Defining Success: Canada in Afghanistan 2006–2011

Modern war is not just about the application of violence, but also about the interpretation of that violence by all sides party to the conflict. With this in mind, any measure of success in war must account for not only what was done, but how those actions were perceived. From this theoretical background, this article proposes that success needs to be defined as both coherence and decisiveness. Where coherence is a measure of policy coordination and consistency, decisiveness is a measure of perceptions of those policies by the domestic audience of the country undertaking the war. This article hypothesizes that based on this comprehensive understanding of success in war, Canada’s mission to Afghanistan was a failure. Although at times coherent, Canada’s stated policies in Afghanistan were ultimately unsuccessful, lending weight to recent analysis arguing that Canada’s war in Afghanistan was about issue other than securing a better life for Afghans.     

Afghanistan: ‘spoilers’ in the regional security context

The ongoing international military withdrawal from Afghanistan has set the stage for energising the activities of Afghanistan's external stakeholders to re-evaluate their activities. The possible return of the Taliban in some form could compel Afghanistan's current external partners—Iran, India and Russia—to turn into limited spoilers. The absence of an international guarantor in Afghanistan from December 2014 is likely to encourage Pakistan—a greedy spoiler—to intensify its meddling as a means to reposition the Taliban—a total spoiler—at the helm of Afghan affairs. The combination of limited, greedy and total spoilers threatens to undermine security and state-building processes.     

A Science Journalist’s Perspective

A critique of papers in the session on Archaeology and War.

---

Résumé  Une critique d’articles concernant la session portant sur l’archéologie et la guerre.

---

Resumen  Una crítica sobre los trabajos de la jornada sobre arqueología y guerra.

     

The Resilience of a Frontier: Ottoman and Iraqi Claims to Kuwait, 1871–1990

With the advent of independence, Pakistan almost immediately became embroiled in the hegemonic struggle of the cold war. Courted by the United States for its strategic North-West Frontier, Pakistan quickly became a Western ally. Fears of tribal unrest in the region and conflicting Pakistani and Afghan claims to the frontier, however, soon complicated the United States’ broader strategic vision. As Afghanistan continued to call for the establishment of an autonomous ‘Pakhtunistan’ comprising the North-West Frontier settled districts and tribal zone - and threatened to turn to the Soviet Union if US policy-makers did not support the Afghan position - US officials were torn between their official alliance with Pakistan and their desire to prevent a Soviet–Afghan understanding. Mirroring circumstances elsewhere in the Third World, local conflicts on the North-West Frontier mired US strategists’ wider plans for spreading Western influence. Officials ultimately opted for a flawed neutral position, angering the Pakistan government and alienating the Afghans. The US position towards the North-West Frontier - or lack thereof - eventually resulted in failure and a continued impasse in relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.     

From London to Lashkar Gah: British Counter Narcotics Policies in Afghanistan (2001–2003)

In October 2001, the prime minister of Britain, Tony Blair, identified the destruction of the narcotics industry as a subsidiary but nevertheless major objective during the intervention in Afghanistan. Within 18 months of the intervention, the UK had launched a policy to compensate farmers for destroying their opium crops, assumed the role of G8 lead nation for counter narcotics and set an ambitious target to destroy opium cultivation within 10 years. However, other than the rather dismal results of British counter narcotics policy, very little is known about the decision-making processes that underpinned them. This article provides unique insight into British counter narcotics policy-making during 2001–2003, with a focus on the interdepartmental discussions regarding policy formulation. It reveals that Whitehall was divided over involvement in such a complex task, with officials close to the prime minister arguing that this was an achievable task and those within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office arguing that the policies adopted were doomed to failure. This article demonstrates just how and why the failure predicted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office actually came about.     

Palaeochannels of the Balkh river (northern Afghanistan) and human occupation since the Bronze Age period

In 2002, the unexpected discovery of Hellenistic architectural blocks, buried in 8 m of alluvium, found displaced in a former bed of the river of Balkh, brought about a programme of surveys and excavations under the aegis of the French Archaeological Mission in Bactria. The geoarchaeological side of the programme focused on the drawing of a regional geomorphological map then on the identification, mapping and dating of the palaeochannels of the river of Balkh. We established the chronology of several fluvial channel generations by association with archaeological settlements of different eras (Bronze Age, Bactro-Achaemenid period, Kushan period, Islamic period) and with optically stimulated luminescence dating carried out on alluvium deposits. The present riverbed leading up to Aqcha was formed during the Islamic period. We suspect the primary agent of this change in the river channel to, be tectonic activity and the activation of a blind fault crossing the floodplain. We identified a northern Bactro-Achaemenid aqueduct, currently located in the desert area separating the plain of Balkh from the Amu Darya.     

陶行知与汇文书院

作为教会大学毕业生的陶行知,在金陵大学求学期间,陶行知从一个尚且懵懂的徽州少年,转变成了一名追求自由民主、信奉“知行合一”的先进青年,成为他“爱满天下”的教育事业的逻辑起点。可谓金陵大学是陶行知早年智悲双修、悟证光明的菩提树。本文将通过陶行知在早期金陵大学求学经历的考察,探讨近代中国知识分子与教会学校间的特殊关系。     

The alliance echoes and portents of Australia's longest war

Afghanistan was Australia's longest war, yet the consensus between Australia's major political parties on the commitment never wavered over 12 years. The bipartisan unity held even as the nature of the war changed and evolved, Australian casualties rose and popular support fell away. The enduring centrality of the US alliance explains much—probably almost all you need to know—about the unbroken consensus of the Australian polity. Afghanistan was an example of the Australian alliance addiction, similar to Vietnam. As with Vietnam, the Australian military left Afghanistan believing it won its bit of the war, even if the Afghanistan war is judged a disaster. As Australia heads home it finds the USA pivoting in its direction; with all the similarities that can be drawn between Vietnam and Afghanistan, this post-war alliance effect is a huge difference between the two conflicts.     

加拿大人回发展与人回迁移

本文简析加拿大人口发展与人口迁移过程,以及人口迁移对加拿大人口增长、种族、语言构成、人口分布及未来人口增长的影响。     

Islamic cosmopolitanism out of Muslim Asia: Hindu–Muslim business co-operation between Odessa and Yiwu

This article explores the forms of cosmopolitanism that form an important element of the identities and activities of long-distance Muslim merchants involved in the global trade in Chinese commodities. It focuses on two nodes that are central for this type of trade: Odessa on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast and Yiwu in China’s Zhejiang Province. Ethnographically, the paper focuses on the commercial and social ties that exist between Muslim traders from Afghanistan and those who identify with the country’s dispersed Hindu ethno-religious minority. It argues that the ability to manage heterogeneous social and religious relationships is of critical significance to the activities and identities of these commodity traders.     

Geopolitics of gender and violence ‘from below’

This article examines geopolitical violence, gender and political constructions of scale from the site of the body to international discourse and politics. The political constructions of scale and body-politics analyzed in this study draw on feminist and political geographic analysis and an empirical study of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). This study includes an examination of state, military and paramilitary violence from below as articulated through the lens of RAWA's documentation and political framing. RAWA clandestinely used photographic and video technologies to document the corporeal results of state/military violence and politically constructed scale by way of linking this violence to international discourses and political action. A number of opportunities, challenges, and pitfalls are identified as part of RAWA's geopolitics of violence from below. The post 9-11-01 U.S.-led military invasion of Afghanistan demonstrates a significant shift in the management and manipulation of RAWA's documentation. Both the U.S. and RAWA politically constructed scale and drew upon western-led “universal” moralities and human/women's rights discourses for alternative purposes. This paper also discusses the use of gender politics and its various manipulations to resist, criminalize, or legitimize the use of violence in the name of human/women's rights.