In March 1898, a 23-year-old Winston Churchill published his first book, The Story of the Malakand Field Force. In it, he advanced the best advice yet given on how an outside imperial power should deal with a country like Afghanistan. Read Here – RealClearWorld
William Dalrymple writes about India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Read Here – Brookings
What did you make of John Kerry‘s whirlwind run-through of the India-US strategic dialogue? “Well, we didn’t expect much, so we were not disappointed” runs the dominant response in this city, writes Indrani Bagchi. Read Here – The Economic Times
In Afghanistan, the unexpected Doha events have unprecedentedly unified the Afghan people in support of their elected government’s efforts to reject any peace deal that infringes on their sovereignty and the democratic achievements of the past 12 years. The Afghan people have not been losing their children day after day, year after year, just to […]
John Kerry has got India thinking. The new US Secretary of State is no stranger to New Delhi and neither are his views, but the fact that he has embarked on a course that threatens to upset the finely tuned balance in Afghanistan prompts the question: Is the US redesigning its approach on Afghanistan post-2014? […]
The impression is now widespread that India-America relations are on a plateau, if not in the doldrums. This would not matter had they matured into a mutual understanding that allows two countries to be satisfied with nothing striking happening between them as welcome normalcy. Read Here – The Hindu
Hopes could hardly be lower for the talks between U.S. and Taliban representatives that are scheduled to begin this week in Doha. A day after announcing they would enter negotiations, the Taliban killed four coalition soldiers in a rocket attack outside Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, worried that the U.S.-sponsored talks will legitimize his enemies, abruptly cut off […]
On June 5, Pakistan’s National Assembly elected Nawaz Sharif as the country’s prime minister. Though it’s his third time in office, almost fourteen years have passed since Sharif last led Pakistan. There is a legitimate question, then, as to how exactly he will govern. Pakistan has changed in many ways since 1999, when Sharif was overthrown by General […]
Pakistan has played a crucial role in shaping contemporary Afghanistan, and it is recognized that no sustainable solution to Afghanistan’s current security problems is possible without Pakistan’s involvement. This is what makes Pakistan’s purported ‘strategic shift’ towards Afghanistan so intriguing, says a SIPRI report. Read Here – Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
New Delhi will be confronted by a host of rapidly changing scenarios in Afghanistan as the country heads for transition in the security and political sectors in 2014. The interplay between different actors jockeying for power could either allow India to retain its present level of engagement, provide opportunities to expand its influence or bring […]
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