Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Welcome! Log in to stay connected and make the most of your experience.

Input clean

Little Room for Optimism

During the 11 months of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s presidency, and despite the combination of a rapid Western pullout and an expanding Taliban insurgency, there had been, nonetheless, at least some small room for optimism.  After all, until a few days ago, Ghani appeared to have established a genuine rapprochement with Islamabad; and it had seemed, at least fleetingly, that something like genuine talks might actually get underway between the Taliban and an elected Afghan government.  But the optimists can go back to their seats:  Old patterns are reasserting themselves in South-Central Asia.

Ashraf Ghani’s recent denunciations of Pakistan, made in the aftermath of a series of devastating Taliban attacks, could easily have been confused with those of his predecessor, Hamid Karzai, whose relations with Pakistan were famously poisonous.  And no wonder:  Ghani’s diplomatic efforts, never popular in Afghanistan, were now becoming politically untenable in the wake of the latest carnage.  But more fundamentally, Ghani’s bitter words were those of a man whose opportunity to pursue peace talks – a primary reason for his outreach to Islamabad in the first place – was rapidly slipping away.

Keep reading...Show less
Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.

Related Articles

An Engaging Look at U.S. – China Relations

BOOK REVIEW: Breaking the Engagement: How China Won and Lost AmericaBy David Shambaugh / Oxford University PressReviewed by: Paul HeerThe Reviewer — [...] More

Report for Tuesday, June 10, 2025

8:34 America/New_York Tuesday, June 10 [...] More

A Closer Look at the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ on Defense Spending

OPINION COLUMN -- “The one Big Beautiful [Reconciliation] Bill currently making its way through Congress, in combination with [fiscal 2025] base [...] More

Dead Drop: June 6

THE TANGLED WEB: For an excellent deep dive into the meaning and mechanics of Ukraine’s stunning deep strike into Russia that destroyed or damaged [...] More
China’s ‘Leap Forward’ in Drone Weapons

China’s ‘Leap Forward’ in Drone Weapons

DEEP DIVE – China’s military is in the midst of an innovation and manufacturing boom in drone weaponry — a “leap forward,” as one expert put it, that [...] More

Report for Monday, June 9, 2025

8:39 America/New_York Monday, June 9 [...] More