Max Boot says the best way to honor U.S. special forces is not to make them win wars on their own.

Isobel Coleman and Gayle Tzemach Lemmon say the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan places maternal health programs for Afghan women in jeopardy.

Nicholas Schmidle desscribe the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan by a team of Navy SEALs in this piece for The New Yorker.

A profile of the international terrorist network that the United States has singled out as the most serious threat to U.S. security.

Stephen Biddle discusses how domestic politics still clashes with strategic imperatives in U.S. Afghan policy.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon says that while Secretary Clinton's commitment to keeping women front and center in Afghanistan is clear, the White House's interest in deploying political capital on Afghan women's behalf is far less certain.

Scaling back the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan will yield a peace dividend, but only when Social Security and Medicare spending are controlled will the U.S. be able to refocus on domestic priorities, says CFR'S Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.

Don Rassler and Vahid Brown of West Point's Combating Terrorism Center report on the role of the local Haqqani network in the evolution of a global al-Qaeda, with roots in the political context of Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1970s.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon argues that the freeing of the only suspect arrested in the mutilation of Afghan girl Bibi Aisha sends a message throughout Afghanistan that women's rights are irrelevant.

Ann Marlowe of the Hoover Institution spells out and challenges the prevailing concept of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan as a "war of perceptions".

Heightened cross-border tensions and militant activity underscore the possible risks to the region as the United States prepares for its phased troop pullout from Afghanistan.

This session was part of the project, Maternal Health in Afghanistan and Pakistan, organized by CFR's Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initiative.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon says the hotel bombing in Kabul raises the stakes for an already fragile peace process in Afghanistan.

Gideon Rose discusses President Nixon and Henry Kissinger's attempt to extricate the United States from the Vietnam War even as the local combatants continued to struggle -- and says President Obama should try to do the same in Afghanistan.

CFR president emeritus Leslie H. Gelb and senior fellow Stephen Biddle discuss the planned phased withdrawal from Afghanistan and what it means for President Obama's strategy in the region.

President Obama should have used his speech on the Afghanistan troop drawdown to confirm the long-term commitment of U.S. forces in the region, to signal an enduring, robust U.S. presence in troubled South Asia, says CFR's Stephen Biddle.

Leslie H. Gelb says President Obama accomplished the mission in Afghanistan and now needs to focus on nation building at home.

Did President Obama's troop drawdown plan for Afghanistan undercut the campaign against the Taliban or was it too limited to meet U.S. goals? CFR President Richard N. Haass and Senior Fellow Max Boot offer differing takes on the new battlefield deployment.

President Obama should pursue a more sweeping troop drawdown in Afghanistan that focuses a residual force on counterterrorist operations, and helps Washington devote more resources to fixing severe domestic problems, says CFR President Richard N. Haass.

President Obama's decision to remove thirty thousand troops from Afghanistan in just over a year heightens the difficulty in securing the east and south of the country against far-from-defeated Taliban forces, writes CFR's Max Boot.