Eight years ago, a small number of U.S. personnel, working in tandem with local Afghan leaders, entered Afghanistan with a defined aim: to punish al-Qaida and overthrow the Taliban regime that harbored them. Over the past year, that mission has morphed into the much broader objective of rebuilding the Afghan state and protecting Afghan villages. Most recently, America’s top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, said a new strategy must be forged to “earn the support of the [Afghan] people . . . regardless of how many militants are killed or captured.” Such an undertaking, amounting to a large-scale social-engineering [...]
While transnational illicit flows of people, goods and technology are not a new phenomenon, it has been widely recognized that the volume of these flows has increased dramatically in the globalizing era that has followed the end of the Cold War. This increase has largely been a result of the technical innovations associated with globalization, combined with the popularization of “free trade” ideals. Simply put, the sheer volume of international trade has meant that even states of the developed world increasingly cannot control their borders. What effect has this increase in illicit flows had on states and their power in [...]
Elements of the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division are engaged in Afghanistan’s Wardak Province, southwest of Kabul. The division’s Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry, lost 8 killed and 25 wounded in just three months in mid-2009. Twenty-one-year-old Spc. Justin Pellerin, who was killed by a roadside bomb blast in Afghanistan Aug. 20, is one such casualty. In the days following his death, Pellerin’s friends remembered him, and mourned his loss. David Axe and Jason Reich report for World Politics Review.
