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The imminent Dutch withdrawal from NATO’s Afghan mission will ignite the question of allied troop contributions. But what are the real numbers and how do they compare to past missions? In a new article for the Spanish think tank FRIDE, I have done the sums, as part of a broader analysis of transatlantic “AfPak” policy since President Obama came to power. The contribution of EU member states to NATO’s ISAF has grown from 16,900 soldiers in 2007 to 22,774 in 2008, 25,572 in 2009 and 32,337 in 2010. Soldiers from EU countries have until this year made up 45–53 per cent of the total force and for three consecutive years.

It’s not quite the “we got him” moment, as when US soldiers unearthed the fugitive Iraqi dictator. But the capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a top militant commander who is said to be second in command to elusive Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Mohhamad Omar, may be even more significant. By the time Saddam Hussein had been caught, the US was fighting a different enemy, though the Pentagon leadership had not realised yet. Baradar, who was in charge of the insurgency’s day-to-day operations on behalf of the so-called Quetta Shura, the Taliban’s leadership council, is very much today’s enemy – and his seizure should not be underestimated. Doubts remain as

Fighting is now well under way in southern Afghanistan, as NATO forces are executing Operation Moshtarak. The plan is aimed at shoring up security around Kandahar city and recapturing the remaining Taliban strongholds in Chah-e-Anjir, Western Babaji, Trek Narwa and Marjah in Helmand province, though the latter is getting all the publicity. The operation has been billed as “NATO’s biggest” and a “test” of the new counter-insurgency policy, designed to first eradicate militants and, then, follow up re-establish government control and civil services. These claims may have been exaggerated for effect. Operation Medusa in 2006 was a big battle (and one that NATO almost lost), while the forward deployment of

After the London conference, it is clear that “talking to the Taliban” will become part of the strategy in Afghanistan. But the conference left a number of important questions about what this means in practice unanswered. Talking to the Taliban is not a new idea. Even though he expelled a British and Irish diplomat for holding secret talks with Taliban in December 2007, President Karzai has become an advocate for such negotiations over the last two years. In the Spring of 2009, Saudi Arabia hosted tentative negotiations between Karzai’s representatives and former Taliban, with links to the current movement. But the idea now has a head of steam behind it.

Whitehall has turned into the lobby of the UN General Assembly, as dignitaries gather to give NATO’s Afghan campaign renewed impetus. Will it all amount to much? It depends. In this piece for the magazine E!Sharp I set out my stall: ‘[if the conference] is to achieve anything more than fill out the evening news, the gathering must have only one aim: to help Hamid Karzai begin reaching out to insurgents and fence-sitters, drawing them into a negotiation that can drain the insurgency of all but the religiously-committed warriors.’ Part of this will involve giving money, jobs and security guarantees to foot-soldiers, as I recommended in a report back in

Oh dear. After Massachussetts, it seems like the usual sneering about “populist” politicians, and about voters who aren’t happy with the bankers, is back.  So here are a few facts of life for those knocking people who think the banking sector could still do with a lot of fixing: 1) The financial performance of the financial services industry over the past decade, in aggregate, has been shocking. Someone who had invested in the US or UK stock market would have seen their investment in real terms (net of inflation) fall by over a third. Shareholders have been brutalized for the best part of a generation now. 2) The last ten

It is a sign of the problems that Obama is having that on the eve of the anniversary of his inauguration, the Democrats look like losing Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat in Massachusetts. To put it in context, this is a bit like Labour losing Sunderland Central in a by-election. There are a whole host of reasons why the Democrats might lose this seat: an unappealing candidate, how few things Obama has actually delivered, the cost of the health-care bill, the fact Massachusetts, basically, already has universal health care. But this along with the Democrats losing in governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey shows that it is just an

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 succeeded because US intelligence failed to bring the various pieces of information together to prevent them. The attempted terrorist attack on a North West Airlines plane headed for Detroit almost succeeded because US intelligence failed to bring different pieces of information together that would have prevented the bomber getting on the plane. Between 2001 and today, the US has spent around $40 billion on counter terrorist improvements and even more on trying to improve intelligence. And yet, nothing much seems to have changed. In the current case, there was intelligence that the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda was using a ‘Nigerian’ as a bomber. There