20130220analyst.pdf

by Richard Weitz (02/20/2013 issue of the CACI Analyst)

NATO’s mission in Afghanistan is reaching its home stretch. On February 10, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) held what will likely be its last command transition, with John Allen handing over command to fellow U.S. Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, who will now lead the international effort to train and assist the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and to help achieve NATO’s other objectives in the region. 

PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN BEYOND 2014

by Rizwan Zeb (the 02/06/2013 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Pakistan understands and realizes that a stable Afghanistan is key to its own stability. A number of issues are of crucial importance for the improvement of Pakistan-Afghanistan relations: the Durand line, the return of Afghan refugees, the Indian presence in Afghanistan, and the implementation of various pipeline projects transporting Central Asian oil and gas through Gwadar. Above all, Pakistan wants a stable and friendly Afghanistan which does not pose a threat or allow any other state to use its territory against Pakistan. After 2014, will Pakistan and Afghanistan develop a neighborly relationship or will Afghanistan become another theatre for India-Pakistan rivalry?

Richard Weitz (01/23/2013 issue of the CACI Analyst)

At their January 11 meeting, Presidents Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai pledged renewed cooperation as they transition the lead role in the Afghan War to the Kabul government. But many in Washington and beyond also saw this affair as an attempt to manage, if not a divorce, than at least a separation, as to the two leaders and their countries move off in different directions.