Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden announced his decision to fully withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Sept.11. After 20 years and two generations of American service members fighting there, America’s longest war will come to an end. What will the legacy of that war be for the U.S. military? And will it have a lasting impact on American society?
On April 28, 2021, the religious official of Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) published a post on his Telegram channel commenting on the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan.[1]
Abu Mariyah Al-Qahtani began his post by congratulating the Taliban on the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan and highlighting the group’s long journey toward this outcome, which included fighting with rival groups.
Despite the negotiation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), we are confronted by the increasing dangers of great power war, even nuclear war.
Instead of making necessary investments to ensure public health, reverse climate change and ensure the security of their peoples, trillions of dollars are being wasted to construct new nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, including new hypersonic delivery systems.
As strategic competition between the United States and China intensifies, preventing a destabilizing arms race and lowering the risk of military, especially nuclear, confrontation is critical. The essays in this volume—based on a series of workshops convened by USIP’s Asia Center in late 2020—highlight both the striking differences and the commonalities between U.S. and Chinese assessments of the root causes of instability and the drivers of conflict in the nuclear, conventional missile and missile defense, space, cyberspace and artificial intelligence realms.
“The connection between the BRI and the strategic partnerships it creates in the region… allows it to gradually take over the region without creating tensions with the U.S. or the West. In other words, the BRI is a sophisticated Chinese plan to transfer hegemony from the West and the U.S. to China without war or conflict”. — Dr. Mordechai Chaziz, author of the book China’s Middle East Diplomacy: The Belt and Road Strategic Partnership.
“China has signed documents on Belt and Road cooperation with 19 Middle East countries,” Wang told Al Arabiya during his visit to Saudi Arabia, one of the six countries he visited on his tour, “and carried out distinctive collaboration with each of them…. China is ready to …. expand new areas of growth such as high and new technologies.” The other countries Wang visited were Turkey, Iran, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman and Bahrain.
Under the terms of the Doha deal former US President Donald Trump negotiated with the Taliban in the Gulf state of Qatar last February, the withdrawal of US forces was contingent on the Taliban renouncing violence, as well as ending its long-standing support for Islamist terror groups like al-Qaeda.
As a recent US Treasury report has concluded, the Taliban has maintained its links with al-Qaeda, as well as other Islamist terrorist organisations. The report stated that al-Qaeda is “gaining strength in Afghanistan while continuing to operate with the Taliban under the Taliban’s protection.” It adds that the group “capitalizes on its relationship with the Taliban through its network of mentors and advisers who are embedded with the Taliban, providing advice, guidance, and financial support.”
Corruption in the sense of civil and military servants and Public officials and politicians of Pakistan pocketing public funds or taking bribes is too well known and documented by in-country and international agencies, to be worthy of any unusual notice. After all, the country has had the dubious distinction of being on the top of the list of corrupt countries several times. But the factors underlying the problem merit a second look.
Introduction
On April 14, 2021, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA, or the Afghan Taliban organization) announced that it would not participate in the Istanbul conference on the future of Afghanistan. The Istanbul conference, which was set to begin on April 24, is led primarily by the United States, with other partners being Turkey, Qatar, and the United Nations.[1]
Muhammad Naeem, the spokesman of the Islamic Emirate’s Political Office in Doha, tweeted: “Until all foreign forces completely withdraw from our homeland, the Islamic Emirate will not participate in any conference that shall make decisions about Afghanistan”; “The IEA performs its work with consultations [i.e., shura or the shari’a-based executive council] according to the guidance of the noble religion of Islam and then adopts the stance whatsoever is decided in the result of the consultation [shura].”[2]
The United Nations said Wednesday a multi-nation conference that the organizers had hoped would “add momentum” to the faltering peace talks between Afghanistan’s warring parties has been postponed.
Turkey, Qatar and the U.N. had planned to convene the 10-day event, proposed by the United States, in Istanbul starting this Saturday.
“China’s leaders see distant water fleets as a way to project presence around the world. The aim is to be present all over the world’s oceans so that they can direct the outcomes of international agreements that cover maritime resources.” — Tabitha Mallory, CEO of China Ocean Institute and affiliate professor at the University of Washington, Axios, March 23, 2021.
In the past five years, more than 500 abandoned wooden fishing boats, often with skeletons of starved North Korean fishermen aboard, have washed up on the shores of Japan. For years the cause was unknown, until it was found out that the likely reason was that “an armada” of Chinese industrial boats fish illegally in North Korean waters…. It is estimated that China’s fishing vessels have depleted squid stocks in North Korean waters by 70%.