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With the terrorist attacks of 9/11, international attention has shifted to Afghanistan. This event also marked the beginning of a fundamental transformation in the country: It was and is target of an enormous military campaign that toppled the Taliban in a'War on Terror'. With the previous government deposed, a new one had to be built. Guided by a multinational coalition, the Afghan state was quickly reformed, but instabilities and conflicts have not only been inherited but also unintentionally triggered. Even after more than 15 years of international intervention, neither peace nor political stability or security seem to have taken roots in the country. The book takes a closer look at the international state-building regime and evaluates the impact and outlook of such efforts in Afghanistan. In order to facilitate the analysis, the study concentrates on Security Sector Reform (SSR) with special emphasis on the reconstruction of the Afghan military and police. With this, the author presents critical insights into state-building prospects in Afghanistan and introduces an analytical approach that may also be transferred to other cases of state reconstruction. Auch 15 Jahre nach der internationalen Intervention ist Afghanistan weit davon entfernt, ein stabiler Staat zu sein. Mit besonderem Fokus auf den Sicherheitssektor analysiert Suchanek die bisherigen Maßnahmen und entwickelt zugleich eine allgemein anwendbare Analysemethode für staatlichen Wiederaufbau.

This book examines the evolution, impact, and future prospects of the Security Sector Reform (SSR) model in conflict-affected countries in the context of the wider debate over the liberal peace project. Since its emergence as a concept in the late 1990s, SSR has represented a paradigm shift in security assistance, from the realist, regime-centric, train-and-equip approach of the Cold War to a new liberal, holistic and people-centred model. The rapid rise of this model, however, belied its rather meagre impact on the ground. This book critically examines the concept and its record of achievement over the past two decades, putting it into the broader context of peace-building and state-building theory and practice. It focuses attention on the most common, celebrated and complex setting for SSR, conflict-affected environments, and comparatively examines the application and impacts of donor-supported SSR programing in a series of conflict-affected countries over the past two decades, including Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, East Timor and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The broader aim of the book is to better understand how the contemporary SSR model has coalesced over the past two decades and become mainstreamed in international development and security policy and practice. This provides a solid foundation to investigate the reasons for the poor performance of the model and to assess its prospects for the future. This book will be of much interest to students of international security, peacebuilding, statebuilding, development studies and IR in general.

After more than a decade of fighting in Afghanistan, the United States and its allies are set to transfer security responsibilities to Afghan forces in 2014. This transition poses many challenges, and much will depend on the future of Afghan politics, governance, corruption, development, security, and economics. How the United States manages the transition is vital for any hopes of creating a secure Afghanistan, as well as preventing the reemergence of the Taliban and other terrorist groups. The Afghan War in 2013 honestly assesses the benefits, costs, and risks involved in transition. It is essential reading for an in-depth understanding of the complex forces and intricacies of the United States'role in Afghanistan and the difficulties involved in creating a stable Afghanistan in 2014 and beyond. Afghanistan is still at war and will probably be at war long after 2014. At the same time, the coming cuts in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and cuts in military and civil aid, along with the country's fractious politics and insecurity, will interact with a wide range of additional factors that threaten to derail the transition. These factors, examined in this three-volume study, highlight the need to make the internal political, governmental, economic, and security dimensions of the transition as effective as possible. This will require a new degree of realism about what the Afghans can and cannot accomplish, about the best approaches to shaping the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), and the need for better planned and managed outside aid.