Afghanistan wave 4
AT: Regional Cooperation Counterplan (this is also neg vs. SCO advantage)
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AT: Regional Cooperation Counterplan (this is also neg vs. SCO advantage)The withdrawal announcement gutted any chance of regional cooperation Tellis, 10 is a senior associate in Carnegie’s South Asia Program (2010, Ashley, Carnegie Endowment for Peace, “IMPLEMENTING A REGIONAL APPROACH TO AFGHANISTAN,” http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/regional_approach.pdf) President Obama’s decision to identify a date for beginning the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan has perhaps driven the final nail in the coffin of what were already, for all the structural reasons laid out here, debilitating infirmities in the regional strategy. Whatever the domestic political considerations that led up to it, all of Afghanistan’s neighbors, and many others, read the president’s November 25, 2009, speech—despite its subsequent qualifications—as signaling the beginning of an American exit from the region. Consequently, all of them have since begun preparations to protect their national interests in the aftermath of a U.S. military withdrawal. These actions, far from presaging the cooperation necessary for the success of a regional approach, could well prove its conclusive undoing. Thus, it is ironic that the Obama administration, which has been the biggest champion of the regional approach to resolving the conundrums in Afghanistan, has inadvertently done the most to undermine its prospects for accomplishment. Given that the auguries of the regional approach were never particularly encouraging to begin with—except at the purely operational level of war (the first conception of the regional approach discussed in the first section)—the incongruence of various national goals relative to those of the United States in Afghanistan, the existence of important cross-cutting rivalries among the regional influentials, and the corrosive impact of many national actions in Afghanistan all combine to undermine the regional approach, whether at the level of national policy or international diplomacy or economic integration. Given this reality, U.S. policy could move in the direction of either jettisoning the regional approach or continuing to hold on to it mainly as a slogan, while seeking to mitigate its deficiencies by encouraging limited economic integration wherever possible even as it pursues concerted bilateral engagement with the relevant states. The United States should invest resources in deepening regional economic integration, no matter how modest or partial the gains may be initially. There is in fact a strong case to be made for Washington using its significant assistance programs as well as the power of multilateral lending institutions to foster more intense trade and transit linkages between Central and South Asia—even against the opposition of recalcitrant states. Washington should approach the issue of bilateral engagement, however, more carefully. If this effort comes to focus on conflict resolution, it is unlikely to be any more successful in the future than it has been in the past. Failure in this instance is not because Washington has lacked the interest or attention, but rather because the strategic interests of Afghanistan’s key neighbors, especially Pakistan, are obdurate and beyond the capability of the United States to refashion, especially in circumstances where Washington is widely viewed as preparing to exit the region. Given such perceptions, attempting to recast the goals and strategies of Afghanistan’s neighbors by investing in resolving the major underlying conflicts between them is unlikely to pay off. While this approach would be consistent with the president’s early instincts and with the sentiments of many within his administration to this day, it would also be hazardous and uncertain—at least within the timelines that Obama himself has established for the realistic demonstration of success in Afghanistan. If the administration nonetheless chooses to embark upon this course, it would be gambling on the proposition that resolving the more intractable and vicious problem of regional conflict remains the best way to address the narrower challenge embodied by a Taliban insurgency that operates with Pakistani support. AT: Regional Cooperation Counterplan (this is also neg vs. SCO advantage)Regional cooperation fails---conflicting interests and competition Tellis, 10 is a senior associate in Carnegie’s South Asia Program (2010, Ashley, Carnegie Endowment for Peace, “IMPLEMENTING A REGIONAL APPROACH TO AFGHANISTAN,” http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/regional_approach.pdf) The logic of pursuing a regional approach in Afghanistan is faultless— in principle. If Afghanistan’s neighbors, both those that border it and those that directly impact its security, could collaborate to advance the international coalition’s core objectives in regard to counterterrorism, reconstruction, and state-building, the prospects for success would immeasurably increase. When the national aims, perceptions, and actions of Afghanistan’s many neighbors are carefully assessed, however, the effective consensus necessary to support the coalition’s larger political and military goals seems to lie beyond reach. The conventional wisdom about why the regional approach in Afghanistan has not succeeded thus far attributes the failure mainly to the incompatible prioritization of various national goals that transcend Afghanistan. Thus, it is often argued that all the states in the greater South Asian region actually desire a stable and successful Afghanistan, but competing national priorities beyond Afghanistan usually get in the way. Consequently, Afghanistan, in effect, becomes a sideshow where, despite the general desire for cooperation, other bilateral disputes invariably take priority. This explanation for the ineffectiveness of the regional approach is not wrong but it is incomplete. As this essay suggests, the regional approach to Afghanistan— understood as an effort to incorporate all of Kabul’s major neighbors into a cooperative enterprise led by the United States, and aimed at stabilizing Afghanistan through successful counterterrorism, reconstruction, and state-building—is unlikely to succeed, first and foremost, because the key regional stakeholders have diverging objectives within Afghanistan. Thus, although these states claim to want success for Afghanistan, their specific goals often do not cohere either with U.S. and Afghan aims or the objectives sought by others within Afghanistan itself. This fundamental problem is exacerbated by the realities of local security competition, which then position other states as bigger challenges to be managed relative to securing what are notionally common goals in Afghanistan. Given these two sets of problems— the diverging national objectives within Afghanistan itself and, further, the competition between various states that takes priority over achieving common goals inside Afghanistan—it is not surprising to find a third tribulation that bedevils the regional approach: namely, that various national actions, even when well-intentioned, generate problematic consequences that only further deepen the extant regional rivalries. That the United States, too, pursues competing political interests vis-àvis these regional states, which has the effect of stymieing their cooperation on Afghanistan, does not help matters either. Altogether, these realities do not bode well for President Obama’s interest in regional engagement, particularly if the latter comes to dominate the imperatives of doing the right things within Afghanistan. Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. Objective files -> Pop Warner History files -> North Carolina Inclusion Initiative Mapping Where Children with ieps are Being Served Purpose files -> Fall 2013 Spring 2014 Program Data: Standard 1 Exhibit 4d files -> Hanban – asia society confucius classrooms network 2010 request for proposal files -> Northern England’s set-jetting locations Download 0.66 Mb. Share with your friends:
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