DATE: 4 p.m. March 12, 2009.

EVENT: Panel discussion “Afghanistan—The Once and Future War” with David B. Edwards, the W. Van Alan Clark ’41 Third Century Professor in the Social Sciences, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Williams College; Alessandro Monsutti, postdoctoral fellow, Agrarian Studies Program, Yale University, and social anthropologist, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva; and M. Nazif Shahrani, chair, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, and professor of anthropology, Central Asian and Middle Eastern studies, Indiana University.

During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama argued that U.S. military efforts had been misdirected into Iraq and that the center of foreign-policy attention and the main target of military action should be terrorist groups based in Afghanistan and along the Afghan/Pakistani border. The new Obama Administration is reorienting U.S. foreign and military policy in precisely this way, with increased attention to political reform efforts, foreign-aid investments, and plans for a rapidly expanded military presence, especially in parts of southern Afghanistan. As tens of thousands of American soldiers are about to pour into the region, it is particularly timely to explore the strategies being employed, the country under scrutiny, and the lessons of past interventions by Britain and the USSR that may be useful in understanding events today. Could the U.S. repeat its own mistakes in Iraq, or of earlier invaders in Afghanistan? Or are the tactics being chosen by the U.S. government today more likely to lead to successful outcomes—success, that is, defined by Afghans as well as outsiders?

PLACE: Room 1636 International Institute, 1080 South University, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

SPONSORS: U-M Center for Russian and East European Studies, Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, Center for South Asian Studies, and Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies. The Center for Russian and East European Studies and Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies are affiliates of the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia.

WEB LINKS: Center for Russian and East European Studies