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Back from the Brink? A Strategy for Stabilizing Afghanistan-Pakistan

An Afghan soldier stands guard in an armoured vehicle in Kabul, 09 August 2007. (Massoud Hossaini/AFP/Getty Images)

American interests and objectives in the Afghanistan-Pakistan nexus remain critically important to U.S. security, but U.S. policy must be grounded in a realistic understanding of what is achievable. An Asia Society task force report published in April 2009 outlines a comprehensive reformulation of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the context of the rapidly deteriorating situation in both countries.

The report, Back from the Brink? A Strategy for Stabilizing Afghanistan/Pakistan, presents a set of policy recommendations that integrate counterterrorism, governance, economic development, and regional objectives to achieve lasting stability in the region. Specific priorities proposed by the task force include:

  • Explicitly ending the rhetorical emphasis on the “war on terror” and defining our enemy as those who attacked our nation—al-Qaeda and its allies
  • Ending Operation Enduring Freedom, the counterterrorism command in Afghanistan, because al-Qaeda's sanctuary shifted to Pakistan
  • Separating funding for Afghanistan, including for security forces, from funding for Iraq
  • Engaging with the Afghan government and the United Nations to ensure an accepted and legitimate constitutional transition of presidential power and a more effective government
  • Transfer assistance to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund and security duties to official institutions, Afghan and international, as soon as possible, consistent with transparency and fiduciary oversight
  • Combating narcotics
  • Supporting reform and institutional capacity-building efforts in Pakistan
  • Focusing regional policy on creating conditions for the transformation of Pakistan’s security doctrine so that it no longer requires the use of covertly supported guerrilla forces against neighbors
  • Establishing regular dialogue and exchanges over Afghanistan and Pakistan with Russia, China, India, Iran, Turkey, the Central Asian states, and Saudi Arabia, seeking a means of cooperation with them in conjunction with NATO allies and other international partners

The co-chairs of the task force for this report were Thomas Pickering, Vice Chairman, Hills & Company and Former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and Barnett Rubin, Director of Studies and Senior Fellow, Center for International Cooperation, New York University.

Download the Report

Back from the Brink? A Strategy for Stabilizing Afghanistan-Pakistan (PDF)

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