Afghanistan

Unknown is Afghanistan’s trajectory of developments. None of the players, external and internal, knows the highly-contested land’s flight path. All of the players are unsure of possible impact of each of the tactical moves being taken by each of them. So, there’re compromises or postures to compromise, and contest – …

The Taliban has expanded its shadowy war against the Islamic State branch in Afghanistan, deploying hundreds more fighters to this eastern province in an increasingly violent fight and critical test of the group’s counterterrorism abilities after the U.S. troop withdrawal. More than 1,300 additional Taliban fighters have been deployed to …

It is difficult to speak of European ambitions for international crisis management against the backdrop of the images from Kabul over the past few weeks, which seem to tell a story of the failure of Western interventionist policies. But that discussion is urgently needed. Yes, it will be necessary to …

The well-known American geopolitical thinker Robert D. Kaplan in his famous book “Revenge of Geography” points out that the only way to end Afghanistan conflict is creation of “Greater Pashtonistan and “Greater Tajikistan”. Through this statement we can infer Kaplan’s belief that the root cause of all instability in Afghanistan …

The rapid fall of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) on August 15, 2021 was predictable to those who are familiar with the vast levels of corruption that plagued the country during the last twenty years. Widespread corruption, cronyism, extortion, and …

The Pakistani government has come to terms on a cease-fire with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban, in an effort to end a long-running and highly lethal insurgency. There are reasons to be pessimistic that the current cease-fire will hold, as similar initiatives have fallen apart in the past, …

One major pillar of the international community’s engagement over the past two decades centered on strengthening subnational governance. After 20 years of an ambitious, costly international state-building effort, the government of Afghanistan collapsed in the summer of 2021 in a matter of weeks. The Afghan security forces’ remarkably rapid defeat …

Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis urgently demands solutions to a ‘liquidity trap,’ stifled trade and blocked bank transfers. The U.S. government needs to urgently prioritize saving Afghan lives, meeting basic human needs and stemming the free-fall of the Afghan economy. The unprecedented evacuation of some 100,000 people from Kabul airport in August …

The US withdrawal may have spurred Iraq to consider purchases from Turkey and Pakistan, according to report by the Pentagon’s Inspector General. The United States and NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan this summer may have encouraged Iraq’s government to consider weapons purchases from Turkey and Pakistan, according to an unclassified US …

In fact, if the Heartland were to succeed in joining the Rimland, the maritime superiority of the United States and more generally of the thalassocratic powers would be over. At that point, the U.S. would only have to shift all its military weight to the Indo-Pacific region and unleash a …