A scrimmage in a border townA canter down some dark defileTwo thousand pounds of educationDrops to a ten Rupee Jezail (Rudyard Kipling) Afghans have done what Afghans do best – fight to the bitter end and celebrate it as a sport. The master story teller John Masters writes in The Lotus and the Wind that the “Afghan …
A few questions first about the current Afghan situation, in order of their importance. Is Afghan peace hostage to big power rivalry? What policy should Pakistan adopt vis-a-vis various warring Afghan factions? Why have the Americans left without a viable power structure in Afghanistan and what is their future interest in the region? Is there …
The United States is leaving Afghanistan in turmoil after two decades of occupation. The Doha Agreement with the Taliban, bypassing the Ashraf Ghani government, had pulled the carpet from under the feet of the Afghan government – leaving the last rites to be performed by the Afghans themselves in the time-honoured Afghan tradition of military …
The Afghan scenario is getting darkened by the violence levitating ominously over the horizon yet again. A conservative assessment of the peace prospects by old analysts as well by current observers of the Afghan scene paints a sombre outlook. These assessments blame the US for an unimplementable agreement with the Taliban, leaving the current Afghan …
Let us face the facts; the Taliban want a military solution for the simple reason that the US-led coalition has recognized the locus of the Taliban without conditions. Now, those insisting that the Taliban may agree to come to terms with the Ashraf Ghani government are either too naive to not know what the militia …
A scrimmage in a border station,A canter down some dark defile,Two thousand pounds of education,Drops to a ten rupee Jezail….Strike hard who cares,The odds are on the cheaper man.(Rudyard Kipling) Afghanistan is a place where the staccato sound of the machine intones the funeral dirge of the peace every other decade as a chant de …
There is a strong feeling of deja vu about Afghanistan in the air. The environment, despite the passage of two decades, is eerily reminiscent of the disorder of the early nineties when a power vacuum led to a civil war in all its visceral ramifications ending with the domination of a new Taliban phenomenon over …
The East and West apparently can for once meet in a symbiosis of values and material rewards. The idea is embodied in the East West Economic Corridor (EWEC), an eponymous complement to CPEC, a small component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI promises to raise the trade volume with some 40 countries …
IPRI is one of the oldest non-partisan think-tanks on all facets of National Security including international relations & law, strategic studies, governance & public policy and economic security in Pakistan. Established in 1999, IPRI is affiliated with the National Security Division (NSD), Government of Pakistan.
