Send My Mother to the Swat Valley

BY DAVID ROTHKOPF|JULY 2, 2009

I think it’s time to send my mother to Pakistan. And then to Afghanistan. And then to Baghdad. And then perhaps on to a few other choice spots from Honduras to North Korea. This hardly seems like a reward for an exemplary life, but she could teach these folks a lesson or two about gratitude. And then, when she is done with the tour … and she develops her own perspectives on just how little our efforts at generating gratitude in these places are actually benefitting the United States … perhaps she ought to come back here and provide a lesson or two for the administration and for some folks on the Hill, perhaps starting with Senator Kerry. Because not only is the United States suffering from something that appears to be much like a global gratitude deficit…it may well be that the problem is with our expectations and our mechanisms for manifesting our (not so selfless) generosity to the less fortunate (or strategically significant) worldwide.

» READ MORE

How a Cavalry Officer’s 1845 Memoir Explains Afghanistan

BY PATRICK DEVENNY|JUNE 30, 2009

As American troops in Afghanistan seek to rebuild a flagging campaign, they might do well to read up on the lessons of another troubled Afghan project, the Anglo-Afghan Wars — and specifically, the lessons of one Captain Charles Trower, a British cavalry officer who deployed to India in the 1830s. His 1845 memoir, Hints on Irregular Cavalry, says pretty much all there is to say about one of the most complicated problems in Afghanistan today: the training and oversight of local defense forces.

» READ MORE

5 Afghan History Lessons for Obama’s New General

BY DAVID LOYN|JUNE 24, 2009

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who took command of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan on June 15, is far from the first general to take on the daunting task of pacifying the country. Here are five lessons from Afghanistan’s history that he should keep in mind.

» READ MORE

Sakastan: the most interesting corner of the world

BY TOM RICKS|JUNE 22, 2009

I think the most interesting corner of the world right now is the area once known as Sakastan — that is, the bleak endoheric part of Central Asian desert where the borders of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan meet. Right now the Marines are carrying out an offensive there in Afghanistan’s Helmand River valley. (I believe, by the way, that the Helmand is the largest river in the world that simply dries up, without an outlet to another river, a lake, or the sea).

Meanwhile, Baluchistan, just over the border in Pakistan, is also restive, and Pakistani officials have expressed concern that the Helmand fighting will further destabilize the situation if Talibanners flee south. They say the Americans have promised that won’t happen. Maybe so. And then of course there is Iran, where the situation remains unsettled — and where the southeast has been intermittently frisky for several years. The west part of this area, in Iran, also is known as Sistan. Hmm — sound familiar?

» READ MORE