In the first of his three-part series on Afghanistan, ASP Adjunct Fellow Matt Zeller explains how the US can “win” the war in a three-step approach.  The first of these steps is to reform the Afghan Central Government, in which there is an “extreme concentration of power in the executive branch”:

“Ultimately, this system of governance is not sustainable and needs drastic reform. Hopefully the international community will assist – not dictate — the Afghan people in reforming their central government to make it more decentralized and responsible to its citizens. In truth, the Afghans themselves will have to best solve this problem as only with their buy-in will any reform be palatable and acceptable to the Afghan people. In essence, the Afghans must own this solution — they know best to how govern their state, we should stand ready to assist them in doing so.”

Read the first part of Matt’s How to Win in Afghanistan here.