NYC EVENT: Afghanistan Today

As the U.S. engages in a simmering war as well as in continued attempts at building infrastructure, the conference will consider a wide-ranging set of questions in order to clarify policy choices regarding both military and civilian investment in the country. What is the current state of the Taliban? What might the reversion of Afghanistan into failed-state status mean? How prevalent -- and how effective -- has counterinsurgency been in the country? What are the possibilities for increasing the size of the Afghan army and for embedding U.S. advisors and troops? What role does NATO play? What are the realistic scenarios for stemming the drug trade, and for mounting reconstruction? As a result, the day promises to provide a comprehensive picture of the challenges that face America’s foreign policy establishment as one administration transitions power to the next.

Co-sponsored by The Center on Law and Security at NYU School of Law and the New America Foundation.

Agenda

9:00 a.m. Introductory Remarks

• Karen J. Greenberg
  Executive Director, Center on Law and Security, NYU

9:15 a.m. Keynote

• Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke
  Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN
  

10:00 a.m. Today's Afghanistan: An Overview

• Steve Simon
  Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow, Middle Eastern Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
  Goldman Sachs Visiting Professor in Public Policy, Princeton University
• Peter Bergen
  Schwartz Senior Fellow, New America Foundation
  Fellow, Center on Law and Security, New York University
• Barnett Rubin
  Director of Studies & Senior Fellow, Center on International Cooperation, New York University
• Imtiaz Ali
  World Fellow, Yale University
  
• Hekmat Karzai
  Director, Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies (Kabul, Afghanistan)

11:15 a.m. Counterinsurgency, NATO, and the Military

• Scott Horton
  Adjunct Professor, Columbia Law School
• Lt. Gen. David Barno
  Director, Near East South Asia Center, Center for Strategic Studies, U.S. Department of Defense
• Dr. David Kilcullen
  Former Senior Counter Insurgency Advisor to General David Petraeus
• Steve Coll
  Staff Writer, New Yorker
  President & CEO, New America Foundation
• Shuja Nawaz
  Author, Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within

12:30 Lunch Break

1:30 p.m. Challenges Ahead: The International Perspective

• Ambassador Omar Samad
  Ambassador of Afghanistan to Canada
  

2:00 p.m. Strengthening Civil Society

• Stephen Holmes
  Walter E. Meyer Professor Of Law, New York University
• Joanne Mariner
  Director, Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program, Human Rights Watch
• Clare Lockhart
  Co-Founder & CEO, Institute for State Effectiveness
• Andrew Wilder
  Research Director for Policy Process, Feinstein International Center, Tufts University

3:15 p.m. The Taliban, Drugs, and U.S. Policy

• Lawrence Wright
  Fellow, Center on Law and Security, New York University
  Staff Writer, The New Yorker
• Elizabeth Rubin
  Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations
  Contributing Writer, The New York Times Magazine
• Nir Rosen
  Research Fellow, New America Foundation
  Fellow, Center on Law And Security, NYU
• Sean Langan
  Journalist and Documentary Film maker
• Doug Wankel
  Former Counter Narcotics Coordinator, U.S. Embassy in Kabul