How Can Blinken's Bold Plan for Afghanistan Succeed?

Tim Willasey-Wilsey, Cipher Brief Expert Tim Willasey-Wilsey is a Cipher Brief Expert on Afghanistan and a visiting Professor of War Studies at King’s College, London and a former senior British diplomat. The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not represent those of any institution. EXPERT PERSPECTIVE -- ...

Are We Ready for Another Shock?

OPINION -- “Black swans” are events that arrive as unwelcome surprises and have significant effects on nations and societies.  They can upend the status quo in politics, economics, or national security. Black swans are even more dangerous when superimposed on other black swans. It’s always worth trying to anticipate potential ...

Afghanistan's Hard Lessons. A British Perspective.

Tim Willasey-Wilsey is a former senior British diplomat and now a Senior Visiting Fellow at King’s College London’s Department of War Studies. The probability is that United States and British troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan irrespective of Taliban non-compliance with the terms of the Doha agreement of 29th. February ...

The US Deal with the Taliban

The United States signed a peace agreement with Taliban leaders on Saturday that is intended to end the US’ 18-year involvement in Afghanistan. The deal agreed to in Doha, included the involvement of U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban Co-Founder and leader of the Taliban Political ...

Pakistan's Afghan Triumph Carries Risks for Islamabad

Tim Willasey-Wilsey is a former senior member of the British Foreign Office. He is currently a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at Kings College London’s Department of War Studies. When one looks at the proposed agreement between the United States and the Taliban due to be signed on 29th February there ...

Why has Pakistan not Annexed its parts of Kashmir?

Tim Willasey-Wilsey is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at King’s College, London and a former senior British diplomat. Pakistan has decided not to annex its parts of Kashmir. Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan are collectively known as Pakistan Held Kashmir-PHK. Islamabad fears that such a move would provide propaganda for India ...

Dr. Shakil Afridi: How a Valuable U.S. Intelligence Asset Became a Liability

EDITORIAL/COMMENTARY -- The house had been watched for quite some time.  The home in Abbottabad was just about a mile from the Pakistani Military Academy and was significantly bigger than others in the area, surrounded by barbed wire fence and equipped with security gates. U.S. officials believed that the world’s ...

New Lessons Lead to New War Plans for India and Pakistan

India believes it won the hostilities which followed the Pulwama attack in February 2019. According to New Delhi the attack on Balakot not only punished Pakistan for hosting terrorists on its soil but it set a new baseline for how to deal with future such events. Pakistan (which feels it ...

How Close Did India and Pakistan Come to War?

It needs no more than 4 bad decisions for India and Pakistan to go to war; and 5 for that war to go nuclear. So how did the Pulwama crisis measure up against this approximate yard-stick? The 15-day crisis began with a suicide attack on an Indian paramilitary police convoy ...

Cipher Brief Analysis: The Pakistan Problem

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan recently returned from China without the concrete funding assurances that he was seeking in order to keep his country from having to request a second bailout from the International Monetary Fund. Pakistan has repeatedly turned to China and Saudi Arabia for financial assistance, while the ...