Af-Pak Diary by D Suba Chandran
  • Resetting Kabul-Islamabad Relations: Three Key Issues
    D Suba Chandran   ·    01 Dec, 2014   ·    4762
    In November 2014, the new President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, made his maiden visit to Pakistan, one that is being projected as a “breakthrough” in the bilateral relations between the two countries. Only recently, the reno ...
  • Can Pakistan Reset its Relations with Afghanistan?
    D Suba Chandran   ·    04 Nov, 2014   ·    4728
    The recent International Crisis Group (ICG) report on the Af-Pak region, following its excellent previous reports on the same subject, now addresses a crucial question: Can Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan be reset? The re ...
  • The New Afghanistan: Four Major Challenges for President Ghani
    D Suba Chandran   ·    13 Oct, 2014   ·    4693
    Will the new political arrangement (President and a Chief Executive Officer) in Afghanistan work, and more importantly, deliver? Though it looks simple in paper, given the recent history between the two contenders – Ashraf Ghani and ...
  • Pakistan: Crouching Democrats, Hidden Khakis
    D Suba Chandran   ·    01 Sep, 2014   ·    4636
    It appears that the biggest threat to democracy in Pakistan is its democratic leadership, that too the elected ones. Ongoing developments in Islamabad clearly highlight the problem – all in the name of democracy and revolution, but ...
  • Mullah Fazlullah: Challenges to the “Eliminate or Extradite” Approach
    D Suba Chandran   ·    07 Jul, 2014   ·    4552
    Hundreds of militants have been killed ever since the military in Pakistan launched an offensive against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the country’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in June 2014. There have also b ...
  • Taliban after Afghan Elections: Spring Offensive or the Last Stand?
    D Suba Chandran   ·    02 Jun, 2014   ·    4489
    A series of attacks by the Taliban in Afghanistan during May 2014 resulted in a few media-persons calling it a Spring Offensive. Is it really a calculated and well planned offensive by the Taliban? Or is it merely the Last Stand of a terr ...
  • Inside Pakistan: The Establishment’s Two-Front War
    D Suba Chandran   ·    05 May, 2014   ·    4426
    The Establishment in Pakistan may have worried about a two-front war bordering India and Afghanistan for a long time, but it never would have imagined a two-front war within the country itself, vis-à-vis the elected political leade ...
  • Across the Durand Line: Who is in Control Now? Will That Change?
    D Suba Chandran   ·    03 Mar, 2014   ·    4321
    Dr. Arvind Gupta, Director General, the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, India, at a recent conference, raised an important question while discussing the Af-Pak region: who is in control? Given the recent developments on both ...
  • Taliban Talks and the Four Horsemen: Between Peace and Apocalypse
    D Suba Chandran   ·    03 Feb, 2014   ·    4290
    The previous article in this column discussed the talks about talks with the Pakistani Taliban, and Sami-ul-Haq being projected as the interlocutor between the State and the Teherik-e-Taliban (TTP). Since the previou ...
  • Pakistan: Talks about Talks with the Taliban, Again
    D Suba Chandran   ·    06 Jan, 2014   ·    4238
    Talks about talks with the TTP seem to have become seasonal in Pakistan. There is another effort, this time to initiate a new round of talks with the Pakistani Taliban, now under the leadership of Mullah Fazlullah. This time, not only is ...
Other Articles by D Suba Chandran