I just spoke at an interesting lunch panel on fragile states, which was surprisingly substantive given that all of the panelists got roughly four minutes for their interventions.

My basic point -- political stability and electoral openness frequently work at cross-purposes in times of state crisis. The West tends to fetishize early democratization, even when it leads to Hamas in Gaza ... or uncontested fraud-ridden polls in Afghanistan. (Quick thought experiment: If we had free and open elections in China, how would the resultant government handle, say, Google?) 

A more interesting and nuanced point: Even when elections are the right way to go, what kind of elections/institutions/legal system/government structure is worth a great deal more consideration and tailoring to on the ground conditions than generally appreciated? The Indian political structure's durability comes in part from being vastly more decentralized than the United States. I'd suspect that's exponentially more true in Afghanistan.

Former Haitian Prime Minister Michele Pierre Louis was impressive and almost shockingly thoughtful given everything her country has been through. She offered her thoughts on the distractions of elections and governance in "normal times" in Haiti and what that would mean in the context of reconstruction. As a complete outsider, it sounded like she'd like to get back into politics...

Ian Bremmer will be blogging from Davos this week sending reports and commentary from inside the World Economic Forum.

by Ian Bremmer

In Afghanistan, even the good news isn't so good. The country managed to hold a presidential election in August, but there aren't many people inside or outside the country who considered it free and fair. It looks increasingly like Hamid Karzai will win without a second round, but his legitimacy will remain under a very large, very dark cloud. He'll face open revolt from Tajiks in the north, who overwhelmingly opposed his candidacy. And as evidenced by the significant recent expansion of terrorist bombings in Afghanistan's major cities and the assassination last week of the country's second-ranking intelligence officer, it will even become harder to secure Kabul. No one should have much confidence that a second round would do much to restore Karzai's credibility.

In addition, military operations against the Taliban inside Pakistan achieved some actual success this summer, but that has probably pushed some militants across the border into Afghanistan to harass coalition forces there. U.S. casualties have increased, though that's not surprising given the more aggressive operations of larger numbers of US troops. But last week's U.S. bombing on a Taliban target, which killed dozens of civilians, is just the latest in a series of setbacks for coalition military operations.

More worrisome: It's becoming increasingly clear that Afghanistan won't be able to stand on its own anytime soon. U.S. military officials report that the training of Afghan soldiers is well behind schedule. For the next two or three years, with coalition forces at their present levels, Afghan troops won't be nearly strong enough to maintain even the current level of security, let alone make any meaningful contribution to an aggressive counterinsurgency effort.

Inside Afghanistan, more locals than ever want the US out, whatever the cost. There's also dwindling support for the war in the United States, as the American media increasingly turns its attention from an economy beginning to improve toward the growing death toll in Afghanistan.

Within the Obama foreign-policy team, there looks to be a growing divergence of opinion on what to do next. There appears to be an internal consensus that the current strategy isn't working. But senior officials appear more divided on whether to "go long" or "go home." In the go long group, those who want more troops and more resources because "failure isn't an option," we see Secretary Clinton, envoy Richard Holbrooke, most of the generals on the ground, and most Republicans in Congress. In the go home camp, those who want to pull troops out before things get much worse, are Vice President Biden, most of Obama's political team, and a growing number of senior Democrats. Even Defense Secretary Robert Gates appears to have grown much more skeptical.

In short, Afghanistan is becoming Obama's first lasting foreign-policy crisis. A major terrorist attack somewhere in the world carried out by militants trained in Afghanistan could shift international public opinion toward greater engagement. Short of that, U.S. public opposition to the war will likely grow steadily over the coming year, bringing the issue to a head just in time for U.S. midterm elections and driving a wedge between members of the president's own party.

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