When it comes to crisis management, every second counts — whether it is a fire onsite or a reputational crisis, decisions must be made rapidly to protect the company’s people, operations and reputation. This paper gives real-world examples of standing up and running a crisis management process inside the Special Operations Command during the Afghanistan conflict. It highlights the need for fast, flat and accurate communication in order to enable rapid response and recovery. The paper describes the challenges of building an organisational approach to crisis management and establishing the buy-in, process steps and systems solutions for such an endeavour. The paper will review, step by step, how this process was built in Afghanistan and how to bring it to the civilian sector to create a level of intelligence and response that most civilian companies are yet to realise.

U.S. servicewomen may be at greater risk of injury in future conflicts as they integrate into combat occupations. More than 1,000 servicewomen were wounded during military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some women sustained traumatic amputations, and research on their postinjury health is needed. To describe acute care, complications, and health care utilization among servicewomen with combat-related amputations, comparing them with injured men. In this retrospective matched-pairs study, women were identified from the Expeditionary Medical Encounter Database between 2003 and 2012 and matched with men on amputation injuries, injury severity, and age. Differences were assessed with nonparametric tests for paired data. Of 20 women identified for analysis, 13 received tourniquets, three were administered procoagulants, and six had massive transfusions. Women averaged 3.4 (SD = 1.6) postinjury complications, and the most frequent were heterotopic ossification (n = 17), posthemorrhagic anemias (n = 13), and bacterial wound infections (n = 10). Acute care and complications were similar among men. Women averaged more acute care days (M = 49.8, SD = 30.6) than men (M = 46.1, SD = 27.4) but fewer intensive care unit days (women: M = 2.6, SD = 4.0; men: M = 4.4, SD = 8.3). No statistical differences were observed. Postinjury care among servicewomen with combat-related amputations was comparable with servicemen, and complications were common. This information can aid providers and nursing staff in the management of these injuries.

The article examines the main challenges and threats to the security of the countries of the Central Asian region, as well as examines their positions and interests in the context of resolving the situation in Afghanistan. The relevance of the research topic lies in the fact that the conflict in the IRA has not been resolved to this day, which creates security threats in the CAR countries. The author pays special attention to the study of the specifics of bilateral relations between the Central Asian states and Afghanistan in the issue of ensuring regional security and establishing peace in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The methods of comparison and analysis allowed the author to establish similarities and differences in the approaches of the Central Asian countries to the settlement of the Afghan crisis. The article analyzes the bilateral relations of the states of the region on this issue, their national benefits from a stable Afghanistan and proposals for the settlement of the Afghan conflict. The main factors of instability in the region, as well as mutual benefits in bilateral relations and the interests of the CAR countries in Afghanistan are considered.

The fall of the pro-Soviet regime of Najibullah led to a confrontation between armed groups and the division of the country into spheres of influence. Obviously, the uncontrolled conflict on the territory of Afghanistan aroused concern in the international community and directly threatened the security of neighboring states that have a common border with warring Afghanistan (Pakistan, Iran, China, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan). Considering the geopolitical situation that has developed in the Central Asian region and is directly related to ensuring the security of the borders of the sovereign states of Central Asia, political scientists do not have a common opinion about the role of Russia in this geopolitical process.

ABSTRACT The 20-year Afghanistan conflict was called a ‘forever war’ but another significant use of military force has lasted much longer. Since 1986, US presidents have authorised air attacks beyond armed conflict zones. President Biden continued the practice beginning with a strike on Syria and later on Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan, where a drone cost the lives of seven children. US air wars are explained more by a policy of deterrence, than the lawful purpose of self-defence as permitted under international law. UN Charter Article 51 restricts force to when an armed attack occurs. The general principles of necessity, proportionality, and attribution provide further restrictions. The US has tried for 35-years to alter this law in line with deterrence policy but doing so is difficult under the doctrine of positive law. It is impossible under the doctrine of jus cogens that includes the prohibition on force and the exception for self-defence.

Afghanistan’s cultural heritage sites have been at risk for more than 40 years, being deliberately and recklessly destroyed, robbed, illegally exported and sold on the black market. Anecdotal reports of the destruction of cultural heritage sites could be observed in real time, with the destroyers openly displaying photographs and video footage emphasizing their disregard for international humanitarian law, as it was with the destruction of two giant Buddha statues in Bamiyan province. It is impossible to name the exact number of destroyed cultural objects and missing values in Afghanistan, since there is no reliable information about this, and the access of observers is associated with a risk to life. The need to preserve historical and cultural monuments in Afghanistan has repeatedly drawn the attention of the international community and UNESCO. However, the problem of their preservation in Afghanistan is far from real solution. The article gives a classification and periodization of military conflicts in Afghanistan in 1978–2021, clarifies the composition of the participants in each of the periods under consideration, shows the negative consequences of each of the periods of the conflict for the preservation of the country’s cultural heritage. The military conflict in Afghanistan (1978–2021) is a series of civil wars that were fought, including the participation of foreign military contingents, which caused significant and sometimes irreparable damage to the Afghan society and the country’s cultural heritage. The author identifies five main stages of the military conflict in Afghanistan, when civil wars were fought in the country with many participants. In each of the stages of the military conflict, hostilities were conducted with varying degrees of intensity, as a result of which damage was inflicted to museums, archives, libraries, and archaeological sites. The main reasons for the destruction and looting of cultural monuments were: Intense hostilities in the areas where museums, archives, libraries, archaeological sites are located, the consequences of artillery shelling and bombing, the deliberate destruction of monuments, the activities of “black” archaeologists in the absence of the ability to control the areas where excavations were carried out, the lack of protection of cultural heritage monuments and funding for their repair, restoration and maintenance.

The end of the U.S. presence in the Afghan conflict by the 20thanniversary of events of September 11 2001 is a significant and symbolic event. In this article the author formulates an assessment by posing a question – how does the withdrawal of the US armed forces from AfPak region correlate with its strategy? The article examines the transformation of Washington’s policy goals towards the Afghan conflict throughout the last 20 years by comparing the approaches of four U.S. presidents, it also examines the conflict dynamics, internal and international factors of how the decision of withdrawal was presented and formulated. The author concludes, that if the U.S. policies in Afghanistan and the withdrawal are seen in the logic of previous strategical goals, the view on the campaign results as a defeat is accurate. Global war on terror and democracy promotion in the region was also focused on nation-building and the creation of a loyal and self-sufficient regime that could be used to project the U.S. interest in the region, which clearly didn’t happen. A different assessment arises in the new U.S. strategical framework to contain China and Russia. The author makes an assumption, that the announcement made by Beijing of the "Belt and Road" initiative and the Crimea crisis could have been one of the factors that postponed the initial NATO presence deadline. In this framework the US withdrawal from Afghanistan can be viewed as a step in the logic of Washington's new confrontation with Moscow and Beijing.

. The article analyzes the development and active implementation of Pakistan's policy of internationalization of the Afghan issue since the outbreak of the armed conflict in Afghanistan in the late 1970s. The author proves that the Afghan conflict has always been one of the pivotal factors for Pakistan in building its relations with the international community. In order to receive significant amounts of financial and military assistance, Pakistan sought to position itself as a frontline state. Since the late 2000s Pakistan has instrumentalized the Afghan issue to diversify its international relations searching for partners from the neighboring regions as a counterweight to the USA. The author examines the features and effectiveness of Pakistan's participation in various multilateral forums concerning the Afghan issue to some extent. The article emphasizes the essential infrastructure projects that will connect South and Central Asia, as well as potentially have a positive impact on the Pakistani economy. The article especially focuses on the Afghan issue as a part of Pakistan's foreign policy strategy since the Taliban's coming to power in Afghanistan in 2021. In this regard, Pakistan's key strategic documents, statements by Pakistani officials, and international community's expectations from the Pakistani authorities are analyzed. Based on this, it is predicted that Pakistan has to harmonize its position with the global and regional powers for a number of reasons and does not appear to be the first to recognize the Taliban government of Afghanistan. The author comes to the conclusion that Pakistan's correct approach towards the Afghan issue will contribute to its rise, above all, in the regional subsystem of international relations as a constructive actor and boost its socio-economic development.

Relentless Violation of International Humanitarian Law During the Ongoing Conflict in Afghanistan

Abstract This article analyzes the foundation of the Latin America Council of Peace Research (CLAIP in Spanish) in 1977 within the complex geopolitical conditions of military coups, lack of democracy, political refugees, Operation Condor, and economic crises. Globally, the geopolitical environment was equally complex with the Vietnam War, Watergate scandal, the School of the America's training militaries in torture, and the rise of the Taliban from the Soviet conflict in Afghanistan. In these adverse conditions, peace research and negotiation of conflicts were crucial. CLAIP developed to meet these needs over a five‐phase process of consolidation: 1. Foundational; 2. Expansion toward whole Latin America; 3. Fragmentation and specialization of peace research; 4. Development of hybrid and amalgam peace theories, and 5. The emergence of different regional approaches focusing also on gender perspective. This convergence has yielded more holistic paradigms that address the multifaceted threats to positive peace posed by the global response to COVID‐19. The article explores the potential for an integrated human, gender, and environmental, an engendered peace paradigm—called the HUGE model—to guarantee even the most marginalized women and girls a peaceful and secure future development in the subcontinent—even in the aftermath of the pandemic.

IntroductionSince veteran suicide is a concern and our knowledge of predictive factors is still limited, our objective was to assess risk factors for suicide, including genetic factors, among deployed veterans.MethodsFor this study, we surveyed 1730 veterans who were outpatients in a multi-hospital system in Pennsylvania. Altogether, 1041 veterans (60%) provided a DNA sample. The genetic risk variants investigated were within loci previously associated with PTSD and substance misuse, including CRHR1, CHRNA5, RORA, and FKBP5 genetic variations, which were used to calculate a polygenic risk score (range=0–8, mean=3.6, SD=1.4).ResultsMost veterans (56.2%) were deployed to Vietnam while significant numbers were deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other post-Vietnam conflicts. Overall, 95.1% of the veterans were male, their mean age was 56.2 (SD=12), and 95.6% were Caucasian. Among the veterans, 24% had high combat exposure. The prevalence of lifetime suicidal thoughts was 11.3%. Additionally, 5.7% ever developed a suicide plan or attempted suicide in their lifetimes. Among those with a history of a lifetime suicide attempt or suicide plan, the PTSD genetic risk score was significantly higher (OR=3.96 vs 3.55, p=0.033), but for suicidal thoughts, this association was not significant (p=0.717). In multivariable analysis (MVA) logistic regression, significant predictors of attempting suicide or having a suicide plan were history of depression (OR=5.04, p<0.001), PTSD genetic risk score (OR=1.25, p=0.036), history of childhood abuse/neglect (OR=2.24, p=0.009), and lifetime marijuana use (OR= 1.56, p=0.020). Conversely, rural residence was protective for suicide risk (OR=0.49; p=0.031). For suicidal thoughts, in the MVA genetic risk score was not significant (p=0.697), but history of child abuse/neglect (p<0.001), history of depression (p>0.001), low psychological resilience (p=0.004), and lifetime marijuana use (p=0.022) were significant.DiscussionIn this study, we identified genetic risk variants and other predictors for suicide among veterans that may have implications for future screening and clinical care. Further research is advised.

Following the US exit from Afghanistan, the debate revolves around why US intervention in Afghanistan, the longest and one of the most expensive in its history, has failed in defeating the Taliban and realising a durable state-building. The debate considers endogenous factors that explore US and Taliban strategies and exogenous factors that underline the role of regional and extra-regional actors in determining the outcome of the Afghan conflict. This paper, therefore, focuses on faults and inconsistencies within and across US strategies in Afghanistan, i.e., the use of military force, political settlement, and state-building. It also examines US strategies vis-à-vis conflict in Afghanistan under four US administrations – from Bush to Biden – to ascertain why these strategies proved ineffective. These strategies have been analysed by following the conceptual framework of Game Theory. The paper argues that US strategies for entering Afghanistan were detached from the ground realities, which was the critical factor for its failure to achieve the desired outcome of the conflict. Bibliography Entry Shad, Muhammad Riaz, Sajid Iqbal. 2021. "From Intervention to Exit: An Analysis of Post-9/11 US Strategies in Afghanistan." Margalla Papers 25 (2): 23-34.

In every phase of the conflict in Afghanistan, serious War Crimes and crimes against humanity were committed, resulting in mass killings and forced displacement of millions of Afghan civilians and political opponents. Based on relevant literature, this article investigates the political factors responsible for the failure of transitional justice in Afghanistan, particularly internal and external factors. The article also brings to the fore the impact of the dual process of state-building and peace-building on the implementation of transitional justice. In addition, the paper investigates why the 'Peace first and justice later' strategy proved to be unsuccessful in Afghanistan as the Taliban continued their atrocities, fighting Afghan forces and killing innocent people in suicide attacks. The paper finds that the failure of transitional justice in Afghanistan is due to both internal and external factors. Further, the paper finds that Afghanistan has never been a post-conflict state, unlike other countries that have experienced transitional justice processes. Therefore transitional justice measures were never implemented.

This article is a contribution to scholarship on the teaching of international law, in general, and in Nordic countries, in particular. The article draws on lessons from international law as situated and embedded in national and regional politics and systems of governance. That is, although international law is international, it is approached and implemented differently depending on situation and location. The article emphasizes that contemporary teaching of international law should engage with how situation and location matters for how international law is approached and it should also reflect contemporary global challenges. The article uses the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan as an example, as well as experiences from teaching international law with the help of a peacemaking role-play focused on the conflict in Afghanistan.

The author considers the position of Iran regarding the Afghan armed conflict (1978-1979) before the Soviet troops entered Afghanistan, as well as the consistent evolution of this position and the involvement of Iran in internal Afghan events. The author relies mainly on documentary sources, but also attracts scientific works in Russian and English (including the works of Iranian authors). According to the author, the analysis and study of Irans position on Afghanistan and the evolution of this position deserve a separate article because, firstly, the religious factor began to especially influence Irans foreign policy after the events of the Islamic Revolution of 1979; secondly, for the two years chosen for consideration in an article in Iran, the political regime has radically changed, and it is useful to consider the transformation of Irans foreign policy from the reign of the shah to the theocratic regime. In the first part of the article, the author analyzes the position of the Shah of the Iranian regime regarding the April Revolution of 1979 and the political changes that took place in Afghanistan after the revolution. The second part is devoted to the policy of Iran with respect to Afghanistan in 1979, and in this part the author argues that the Herat rebellion, which took place in March 1979, became the main trigger for transforming Irans attitude towards Afghanistan from a wait-and-see attitude to active involvement. The author also notes, that Irans policy towards Afghanistan in 1978-1979 developed sequentially, despite the radical transformation of power in Iran itself during this period.

Abstract A quasi-idiomatic expression ‘women have to prove themselves’ reflects various performance pressures and heightened visibility of women functioning in gendered professional spaces as advocated by tokenism theory. It is an example of how discriminatory practice – according to which competent and qualified women entering the culturally masculine professions are explicitly and implicitly expected to work harder for any recognition – gets discoursed in language and becomes a “rhetorically powerful form of talk” (Kitzinger 2000: 124). This paper explores the question: what is it that U.S. servicewomen functioning in the culturally hypermasculine space need to do to prove themselves? To this end, qualitative semi-structured interviews with women veterans of the recent Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are qualitatively scrutinized with the methods of discourse analysis and conversation analysis to 1) identify practices that U.S. servicewomen engage in to symbolically (re-)claim their place and status in the military, i.e., to prove they belong; 2) find out how the talk around proving emerged in the course of the conversation and how it was further interactionally sustained and/or dealt with in talk-in-interaction. The findings of the micro-level analysis – interpreted through the lenses of tokenism and the category of the ‘honorary man’ – reveal women’s complex and nuanced struggle to fit and find acceptance in the military culture of hypermasculinity. They also re-engage with the ideas of tokenism by demonstrating that various acts of proving, reflecting women’s token status, may concurrently and paradoxically be a means to earn honorary man status.

Many military veterans who experienced blast-related traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from chronic cognitive and mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Transcranial laser therapy (TLT) uses low-power lasers emitting light in the far- to near-infrared ranges. Beneficial effects of TLT have been reported in neurological and mental-health–related disorders in humans and animal models, including TBI. Rats exposed to repetitive low-level blast develop chronic cognitive and PTSD-related behavioral traits. We tested whether TLT treatment could reverse these traits. Rats received a 74.5-kPa blast or sham exposures delivered one per day for 3 consecutive days. Beginning at 34 weeks after blast exposure, the following groups of rats were treated with active or sham TLT: 1) Sham-exposed rats (n = 12) were treated with sham TLT; 2) blast-exposed rats (n = 13) were treated with sham TLT; and 3) blast-exposed rats (n = 14) were treated with active TLT. Rats received 5 min of TLT five times per week for 6 weeks (wavelength, 808 nm; power of irradiance, 240 mW). At the end of treatment, rats were tested in tasks found previously to be most informative (novel object recognition, novel object localization, contextual/cued fear conditioning, elevated zero maze, and light/dark emergence). TLT did not improve blast-related effects in any of these tests, and blast-exposed rats were worse after TLT in some anxiety-related measures. Based on these findings, TLT does not appear to be a promising treatment for the chronic cognitive and mental health problems that follow blast injury.

It has been 20 years since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America. The ongoing military conflicts in this region are the longest sustained conflicts in U.S. history. Almost 3 million military personnel have deployed, with over 7,000 fatalities and more than 53,000 wounded in action. The most common psychological health condition associated with combat deployments is PTSD. No data exist to compare the prevalence of PTSD across war eras. Therefore, a potential proxy for PTSD risk is the number of combat-related deaths, because this figure has been consistently tracked across U.S. military conflicts. This commentary includes a table of death statistics from major military conflicts, which shows that fewer military personnel have deployed, been killed, sustained wounds, and, one might conclude, suffered from PTSD than any other major U.S. military conflict in history. Advances in the military equipment, tactics, and healthcare programs perhaps mitigated casualties and suffering among Iraq/Afghanistan veterans compared to previous wars. The estimated causality differences across various military conflicts are not meant to minimize the significant contributions and sacrifices made by this new generation of military warriors but to help us gain perspective on military conflicts over the past century as we recognize the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

Trauma Biomarkers in Plasma during the First 24 Hours

The study was performed to provide an overview of the molecular epidemiology of carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii in Afghanistan isolated by the German military medical service during the Afghanistan conflict. A total of 18 isolates were collected between 2012 and 2018 at the microbiological laboratory of the field hospital in Camp Marmal near Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan, from Afghan patients. The isolates were subjected to phenotypic and genotypic differentiation and antimicrobial susceptibility testing as well as to a core genome multi-locus sequence typing (cgMLST) approach based on whole-genome next-generation sequence (wgNGS) data. Next to several sporadic isolates, four transmission clusters comprising strains from the international clonal lineages IC1, IC2, and IC9 were identified. Acquired carbapenem resistance was due to blaOXA-23 in 17/18 isolates, while genes mediating resistance against sulfonamides, macrolides, tetracyclines, and aminoglycosides were frequently identified as well. In conclusion, the assessment confirmed both the frequent occurrence of A. baumannii associated with outbreak events and a variety of different clones in Afghanistan. The fact that acquired carbapenem resistance was almost exclusively associated with blaOXA-23 may facilitate molecular resistance screening based on rapid molecular assays targeting this resistance determinant.