... Pakistan; rather, it was only the former USSR’s state ideology, Soviet Communism, which was a major point of security concern for Pakistan; the latter was already head over heels with a hostile India to the east and an increasingly hostile Communist Afghanistan in the west. Therefore, Pakistan’s alliance with the US at the time was purely for national interest and regional stability. After the grim confrontation in the 80s, the final decade of the 20th century saw variable relationships between ...
Interview with Vyacheslav Trubnikov
Interview
The withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan scheduled for 2014 will be the SCO's main challenge in the short term. It can be addressed by expanding the organization. IMEMO Board of Directors member, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Russia and RIAC member
Vyacheslav Trubnikov
...
In light of the recent developments in Syria and the apparently imminent US military intervention, the blog will take a short break from its relatively academic style and its thematic focus in order to brainstorm and share some thoughts on the broader picture of what is happening in the geopolitical arena of the region. Dangerous Double Standards Bashar al-Assad has reportedly used chemical weapons to attack, essentially, his own people. The first, logically obvious question is why would Assad essentially...
International security in the post-Afghanistan era
The international community’s security attention is on the Middle East and interrelated homeland terrorism. These are important areas, of course, but geopolitical events elsewhere suggest that matters of greater long-term international ...
... and legal condemnation of mercenaries have been based can be raised for the use of PMSCs with equal validity. From this point of view, it would seem analytically distorting, for example, to think of a Colombian national working for an American PMSC in Afghanistan as anything other than a mercenary. This example is neither fictitious, nor rare. As of July 2013, 83% of the private military and security contractors working for the US Department of Defense in Iraq, and 10% in Afghanistan, are third-country ...
The changing strategic realities after the gradual international pullout from Afghanistan will require an entirely new set of approach for the sustainability of non-extremist governance and stability of social fabric. Amid, such an unpredictable future of war-game stage of Central and South Asia, Russia is one of potential players ...
..., and although its change in government may bring some hope and even progress in the coming months, the situation is likely to deteriorate over the next five years.
Pakistan is in the midst of several violent internal conflicts. Near the border with Afghanistan, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province, U.S. and Pakistani security forces are fighting the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other militant groups. In the southwest, in Balochistan province, Baloch nationalist-separatists ...
... “new era” was followed by another even deeper crisis.
But against this background of crisis, the exceptions to it acquired a particular importance. Russia and NATO continued practical cooperation in what they considered critical areas, such as Afghanistan. It became clear that even facing such a conflict situation, Russia and NATO could not afford to give up working together to meet common global challenges. Over the six years of cooperation, the NRC gained some internal momentum of its own....
... to their own judgment. From representing only 1% of the military personnel operating in various conflict zones in the early 1990’s, it was roughly believed that their number had increased to 1 out of 4 soldiers in 2011 in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. The growth of the private military/security industry demonstrates a gradual diffusion of the control over the use of force to a diversity of non-state actors. This departure from state monopoly involves a multiplicity of implications, ranging ...
... Republic of India, the world’s second most populous country, is the core and central component of South Asia. To the north-east it borders Pakistan. Indian maps show Jammu and Kashmir marked as Indian territory and also its common border with Afghanistan. Along the Himalayas to the north-east its neighbors are the Peoples’ Republic of China (Xinjiang Uighur and Tibet autonomous regions), Nepal and Bhutan, with Bangladesh and Myanmar slightly further south, traditionally included in South-East ...
