In Brief: Next Steps in the War in Afghanistan? Issues for Congress

Abstract

On May 1, 2012, President Obama gave a speech from Bagram Air Field in which he laid out U.S. government approaches for winding down the war in Afghanistan.1 While a number of observers have challenged the logical plausibility of a unilateral decision to wind down a war, the Administration s commitment to decreasing U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan is clear. As of mid-2012, many observers point to a coalescing vision of the way forward shared by the governments of the United States, Afghanistan, and other international partners that includes bringing the current campaign to a close by the end of 2014, and pursuing a political settlement among the parties in conflict, while extending U.S. and other international commitments to Afghanistan beyond 2014. In evaluating this emerging vision, some observers emphasize that the overall level of ambition has been lowered, while others stress that the timeline for international engagement has been extended.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 15, 2012
Accession Number
ADA584325

Entities

People

  • Catherine Dale

Organizations

  • Library of Congress

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Engineered Resilient Systems
  • Human Systems
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Afghanistan
  • Agreements
  • Congress
  • Department Of Defense
  • Employment
  • Governments
  • International Security
  • Joint Military Activities
  • Military Operations
  • National Governments
  • National Security
  • Personnel Management
  • Security
  • Terrorism
  • Terrorists
  • United States
  • United States Central Command

Readers

  • Military and Counterinsurgency Studies.
  • Strategic Security Studies