China’s substantial defence related investments are a reliable indicator of its increasingly assertive aims. China’s President Xi Jinping has made force modernisation a national priority, looking to transform the Peoples Liberation Army (The PLA) into a ‘world-class force by 2050’. World Class force for the PLA means being able to match the operational capabilities of…
George Wright, BBC News – 23 September 2021 Zahra Fayazi, a former coach for the Afghanistan women’s volleyball team, tells the BBC her fears as her fellow teammates move from province to province in an attempt to escape the Taliban whilst one has already been killed. Zahra states “I can’t see a future for volleyball…
Constanze Stelzenmuller, Brookings – 2 September 2021 “The outcome of the final, but as yet unfinished, act of the West’s intervention in Afghanistan will determine its legitimacy. And what happens now will affect trust between politicians, civil societies, and the armed forces for years to come.” This article on Brookings describes why the aftermath of…
Rashmee Roshan Lall, openDemocracy – 21 September 2021 Donors have pledged more than $1bn in aid support for Afghanistan at the 13 September UN conference in Geneva, convened by secretary-general Antonio Guterres. Despite this large amount of emergency aid, this article on openDemocracy asks “how will Afghanistan continue to operate when neither the government nor…
William Dalrymple, India Today – 8 September 2021 In this interview with India Today, William Dalrymple talks about the crisis in Afghanistan. Dalrymple explains why he doesn’t believe the Taliban have changed from when they last ruled and why they still remain a significantly dangerous and backward force. Watch the full interview here.
Times of India – 12 September 2021 The Times of India reports on William Dalrymple’s reaction to the Taliban’s all-male list of cabinet members. Dalrymple states that “The government is not just not inclusive, it is sort of quite spectacularly ‘uninclusive’ even within the Taliban frame” and claims it’s unlikely that they will continue their…
Dr. Sohail Mahmood – 12 September 2021 On August 30, the war in Afghanistan ended. America had managed to evacuate some 123,000 civilians from Kabul, including 6,000 Americans. The twenty-year war had a high cost. Some 2,461 US soldiers and civilians were killed. On August 26 a terrorist bombing killed 13 soldiers in Kabul. President Biden on August 31, 2021…
Stefanie Babst, Internationale Politik Quarterly – 2 September 2021 “The Western allies need to review what went wrong in Afghanistan with a genuine sense of humility. Otherwise they are bound to repeat the same mistakes in the future”. This article on Internationale Politik Quarterly looks at four hard questions for NATO after the fall of…
Shadi Hamid, The Atlantic – 23 August 2021 America’s nation-building fantasies painted over the realities of a failed state and created an insurmountable barrier between Afghan citizens and the US military, according to this article on The Atlantic. Instead, the Taliban made their return through grass-root dispute resolutions. Read the full article here.
