The Burke Chair has prepared a seven-part analytic overview of unclassified metrics, and of how their current content relates to the challenges in policy, plans, resources, and management of the war. The data highlight the failures that almost lost the Afghan War between 2002 and 2008. Many of the key narratives and metrics that allowed the Taliban to return to Afghanistan and come close to winning a political and strategic victory are not available in unclassified form or do not lend themselves to summary metrics.

This is the fifth in a series of seven reported that cover the key aspects of the war and which have been comprehensively updated as a product of a recent trip to Afghanistan and the region. This report highlights unclassified graphics and tables that describe the key individual challenges that affect the course of the fighting and the ability to implement the new strategy. The metrics and narratives in this brief focus on six key sets of issues:

1. An Evolving Insurgency: Informal, Adaptive, Distributed Networks
2. Casualties: A Perceptual Weapon
3. Alliance: Unity of Effort versus National Caveats and “Branding”
4. Coping with the “Second Threat:” Afghan Governance and Corruption versus Popular Support in a War of Perceptions
5. Counternarcotics: Aid and Comfort to the Enemy? Or, Growing and Lasting Gains?
6. IEDs: The “Stinger” of the Afghan Conflict
SOURCE: Center for Strategic and International Studies