Not even heroin, opium, and methamphetamine will be able to solve the problem. No government — particularly one with only a shaky claim to legitimacy, none of it democratic — will ever enjoy a sudden drop in its country’s standard of living. That is something the Taliban may shortly discover as they try to consolidate their hold over a society […]

With the protection of the nation’s interests abroad entirely subordinate to domestic politics, it’s now almost impossible to maintain a prudent strategy. A sked for his opinion of Western civilization, Mohandas K. Gandhi wryly replied: “I think it would be a good idea.” We could say the same about U.S. foreign policy. We don’t really have one, but it would […]

If you’ve read the plethora of post-mortem reports on Afghanistan, there are plenty of enemies to go around, from corruption, to incompetent leadership, to 20 years of rosy assessments from our own defense establishment. For me, there is a single day that Afghanistan died, and it was June 16, 2021. I have spent my entire adult life studying insurgency and […]

The Economist’s Shashank Joshi tweeted an important observation that deserves to be highlighted. President Biden was either confused or — worse — actively misleading the American people when he said at Thursday’s press conference that senior military officers advised him to abandon the Bagram air base because there “was not much value added” in holding it. “They concluded — the […]

Our nightmarish exit from Afghanistan got worse on Thursday when a suicide attack at the Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. troops, as well as dozens of Afghan civilians. It was the heaviest combat loss for the U.S. since the downing of a Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan a decade ago. Prior to Thursday, we hadn’t lost anyone in combat in Afghanistan […]

A panoramic view of Mes Ayna on the gentle hills and craggy mountains in Logar province 40 kilometres south-east of Kabul, Afghanistan, where Chinese firms signed contracts to mine one of the world’s largest untouched copper deposits estimated to contain 450 million metric tonnes of ore worth at least US$50 billion. China disclosed that unnamed US mining companies have hitherto […]

The Taliban have taken military control, but Afghanistan’s future is cloudy. Assumption that the Taliban can, by itself, effectively govern a nation divided by conflicting tribal loyalties and a partially reconstituted population, with a sharply contrary mindset, needs more validation. Rather than facts, agendas have delegated responsibility for the debacle in Afghanistan. Analysis demonstrates that United States President Joe Biden […]

An attack on a crowd gathered outside Kabul’s airport on Aug. 26, 2021, has left at least 100 people dead, including at least 13 U.S. troops. ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the coordinated suicide bomb and gun assault, which came just days after President Joe Biden warned that the group – an affiliate of the Islamic State group operating in Afghanistan […]

The Taliban has asked Turkey to operate the Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) in capital Kabul but no decision has been made yet, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday. “The Taliban have made a request for us to operate Kabul airport. We have not yet made a decision on this matter,” he told a news conference at Istanbul’s Ataturk […]

ÉDITO. L’Europe devrait saisir l’occasion pour rompre avec sa sujétion aux États-Unis et réinventer l’alliance transatlantique. Emmanuel Macron avait raison, avec deux ans d’avance. L’Otan est bel et bien en état de « mort cérébrale ». Estourbie par son échec en Afghanistan. Depuis vingt ans, elle consacrait l’essentiel de son énergie à tenter d’y construire une armée et une nation. […]