India‘s emphasis on the Karzai government, while principally sound, is problematic on the ground. While remaining dedicated to the strengthening of the central government of Afghanistan, India must constructively engage political groups outside the government. This will be key to safeguarding its material and strategic interests in Afghanistan, regardless of how things unravel post 2014. […]
India’s early engagement with post-Taliban Afghanistan was considered by the United States, Pakistan and the Afghan government to be a strategy to undermine Pakistan. While this may have been true at first, in recent years India has come to accept that Pakistan has a ‘special interest’ in Afghanistan that overshadows its own. The main driver […]
Last week the UK’s defence select committee published a report which concluded that civil war in Afghanistan is likely when international forces leave next year. If the predictions of ‘Securing the Future of Afghanistan’ are correct, the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence share much of the blame. When I returned to Kabul in January […]
If there is a road to a happy ending in Afghanistan, much of the path may run underground: in the trillion-dollar reservoir of natural resources — oil, gold, iron ore, copper, lithium and other minerals — that has brought hopes of a more self-sufficient country, if only the wealth can be wrested from blood-soaked soil. Read Here – […]
looking beyond borders 