Sunday, March 01, 2009

An absence of strategy?

For some time now – as we have remarked previously - it has been very difficult to "read" the battle in Afghanistan. That was not the case with Iraq. There, with some of the main action going in heavily populated areas, there was media reporting – and a constant flow of reports from Arab press agencies. It was, therefore, possible to piece together what was going on – albeit with very little help from the British media.

In Afghanistan, it is different. Much of the action is taking place outside the urban centres, the Afghani media is considerably less developed and the Western media relies almost entirely on "embeds", the output of whom is rigorously controlled.

Read more on Defence of the Realm.