Scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the U.S. a more responsible global partner.
Europe & Central Asia

Afghanistan: In Search of Security

by | Oct 3, 2003

On May 1, 2003, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, on a visit to Kabul, triumphantly declared that “major combat activity” in Afghanistan was over and that the “the bulk of the country is now secure.” Rumsfeld scoffed at those analysts and critics who dared to challenge this optimistic assessment, derisively labeling them “armchair columnists.” Four months later, on September 7, 2003, during a return trip to Kabul, Secretary Rumsfeld delivered a very different message. He was in the Afghan capital to shore up an increasingly fragile Afghan Transitional Administration (ATA), beset by insecurity and struggling to advance a sputtering reconstruction process.

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Blair and Bush Forge a New Special Relationship

by | Jul 27, 2003

Maybe the relationship is more special than we cynics have given credit. Events in Britain seem to be seriously affecting American politics. Americans are promiscuous with their applause. Broadway audiences clap when curtains open, when the set changes, and when the star comes on stage. To give him his due, Tony Blair did refer to the somewhat different reception he could expect back home, when he performed for George W. Bush at the joint session of Congress. One wonders whether the champion of the Third Way noticed that he had fewer allies in the Democratic benches than among the Republicans.

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United States and Europe Experience Continental Drift

by | May 22, 2003

The distance between the United States and Europe is slowly growing wider–about an inch each year, geologists estimate, due to the expansion of the Atlantic Ocean. Politically, the Atlantic Ocean has been a much less stable barrier between the United States and Europe. The first U.S. president, George Washington, viewed the Atlantic’s vast distance as America’s ultimate protection from the power politics of European monarchs and warned future presidents to avoid entangling alliances. Following World War II, U.S. leaders such as President Harry S. Truman and Secretaries of State George Marshall and Dean Acheson saw Europe and America as part of the same region, the compact North Atlantic, giving rise to the NATO and the Marshall Plan. Most recently, in the diplomacy prior to the Iraq war, a new rift developed between the United States and its European allies, culminating in U.S. recriminations against France and Germany, members of “Old Europe,” effectively blocking any UN authorization for the U.S.- and U.K.-led war. Now that the war is over, how much distance is there between the United States and Europe?

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The Forgotten War Shows No Sign of Abating

by | Apr 1, 2003

Less than an hour before the initial bombs and cruise missiles rained down on Baghdad in the first volleys of the Iraq war, the U.S. military launched a major attack in its other war in Afghanistan. Pentagon spokespersons insisted that the timing of the attack was “a coincidence” and that planning for the operation had been going on for months. However, it seems clear that this escalation of U.S. military activity serves a dual purpose: to assuage the fears of those concerned that the U.S. would lose interest in Afghanistan after the onset of the war in Iraq and to send a clear signal to anti-American forces in Afghanistan and the wider region that the war on terror would not lose momentum. More than anything, though, the operation illustrates that the ongoing war in Afghanistan–involving 11,000 coalition troops, 8,000 of which are American–is far from over.

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We’re all Americans: Why the Europeans Are Against This War

by | Mar 26, 2003

The continent has witnessed an unprecedented political attack on the authority of the United Nations, committed by a clan that–in the opinion of a predominant majority of Europeans–occupies the White House illegally. Regardless, if the majority of Europeans are against this war it isn’t because of sympathies for a murderous dictator like Saddam Hussein and it’s definitely not because of anti-Americanism. The massive demonstrations in Europe, which brought approximately eleven million Europeans onto the streets in the middle of February, are an expression of the disappointment with a country–the USA–which until now has represented an ideal for all committed democrats and has enjoyed unrestricted sympathies after the terrible attacks of 9/11.

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The Cost of Complacency: Afghanistan’s Faltering Peace-building Process

by | Mar 17, 2003

The success of peace-building activities in Afghanistan, a nation physically and psychologically scarred by 23 years of internecine conflict, is dependent on the existence of a robust and durable commitment by the international community. British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s pronouncement on the eve of the fall of the Taliban, that “we will not walk away from Afghanistan, as the outside world has done so many times before” reassured many that this commitment would be forthcoming (Independent, February 24, 2003). The January 2002 Tokyo International Donors Conference, which resulted in extensive material and moral pledges to rebuild Afghanistan bolstered this initial optimism. The Tokyo meeting rightly recognized that peace building in Afghanistan is a process that must be pursued on two parallel tracks, security sector reform and economic development. “Security and development are two sides of the same coin,” President Karzai affirmed during his opening address at the conference.

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