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Disclaimer up front: There's an ad in the sidebar for this program. However, this post is not part of that deal, and I don't gain revenue for "click throughs". (Though no doubt advertisers are aware of them and appreciate them.)
Ive seen no more of the program than what's available on the preview videos at the site, but from that brief look I'm impressed that interviews with Lt. Col. John Nagl and David Kilcullen are included in the program - that's enough to convince me to tune in.
Beyond which, this admittedly brief quote captures what's likely to be the enormously complex strategic challenge facing the U.S. and it's allies in the region now and in the coming months:
Even with more troops, any progress in Afghanistan will be hostage to developments just across the border. As long as the Taliban and Al Qaeda are able to launch attacks from their sanctuaries in the lawless tribal areas of neighboring Pakistan, any policy is likely to fail. But cracking down on the insurgent safe havens in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas presents enormous challenges of its own.And while Afghanistan and Iraq are "back burner" issues to the economy right now (or even seen as a drain on that very economy) anyone with any knowledge of history should be concerned with (or at least aware of) the potential for a "good war" - if it's big enough - to reverse a downward economic spiral.In recent months, special forces have mounted ground assaults on targets inside the tribal areas without the consent of the Pakistani government, prompting growing tensions with the Pakistani army and its new civilian leaders. “The United States does not have the right to go into a sovereign country that is its ally without permission and approval and consent of that ally,” Husain Haqqani, the Pakistani ambassador to the United States, tells FRONTLINE. Vali Nasr of the Council on Foreign Relations adds: “This was an early and decisive success we had [against the Taliban] after 9/11. If eight years later it collapses before the very force that we defeated and kicked out of Afghanistan, then the symbolism is tremendous. It would be a major morale booster for extremism across the Muslim world.”
I don't know if that aspect of the situation confronting the world today is covered in the program - but as Nagl points out in the video below, Afghanistan is already "the good war".
Fortunate, then, that whoever takes charge in the White House next year will have a "spine of steel", eh?
