Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United States said Monday that Americans should not think of the conflict in Afghanistan as “yesterday’s war,” citing persistent attacks by the Taliban, ISIS affiliates, and other terror groups in the region – Washington Free Beacon
For more than a decade, from 2001 to 2012, Afghanistan posted an average annual growth rate of 9 percent. But that fast growth rate slowed to just 1.5 percent in 2015. The precipitous drop is the direct result of the withdrawal of foreign troops, whose presence injected billions of dollars into an economy whose own economic motors of agriculture and manufacturing still barely turn. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The United States is asking its allies helping with security in Afghanistan to maintain funding for Afghan forces at a cost of nearly $5 billion a year until at least 2020, a top U.S. military commander said on Monday. - Reuters
A series of kidnappings and murders on Afghanistan's highways has some officials and travelers questioning the NATO-backed strategy that reduced security check posts protecting roads in order to free up police and soldiers to go after the Taliban. - Reuters
Max Boot writes: Barack Obama has been president for more than seven years now. But he still doesn’t seem to have learned the most elementary lesson of military command—namely that war is a test of wills and the side with the superior will usually (although not always) prevails. - Commentary