Paper - "COIN: A Forgotten U.S. Strategy"

Counterinsurgency is a way of fighting that the U.S. Army (and military as a whole) seems to have trouble getting right. It didn't do it well in Vietnam and was slow to apply lessons 'forgotten' from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan. Certainly there will be many papers produced by military students from the various staff courses and colleges over the next decade addressing this issue. One recently published is entitled Counterinsurgency: A Forgotten U.S. Strategy, by LCDR Vicent S. King, USN, Joint Forces Staff College (Master's Thesis), Norfolk, Virginia, 13 June 2014.

Paper - Sustainable Governance in Afghanistan

The Civil-Military Fusion Centre has published a paper entitled "Towards Sustainable Governance: Funding & Capacity". The paper, dated February 2012, is authored by Stefanie Nijssen - a governance and rule of law desk officer. The paper discusses in detail governance in Afghanistan in the future under fiscal constraints as aid to that country decreases. The paper is available for reading or downloading through a link provided by ReliefWeb - http://reliefweb.int/node/485078. The introductory paragraph of the paper, seen below, provides a description of the paper contents.

The United States Institute of Peace’s (USIP) handbook on “Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction” states that effective governance requires domestic capacity. This capacity comprises skills and capabilities as well as adequate financial resources. However, according to Deutsche Welle, the Afghan government may face significant challenges in financing its operations and its security services in the coming years if, as the World Bank predicts, aid to the country decreases significantly. This report examines various ways in which the Afghan government and the international community have responded to the dual challenges of fiscal sustainability and skills building.