Strategic Chaos And Taliban Resurgence In Afghanistan

Strategic chaos and Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan: hearing before the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Tenth Congress, second session, April 2, 2008.

For more than a decade, international troops have been deployed to Afghanistan. Out of all NATO members, this mission was the most difficult for Germany that had thus far never engaged in combat and offensive military activities. This book analyses how Germany's experiences in Afghanistan have changed the country's strategic culture.

Three decades ago, conservative ideologues at The Heritage Foundation produced a primer on the Reagan Revolution entitled Mandate for Leadership, which offered an overarching philosophy against the role of government and in favor of markets. This volume, produced by the Institute for Policy Studies, which since 1963 has been the nation's leading progressive policy organization, offers a set of specific policy proposals for the incoming national administration on every major domestic and international topic, written specifically for the book by a leading thinker and activist in the field. These chapters set forth a fundamental, badly needed 'mandate for change' to reinvigorate government and rethink the role of markets and civil society. Each one includes an essay supporting the proposed policies and a resource list of relevant organizations, websites, and readings. It is perfect for public policy courses at the undergraduate and graduate level.

The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record began publication in 1873. Debates for sessions prior to 1873 are recorded in The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (1789-1824), the Register of Debates in Congress (1824-1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873)

This book offers a fresh assessment of George W. Bush’s foreign policies. It is not designed to offer an evaluation of the totality of George W. Bush’s foreign policy. Instead, the analysis will focus on the key aspects of his foreign and security policy record, in each case considering the interplay between principle and pragmatism. The underpinning contention here is that policy formulation and implementation across Bush’s two terms can more usefully be analysed in terms of shades of grey, rather than the black and white hues in which it has often been painted. Thus, in some key policy areas it will be seen that the overall record was more pragmatic and successful than his many critics have been prepared to give him credit for. The president and his advisers were sometimes prepared to alter and amend their policy direction, on occasion significantly. Context and personalities, interpersonal and interagency, both played a role here. Where these came together most visibly – for instance in connection with dual impasses over Iraq and Iran – exigencies on the ground sometimes found expression in personnel changes. In turn, the changing fortunes of Bush’s first term principals presaged policy changes in his second. What emerges from a more detached study of key aspects of the Bush administration – during a complicated and challenging period in the United States’ post-Cold War history, marked by the dramatic emergence of international Islamist terrorism as the dominant international security threat – is a more complex picture than any generalization can ever hope to sustain, regardless of how often it is repeated. This book will be of much interest to students of US foreign policy, international politics and security studies.