Strategic Assessment – speaking truth to power, with graphs
Wapentakes provides innovative analytical support to the NATO Strategic Assessment Capability, a unique programme instigated when senior commanders discovered that ISAF situation reports were unworkably optimistic. SAC has greatly enhanced the assessment of the ISAF and Resolute Support missions. It uses objective data to stimulate and frame the assessments of a group of experts on governance, economics, narcotics, insurgency, aid and Afghanistan’s regional neighbours. This eclectic approach is independent from the chain of command and has consistently predicted profound developments six months or a year before other sources.
Wapentakes provides much of the objective data for this assessment, including:
- Corruption – the first analysis to quantify the rise in customs revenue corruption
- Economics – the first analysis to identify the full extent of the Afghan economic dependence on aid and military spending
- Narcotics – quantifying the failure of poppy eradication programmes
Previous work includes:
Resolute Support Strategic Assessment Capability, Autumn 2016. Limited circulation report available on request.
The real reasons for Afghan migration – a RUSI Newsbrief article showing how overpopulation and ambivalent UN asylum policies underpin Afghan migration.