Synopses & Reviews
Afghanistan has been a primary topic on the international security agenda for most of the last three decades. In light of the ongoing US and NATO drawdown in operations and transfer of responsibility to Afghan authorities, the relationship between Afghanistan and its neighbouring states and regions has once again become paramount to stability in the wider region and beyond.
This book provides a comprehensive assessment of the perspective and approaches to Afghan security taken by the states bordering and in close proximity to Afghanistan, and the transnational dynamics that interconnect these states with Afghanistan and one another. On this basis, it examines the nature of the regional dimension to Afghan security, and assesses prospects for and likely nature of a regional mechanism for managing Afghan security and stability following the US and NATO withdrawal.
Including case studies from Pakistan, Iran, China, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and proximate regional powers, namely India and Russia, this timely book will appeal to scholars across international relations, security studies and Asian studies.
Synopsis
This book provides a comprehensive assessment of the perspective and approaches to Afghan security taken by the states bordering and in close proximity to Afghanistan, and the transnational dynamics that interconnect these states with Afghanistan and one another.
About the Author
Aglaya Snetkov is Senior Researcher at the Centre for Security Studies, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and an editor of the Russian Analytical Digest. Her primary research interests are critical IR/Security Studies; rising powers; non-Western security and IR; intrastate conflicts and security; Russian security and politics. Her forthcoming monograph is entitled Insecure Giant: Constructing Russia's Security Policy.
Stephen Aris is Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies, ETH Zurich. He is the author of Eurasian Regionalism: Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), and is co-editor with Andreas Wenger of Regional Organizations and Security: Conceptions and Practices (forthcoming).
Table of Contents
PART I: INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
1. Introduction: Including the Other Sides of Afghanistan; Stephen Aris and Aglaya Snetkov
2. Regional Dynamics of the Soviet War in Afghanistan and its Aftermath; Artemy M. Kalinovsky
3. Afghanistan's Attitudes towards the Region; Amin Saikal
PART II: NEIGHBORING AND REGIONAL STATES' PERSPECTIVES
4. Pakistan: Security Perspectives on Afghanistan; Shaun Gregory
5. Negotiating its Way In: India in Afghanistan; Rudra Chaudhuri
6. Underestimated and Ignored. Iran's Current Afghanistan Policy between Soft Power and Hard Measures; Andreas Wilde
7. The Other Power: Security and Diplomacy in Sino-Afghanistan Relations; Marc Lanteigne
8. Russia in Afghanistan: Enduring Interests, Domestic Challenges and Regional Strategies; Marlène Laruelle
9. Towards conflict resolution in Afghanistan: The perspective of the bordering Central Asian Republics; Farkhod Tolipov
10. The Kazakh and Kyrgyz Sides of Afghanistan: So Near and Yet So Far; Emilbek Dzhuraev and Shairbek Dzhuraev
PART III: REGIONAL INTERDEPENDENCIES AND STRATEGIES
11. An institutionalized 'regional solution'? Regional organizations in the regional space surrounding Afghanistan; Stephen Aris
12. From Arc of Crisis to Arc of Opportunity? - The Political Economy of Regional Economic Cooperation; Michaela Prokop
13. The Fight against Drug Trafficking: Mechanisms of Regional Cooperation and their Limits.; Sebastien Peyrouse
14. Conclusion; Stephen Aris and Aglaya Snetkov