Post-2014 Afghan economy in peril on May 16, 2012As TV studios in Washington and London discuss whether to ‘precipitously’ withdraw NATO forces from Afghanistan or stick to the scheduled 2014 deadline, they largely ignore the predicted decline in aid to Afghanistan’s economy once the transition of security to Afghan forces is completed. The dire prediction comes from none other than the World Bank […]
USs al Qaeda strategy in a mess on December 20, 2011Talking of the US’s struggle to revive Pakistan’s cooperation against al Qaeda and the militants linked to the group, it is perhaps high time to write an obituary of the US policy of regionalising the fight against terrorism in the AfPak region. At the time of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the overriding […]
Case for delaying Afghan drawdown on December 13, 2011At this juncture, it is given that the US administration in the run up to the US presidential election would stick to its drawdown deadline: 2014. At the moment, the plan is to aggressively shrink a US force that will be about 68,000-strong in October 2012. For now the underlying assumptions for the set timetable […]