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Description

The U.S. Government strategy for success in Afghanistan unveiled by President Obama on March 27, 2009, emphasized a classic population-centric counterinsurgency approach. The novelty of this approach can be debated, but clearly the emphasis has shifted under the Obama administration. Securing the population and reducing civilian casualties are now the focus of attention. This approach should be more popular with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Allies, who prefer stabilization operations to offensive operations against insurgents, and with the Afghan government, which has vocally objected to operations that produce inadvertent civilian casualties. The possibility of greater support from Allies and the Afghan government increases the likelihood that the strategy can be executed with better unity of effort. The architects of the new strategy recognize that it puts a premium on better collaboration and that they have limited time for demonstrating progress. In these circumstances, taking every reasonable step to strengthen unity of effort is necessary.

Document Type

Policy Brief

Publication Date

10-2009

Publication

Strategic Forum

Publisher

National Defense University Press

City

Washington, DC

Unity of Effort: Key to Success in Afghanistan

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