South Asia

Introduction:

Before examining the issue of nuclear armed cruise missiles (NACMs) a quick global geopolitical overview is warranted. The short post-Cold War period of cooperation between the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the P5 in common parlance) has given way to greater direct interstate contestation between them today. Consider the US-Russia confrontation over Ukraine and Syria, the US-China tensions in the South China Seas, not to mention the latent conflict between China and US allies like Japan.

On September 29th, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the Hezb-e-Islami (Islamic Party) of Afghanistan, signed a peace agreement with the Afghan government, by prerecorded video, from an undisclosed location. In the nineteen-eighties, Hezb-e-Islami was the most extreme of the seven mujahideen parties recognized by Pakistan, and Hekmatyar’s unblinking black eyes were framed by a black turban and full black beard. Three decades later, Hekmatyar, now sixty-nine, has a different look.

The 71st UN general assembly (UNGA) session, unlike the somnolent affairs of the past, literally began with a bang. A couple of explosions and the discovery of crude bombs in New York and New Jersey, barely a week after the 15th anniversary of 9/11, revived the spectre of terrorism. The swift arrest of Ahmad Khan Rahami just two days later and his reported trips to Pakistan and Afghanistan focused attention on the region as a base of transnational terrorism.

PRAGUE, For more than two decades, Pakistan has been accused of creating and sustaining the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan as one of the biggest and most ruthless surrogate forces in modern times.

A leading Western expert of the region, however, says the reality of this opaque relationship is much more complex.

PRAGUE, Author and academic Barnett Rubin, a former senior adviser to the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, is still hopeful that Afghan elite consensus, international support, and regional cooperation will prevent the ship from sinking in Afghanistan amid escalating Taliban violence.