Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 51, no. 2, April–May 2009, pp. 55–76
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In October 2006 the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, under NATO command since August 2003, assumed operational control of the whole of the country. With nearly 40,000 troops drawn from more than 35 countries, the Alliance was now charged with providing security and bringing stability to a deeply fractured country outside its treaty-defined area of operations. The range of tasks given to NATO forces in Afghanistan is broad and complex, from combat operations at one end to the rebuilding of roads, bridges and schools at the other. On the face of it, the assumption of such extensive responsibilities is testimony to an extraordinary transformation on the part of the Alliance, evidence of just how far it has come from its early and initially timid forays into peacekeeping on the European continent in the early 1990s.
And yet, NATO’s first operation outside the Euro-Atlantic area has proved a far greater challenge than initial planning assumptions, many of them simplistically lifted from its experiences in the Balkans, appeared to suggest. By early 2009, the progress made by NATO forces in their efforts to extend the authority of the Afghan government outside Kabul remained patchy at best. NATO military operations have manifestly failed to reverse the steady resurgence since 2002 of Taliban influence, which now extends beyond the movement’s traditional strongholds in the southern provinces of Helmand, Uruzgan and Kandahar. Holding on to territory recaptured from Taliban forces continues to be hampered by NATO’s limited troop strength, the use of ‘national caveats’ by Allied governments and, not least, by the slow pace at which Afghan security forces are being turned out. The resulting insecurity has stifled reconstruction and development activities and has added to the already difficult job of raising troops for the mission. Continued instability has also complicated efforts aimed at enhancing cooperation with key civilian players on the ground, including not only the Afghan authorities but also the myriad outside agencies and international and non-governmental organisations based in the country. This in turn has exacerbated differences among NATO Allies about the balance of strategic priorities for Western engagement in Afghanistan and, by extension, about the relationship between the political aspirations of the Alliance and its military missions and capabilities.
The view that NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan presents the Alliance with a make-or-break moment is, unsurprisingly, not publicly embraced by NATO governments or Alliance officials. And it is certainly true that the Alliance has a history of institutional survival, notable for the ability of Allies to live with intramural tensions. It may fairly be assumed that its involvement in Afghanistan, whatever the outcome, will not result in its liquidation. But NATO’s Afghanistan mission has brought home the strains between the ambitious political aspirations that the Alliance has long proclaimed and the kinds of military missions that its members are capable and prepared to undertake. Put more bluntly, NATO’s experiences in mounting and sustaining operations in Afghanistan have provided a reality check, pointing not only to the possibilities but also the...
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Mats Berdal is Professor of Security and Development in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. He was formerly Director of Studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. David Ucko is a Transatlantic Fellow at the RAND Corporation. He is the author of The New Counterinsurgency Era: Transforming the U.S. Military for Modern Wars (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2009).
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