South Asia News & Analysis Archive

Since the terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC in 2001, significant international effort has been poured into creating a stable and secure Afghanistan. Critical questions about what the future holds for Afghanistan and its neighbors linger, especially with the looming deadline for ISAF to turn over responsibility for security to the government of Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s religious, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and political identities are far from monolithic, and this makes it challenging to predict emerging social, political, and economic trends and a difficult environment to navigate. And even though Pakistan’s relations with major stakeholders in Afghanistan’s stability and security have dramatically deteriorated over the past several years, the country will remain an absolutely critical component of securing peace and stability in South and Central Asia.

Several of our contributors have worked for government, business, and development organizations providing analytic support on culture, society, geography, and security in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Coupled with our strong expertise and experience in Central Asia, Registan is uniquely poised to helping organizations navigate the challenges and identify the opportunities that will rise in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the decade to come.

Let Registan puts its Afghanistan & Pakistan expertise and experience to work with research, analysis, and training services tailored to your individual needs. For more information on how we can help you and your organization better understand Afghanistan and the other countries of South Asia, visit our services page.

Photo credit: US Air Force Sergeant Bradley Lail via ISAF Media

General Allen Retires: Needs to Start a Blog

by Sunny in Kabul

We learned today that General John Allen, whose primary responsibilities in Afghanistan included emailing Jilly Kelley and apologizing for killing Afghan civilians, decided that he would retire and not seek the top NATO spot in Europe. It’s rumored that the next SACEUR will actually have his own email account, vs. the telegraph that NATO had [...]

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Central Asia 2014: The Terror

by Nathan Hamm

Yesterday, Eurasia Daily Monitor carried a “[x] in Central Asia after NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan” story, the kind of reporting and analysis that is sure to be a fixture in all Central Asia focused publications throughout this year. This particular story deals with militant groups threatening to return to Central Asia after NATO’s withdrawal. Should [...]

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Afghanistan will dominate Uzbekistan’s domestic and foreign policies

by anvar.malikov

Following his 20-year long tradition of presenting a long speech on the occasion of Uzbekistan’s Constitution Day, President Islam Karimov, among different socioeconomic and political issues, discussed the country’s foreign policy and highlighted his position on intensely discussed (mostly through rumors in regional media) issue of a U.S. military base being established on Uzbek soil. [...]

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The DC Game and Paula Broadwell

by Joshua Foust

I’ve avoided crowing too much about the Paula Broadwell affair. The little commiseration I did took place over at my perch at PBS, and suffice it to say regular readers here will know I had identified her deficient personality quite a number of years ago. While it’s been refreshing to see how the downfall of [...]

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The U.S. plays a dangerous sanctuary game

by Alec Metz

The Washington Post reported yesterday that not only does the U.S. know Maulana Fazlullah (“Radio Mullah”), the Pakistani Taliban allied TNSM leader accused of killing Pakistani government forces and figures (including former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto), overrunning Swat in 2007, and ordering the execution of Malala Yousufzai, is hiding in Eastern Afghanistan, but that ISAF doesn’t plan on [...]

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Kyrgyz in Afghanistan

The Afghanistan Analysts Network had a post recently summarizing the recent history of the Kyrgyz population of the Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan. Originally the Kyrgyz population in the area and in the larger Badakhshan region simply used the area as seasonal pasturage for their animals, but as Russia (and later the USSR) began to impose restrictions [...]

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Afghan tourists in Tajikistan

by Alec Metz

Years ago, a Western Farsi-speaker would tell me stories of Tajik groups from Northern Afghanistan he took to Tajikistan as part of an exchange program, and the hilarious culture clashes that would occur between the two groups, usually involving vodka and the role of women in society. Despite sharing a language, ethnicity, and (arguably) similar [...]

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Pakistan votes Romney, sort of

by Alec Metz

A recently commissioned BBC poll took the American election abroad, and although no states in Central Asia were surveyed, India, Pakistan, and China were featured. According to the BBC, they found that in 20 out of 21 countries, Obama was preferred over Romney, and that only Pakistan preferred Romney. Although the polling took place before [...]

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Malala Yousufzai and Madonna

by Alec Metz

Western celebrities and complex situations in Central and South Asia rarely do well together. Yesterday, the Huffington Post ran a story called “Crooners and their Dictators” that called a number of musical acts, from Seal to Mariah Carey, to task for their capriciousness (or stunning inability to google the guy who signed their million dollar [...]

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The Farce of Afghan Success

by Joshua Foust

Army War College professor Steven Metz has a provocative argument in WPR this week: With the endgame near for large-scale U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, Americans have already begun to debate the broader implications of the conflict. Many have painted it as a failure, even a strategic fiasco. But it is not. Given the dynamics [...]

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