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China has good relations with most of Afghanistan's neighbours, including Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. But it is Beijing's emerging partnership with the Pakistan army in Afghanistan that is the most interesting new element in the region.

China may have reasons to be relieved if a Cold War-like situation re-emerges in Europe and American attention is drawn away from Asia. As America plunged into two prolonged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, China had the time and Space to build its comprehensive national power.

The key to a stable future in the Subcontinent might lie in producing the long overdue structural change inside Pakistan and with it the definition of its interests in Afghanistan and India. As it grasps at the slim chance of reordering the relationship with Pakistan, India will need all the support it can get from the US.

America needs a strong India in the Indo-Pacific as a partner. And India, too, needs an America that can sort its internal challenges to be able to pay attention to strategic realities

The US has chosen to install a terror group as the legitimate government of Afghanistan and as a departing gift, offered them an estimated $212 million worth of military aircraft, vehicles and ammunition.

Since 1991, New Delhi's ties with the Central Asian countries have developed slowly despite a shared culture and trade links via the ancient Silk Road

From two ends of the Pacific, our nations have a shared interest in contributing to the rise and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region. Yet new threats stand in the way of achieving this potential

Canada's Deputy NSA Claude Vigneault says his country's decade-old presence in Afghanistan as part of American coalition has given them a better sense of India's security concerns and is keen to collaborate with it.

The geopolitics around India’s play in Chabahar and Iran’s leverages are interesting

China has appointed a new ambassador to Afghanistan, signaling its growing support for the Taliban. While other countries have not formally recognized the emirate, China's decision to appoint a new ambassador demonstrates its willingness to make its support more explicit without de jure recognition. China has already signed oil and mining deals with the Taliban, and has shown interest in investing in Afghanistan's mineral deposits.

I have been in receipt of some mail from my readers asking for my comments on the reports carried by the "Washington Post" and the CNN TV channel of the US during the week-end regarding the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) of the USA setting up a new intelligence collection unit called the Strategic Support Branch (SSB), which has been operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries since 2002.

If Richard Nixon sought a breakthrough in China after failure in Vietnam, George Bush had a breakthrough with India after failure in Iraq, Barack Obama could work on a legacy that is a breakthrough with Iran after failure in Afghanistan.

Young Suryanarayana is a life that has been cut in its prime. He was the vic- tim of a bigoted doctrine taught in Pakistan for nearly three decades; for the Taliban are only another manifestation of the Islamist drive of General Zia-ul-Haq. The Indian died in a terrorist act after his abduc- tors demanded that all 2,500 Indians in Afghanistan vacate immediately. It was an absurd demand and no government would ever have agreed to it.

With the foreign forces drawing down in Afghanistan, there is an inevitable loss offocus on the threat of terrorism in the highly vulnerable region of South Asia. But almost everycountry in the region, barring Bhutan, continues to confront the challenges of terrorism andinsurgency. Yet there appears little sense of the danger posed by terrorism, and its 'new' formsthat ride the wave of technology and the collapse of traditional state structures.

We need to look beyond the Presidential vote in Afghanistan, scheduled for next April. These elections would not only test equations of military and political power as the NATO forces pull out but also the strength and possibility of deeper enduring facts of the Afghan reality.

Abdullah’s visit to India this week saw him underscoring the growing potency of India-Afghanistan ties in his meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.

The idea of partnering with China, which would like to see a stable and economically⎯viable Afghanistan, is attractive for India.

As Pakistan struggles to prod the Taliban to act on militant groups, its dual policy of supporting extremist groups has come back to haunt it

Indo-Pak relations appear to be on hold largely because of complications created by the Afghan situation. Part of the problem are Pakistani suspicions about Indian ambitions in Afghanistan. Former Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri believes there are misperceptions on both sides.

Trump's move is likely to be temporary, as he is keen to show that he has upheld his election commitments.

Recent announcements detailing the probability of an early NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan are not realistic, given the ground realities in the country. Lt-Col Daniel Davis in his article 'Truth lies and Afghanistan' speaks of a misleading picture presented by US leaders.

Pakistan is living through turbulent times and, General Musharraf, its self-styled President, is under tremendous pressure. The United States-led anti-terrorism campaign in Afghanistan has shaken Pakistan's polity like no other event in its troubled history.

Gen. Mattis' visit underscored the growing salience of defence ties in shaping the trajectory of Indo-US relations.

As Delhi and Washington try to develop separate, special relationships with Beijing, there is a danger of misreading each other's intentions. Both India and the US want a secure Afghanistan and moderate Pakistan, but their approaches are not always in sync. An honest conversation between Joe Biden and the Indian leaders is critical at this juncture to prevent misperceptions from derailing India-US security cooperation in Asia.

New Delhi’s top-most priority should be to ensure timely, non-discriminatory relief distribution

Donald Trump’s engagement with the Kashmir issue has a lot to do with his need to secure Pakistan’s backing for his Afghanistan policy.

A deal with Taliban will bring war to rest of the world.

The Chinese objectives are in perfect congruence with those of Pakistan in Afghanistan. Pakistan is also mindful of the fact that an enhanced Chinese presence will keep India away (at least Pakistan is hopeful of), thereby ensuring Pakistan the strategic depth that it has been seeking to achieve in Afghanistan.

India lacks resources and direct access to Afghanistan, but it can derive some comfort from the fact that, if the past is any guide, you can always trust Islamabad to give us the opening through its propensity to overreach.

The future of the Wagner Group, a private mercenary conglomerate linked to Russian foreign policy, is uncertain, raising questions about its global footprint.

If internecine clashes in the eastern Afghan city of Herat are a sign of the things to come, peaceful political evolution of the country seems to be a messy affair. Around 50 people had been killed in those clashes that continued for eight hours in one of the more stable cities of Afghanistan.

Clinton's India visit was only moderately successful with not much progress on nuclear liability issues and Afghanistan. But the good thing is that both countries are talking out their differences, showing their commitment to taking this mutually-beneficial partnership to a new high.

This is the biggest protest campaign in Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban regime. This is bloody, widespread and countrywide.This also shows that they are fed up with the United States and they just needed a spark to vent their feelings.

New Delhi is set to take on a greater role in Afghanistan’s peace process.

President George W. Bush is a desperate man today. He wants Osama bin Laden, dead or alive. More than 12000 US troops, including a 1400-men strong elite commando unit known as Task Force 121, are in Pakistan and Afghanistan hunting for Laden. Supporting them is a 70,000-strong contingent from President Pervez Musharraf¿s Army.

We could soon see America leave Afghanistan's brutal war half-finished. The implications of this will be dreadful for ordinary Afghans. This is no good news for India either.

Is the United States in the process of creating a brand new Muslim bloc? If that be the case, it would know that the execution of the plan necessarily involves the cessation of Kosovo from Serbia in the name of "Self-Determination". This, Russia will not allow at any cost. Belgrade is Moscow's Slav ally. And, in a complex way, the Albanian-Serb and the Washington-Moscow stand-off links up with the global scramble for energy source

While there is common ground between India and the US in Afghanistan, the intricacies are complex, and for now only provide an ecosystem for New Delhi and Washington to work together on containing the Taliban.

Long sidelined by Islamabad, Moscow, and Beijing, New Delhi is finally taking a seat at the table.

India should worry over the claim of Ansar-ul-Tawhid ul-Hind, a terrorist organisation, that Anwar Bhatkal, one of their brethren and related to Riaz Bhatkal, the founder of Indian Mujahedeen, attained what they call martyrdom battling in Afghanistan. We also cannot ignore the claims of Maulana Salman Hussaini Nadvi that he would raise a force of 5,00,000 to support Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

The just-concluded round of India-Pakistan dialogue (July 27) was an opportunity for both the countries to articulate their positions on two critical challenges facing the region, terrorism and Afghanistan.

During the India-US Strategic Dialogue 2013, it was felt that it is essential for both the countries' interest, and that of the world at large, that there is stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And this stability can be ensured only through dismantling of terrorist outfits and strengthening of democratic institutions.

New Delhi requires partners both outside and inside Afghanistan to protect its presence and interests in the war-torn country.

Afghanistan’s situation has thrown up challenges for New Delhi