Following the withdrawal of large scale military contingents from Afghanistan and Iraq, enthusiasm in the Western world for what has been called armed state-building seems to have sunk to an all-time low. This is not entirely surprising given the high stakes and the meagre results of the massive efforts …

The author reflects on the nature of exit from state-building missions and the challenge of evaluating it. He does this by first discussing the growing importance of evaluation and the conditions required for a proper evaluation as exposed in the professional evaluation literature, He refers here to …

Article that presents the main conclusions of the book "The dilemma of leaving : political and military exit strategies" organised around three questions: 1) "What is exit?" 2) "How can we understand exit? and 3) "What can we do about exit?". The first question deals with the definitional ambiguity of …

De motivatie voor de interventie en stabilisatie van Afghanistan door voornamelijk westerse staten komt voort uit wederzijdse veiligheidsbelangen, vooral energieveiligheid. Gelet op de toenemende schaarste van delfstoffen en instabiliteit in het Midden-Oosten is het belang van de Kaspische Zee regio …

In de zomer van 2006 werd er oorlog gevoerd tussen de staat Israël en Hezbollah, een zogeheten non-state actor met een politiek-maatschappelijk en een militair karakter. Waar was de regering van Libanon? Is Libanon een fragiele of een falende staat? Dat zijn de vragen waaraan in de bijdrage van Theo …

Analysis of the newest US strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan. As such, it raises the questions what are realistic goals and ambition levels, differences between strategies of western partners, as well as burden sharing among them. Whether the new strategy will succeed, of course, also depends on Afghan …

Offering the societal perspective, the author deals with state building and the role of religion in Lebanon, prior to, during and after the 2006 war. The internal Lebanese problem is also an element in the international tensions between Sunnis and Shiites, between the Arab/Islamic world and Israel, between …

After more than three decades of war and conflict, Afghanistan is back on track towards becoming a functioning state again. Although security and stability have not taken root yet, the first results of peace are tangible. The quality of governance, the judicial …