ALL NECESSARY MEANS? GETTING AFPAK RIGHT

What will be needed to make AFPAK work is something the British understood only too well in the nineteenth century – fighting power, staying power and paying power. The AFPAK strategy has eight essential principles which include an international approach, a regional approach, a joint civil-military approach, a better co-ordinated approach, and a long-term approach. However, the weaknesses of the strategy reflect the essential paradox of the position taken by the Americans and the wider West. AFPAK is a big place fractured into a thousand hatreds. For strategy to succeed requires a commitment to success that is normally only seen during major war.

Therefore, in September 2010 severe questions remain given the financial and economic challenges faced by many Allied governments as to whether sufficient staying power and paying power is likely to be generated, let alone fighting power. Is the West still collectively prepared to invest politically or financially at a higher level of effort at a crucial moment? What to do?

Read more in Policy Paper prepared especially for 5th GLOBSEC Security Conference by JULIAN LINDLEY- FRENCH Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy at the Netherlands Defence Academy at:

http://www.ata-sac.org/globsec2010/uploads/documents/Prof.%20Julian%20Lindley-French%20-%20All%20Necessary%20Means%20-%20Getting%20AFPAK%20Right.pdf