Military involvement in foreign policy decision-making, and its role as a driving force in that process, has long been anathema to both academic and practitioner circles. Without wanting to pursue the quest for principles or ultimate predictions this study looks specifically into the role of the military …

Today’s military missions are often broad in scope and face a multitude of political, socio-economic, and security challenges. Enemy-centric intelligence is therefore no longer sufficient. Based on their experiences in Afghanistan, retired General Michael T. Flynn and his colleagues noted that U.S. …

This paper analyzes the effects of foreign aid on institutional capacity building. The research uses the Ministry of Finance, government of Afghanistan as the case for the study. The hypothesis that whether or not foreign aid can help to develop institutional capacity in developing countries is explored …

In literature on public support for military missions, political discord has been criticised, because it is claimed that having a single strategic narrative as a basis for consensus helps foster such support. In this chapter the author starts from the perspective of the primacy of politics. The chapter …

In crisis areas, military and civilian missions are often simultaneously active, but they have different mandates and are executed by different organisations. Also the way those organisations leave a country after an intervention differs. This article provides a comparison between the military (ISAF/NTM-A) …

Background: Although the incidence of HIV/AIDS has decreased globally, it is on the rise in Eastern Europe. The primary mode of HIV transmission in the region is injecting drug use (IDU) due to the smuggling routes of Afghan heroin into Europe, which makes drugs widely available. The widespread sharing …

Assessing the effectiveness and progress of efforts to ‘build states in order to build peace’ (Call and Wyeth, 2008) is inevitable for several reasons. Politicians want to know what is being achieved with the resources that they have allocated to the state building endeavours abroad. They want to judge …

After 2001, nine years after the fall of the Taliban, women's socio-economic position in Afghanistan has hardly improved. To this day, women are subjected to many cruelties such as torture and rape. After the Taliban had been defeated in 2001, the total amount of development assistance by the international …