27 January 2009: Financial Times
By James Blitz
The integrity of the international mission in Afghanistan will be “very substantially at stake” in the course of 2009 as the country enters what is probably the most critical period it has been through since 2001, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
As President Barack Obama’s administration presses ahead with a review of its overall policy in Afghanistan, the London-based IISS has issued a stark warning over Nato’s mission in the country, arguing that the western intervention is “faltering” and that a “robust diplomatic strategy” is now needed to ensure success.
In its annual publication, The Military Balance, the IISS notes that presidential elections are due to take place in Afghanistan this year, but that they will do so “amid rising violence and with a government that is unable to exert its authority in the provinces.”
The organisation warns: “Against this background there is a risk that it will not be possible to hold elections; or voter turnout may be below the minimum necessary for the ballot to be valid. The integrity of the whole international mission in Afghanistan is therefore very substantially at stake.”
The IISS report discusses counter-insurgency efforts in Afghanistan and the drive to improve the capacity of that country’s security forces. It notes that the activities of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) expanded over the course of 2008 and that ISAF troops are now tasked with interdicting drug traffickers and destroying opium factories.
However, it warns that changes in Nato strategy have had little impact on the Taliban-led insurgency, with violence spreading into previously quiet regions.
The IISS notes that suicide bombings and attacks against so-called high-value targets, including President Hamid Karzai, have increased. It also argues that attempts to turn Taliban fighters away from the insurgency have met with limited success “though in the long run this would seem essential to any solution to Afghanistan’s problems”.
It argues that Nato must define a common understanding of its objectives and take a more unified approach. Tensions, for example those over burden- sharing, or caveats placed by some governments, have undermined the mission’s effectiveness, the IISS says.
On developments in Russia, the IISS notes that, in the aftermath of the Russia–Georgia conflict, the Kremlin announced plans for the most radical reform of the armed forces since the end of the Soviet Union.
The IISS argues that this restructuring, if implemented jointly with the previously announced ambitious modernisation plans, “could make Russian armed forces more capable to operate against modern threats and potentially better interoperable with western forces.”
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