held in Paris last April. raids from Pakistan, about Hamid
own domestic context.
Karzai’s performance, and about troop
levels. These are important, but the
“The United States continues fundamental flaw in U.S. policy toward
to evaluate everything in Afghanistan goes much deeper, and has
carried over seamlessly from the Bush
that tortured Asian nation administration to the Obama admin-
through an anti-Taliban, istration: the United States continues
to evaluate everything in that tortured
counterinsurgency lens that is
Asian nation through an anti-Taliban,
hopelessly distorting the on- counterinsurgency lens that is hopeless-
the-ground reality.” ly distorting the on-the-ground reality.