Foreign Affairs

Generation Kill: A Conversation With Stanley McChrystal

The former Afghanistan and special forces commander talks frankly about his accomplishments, his mistakes, his lessons learned, and the future of the new American way of war he helped create.

Stuck in the Mud: The Logistics of Getting Out of Afghanistan

To get all its extra supplies out of Afghanistan, NATO needs to send one container over the Afghan border every seven minutes from now until 2015. With the Pakistan-Afghanistan border open again, much of that will travel southward. About a third, however, will make the even more perilous journey North, toward Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Given the conditions on these routes, NATO might not be leaving on time. Read more.

The Truth About Opium Brides

Bartering girls into marriage to pay off opium debts has become more prevalent in recent years in Afghanistan. Farmers, middlemen in the drug trade, drug couriers, and even some drug lords themselves sell their daughters to more powerful traffickers and smugglers — and very little is being done to combat the injustice.

How to Talk to the Taliban

The new Taliban office in Qatar could open the door for negotiation and bring the war in Afghanistan to a peaceful end. Despite the significant risks, it would still be better to move forward cautiously, rather than not engage at all. Full article: http://fam.ag/wgzjbf

The Silk Road Through Afghanistan | The Country’s Economic Future Lies in its Region 

As international partners gather in Bonn to plan a withdrawal after 10 years of fighting in Afghanistan, the U.S. deputy secretary of state makes a case for an economic foundation for the country’s future. Read full article.

The September/October 2011 issue of Foreign Affairs is now online and on newsstands.

In this issue:

William McCants, an analyst at CNA’s Center for Strategic Studies, writes that, ten years after 9/11, the global jihadist movement is in crisis.

Melvyn Leffler, Edward Stettinius professor of history at the University of Virginia, looks back on U.S. President George W. Bush’s foreign policy after 9/11 and finds that it is not as novel as is generally believed.

David Rodriguez, a commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command, argues that Afghans will be ready to take over their own security by 2014.

Arvind Subramanian, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, shows that China’s global economic dominance will be far greater and come about far sooner than most realize.

Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, urges the United States to get real about what can — and cannot — be done to end its 40-year-long drug war.

Khaled Elgindy, a visiting fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, explains that the Palestinian push for UN recognition is an attempt to level the playing field during future peace negotiations.

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