Feb. 18, 2016
Ioannis Koskinas wrote for Foriegn Policy about the the risks to Afghanistan in this new era:
Pericles, immortalized by Thucydides, told the Athenians some 2,500 years ago, “I am more afraid of our own mistakes than of our enemies’ designs.” Some have raised concerns over the Taliban’s battlefield plans in 2016 and the rise of the Islamic State (IS) in Afghanistan. Yet the Afghan government’s own failure to learn the lessons of the 2015 fighting season is a far greater cause for concern than some brilliant Taliban strategy to topple the government and seize territory.
In December 2015, the U.S. Department of Defense released a blunt report indicating that the security situation in Afghanistan had deteriorated. On Feb. 9, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, testified that the “fighting in 2016 will be more intense than 2015.”
When it comes to the Taliban threat, context matters. Afghanistan experienced its most significant wave of instability when Pakistan’s 2015 military operations drove militants into Afghan territory. While the Afghan government wasted time and political capital pursuing peace talks with an enemy that was not ready to talk seriously, the Taliban were able to establish sanctuaries in Afghanistan that will enable the group to intensify its attacks in the coming fighting season.
***