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.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon discusses why women in Afghanistan will be watching particularly closely to what President Barack Obama plans to say about the drawdown of American troops in Afghanistan.

Max Boot says a large withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan would allow the Taliban to gain ground and erode the willingness of the Afghan government to provide the United States with the military bases needed to keep pressure on Al Qaeda.

Max Boot says it's best for the United States to ignore outbursts by Afghan president Karzai and to concentrate instead on cultivating a successor.

Leslie H. Gelb discusses why Ambassador Eikenberry was right to tell President Karzai to watch his words.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon discusses Afghan women who express concern at the lack of a peace process in Afghanistan, even as troop withdrawals approach.

Leslie H. Gelb says President Obama's yet unrevealed plan for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan should satisfy those pushing for a quick exit and the diehards determined to stay the course.

Is U.S. involvement in Afghanistan a mission to build a stable Afghan state or eliminate the al-Qaeda threat? As a decision nears on U.S. troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, lawmakers are making new calls for clarity, adding to the debate over the war's endgame.

Linda Bartlett, an esteemed scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, discusses maternal health in Afghanistan, highlighting her experiences during the Reproductive Age Mortality Survey (RAMOS), which she had conducted on horseback only months after the fall of the Taliban in 2002.

U.S. drone strikes and "kill/capture" missions against al-Qaeda operatives, particularly in Pakistan and Yemen, have gained new attention and notoriety this spring. Four experts debate the legality and efficacy of the controversial counterterrorism strategy.

Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell, head of NATO training efforts in Afghanistan, says 9 out of 10 Afghan security recruits are illiterate, and emphasizes the education role that has become a major component of NATO training. Caldwell expects NATO and U.S. forces to remain in Afghanistan well after 2014, when Afghan forces are planned to take on security leadership in the country.