Introduction: Including the Other Sides of Afghanistan

Abstract

Since 9/11 the security situation in Afghanistan has been among the highest, or the most significant, priorities on the global security agenda, and a prominent issue on many regional and national security agendas. To begin with, this attention was centered on the US-led operation to eliminate al-Qaeda and remove the Taliban, before it switched to the state-building process in the wake of the initial success of these military operations. From the mid-2000s, however, an increase in military resistance from a rejuvenated Taliban and other groups led to a concentration on the counterinsurgency operations of the US and International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) troops. With the United States (U.S.) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) setting a deadline of 2014 for the withdrawal of the majority of their troops, the generalized security situation in post-2014 Afghanistan, and how the Afghan state and national army will cope with full responsibility for managing and counteracting instability, has become the prime consideration. This drawdown and the ongoing insecurity and insurgency within Afghanistan have brought to the fore questions about how Afghanistan’s neighboring states and the proximate regional powers relate to Afghan security.KeywordsWide SpaceRegional CooperationRegional SolutionSilk RoadSecurity AgendaThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.