Posted By IISS at 13/02/2009 17:58:09
Sunday 15 February marks the 20th anniversary of the last Soviet troops withdrawing from Afghanistan. In the February–March issue of Survival, just out, we publish extracts from a fascinating diary Rodric Braithwaite, former UK Ambassador to Russia, wrote during a recent trip to Afghanistan. He found among the Afghans he spoke to a common belief that they had been better off under the Russians.
Braithwaite’s ‘Afghan Diary’ is part of a larger package of articles on the Afghanistan–Pakistan nexus. The lead article, free to view online, is ‘Doctrine and Reality in Afghanistan’ by Adam Roberts, a long-time Survival contributor and professor at Oxford. In this video Roberts and Survival Editor Dana Allin discuss the causes of growing pessimism about the Afghanistan mission.
Hilary Synnott writes on Pakistan, Barnett Rubin, Amin Saikal and Julian Lindley-French each give their views of the ‘The Way Forward in Afghanistan’, and Robert Gates and David Petraeus answer questions in extracts from their plenary sessions at the IISS Manama Dialogue last December.
Beyond the pages of Survival, IISS Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia Oksana Antonenko took part in a panel discussion on Russia’s Afghanistan legacy at RIA Novosti’s London office this morning. The video is here.
Jeffrey Mazo, Managing Editor, Survival
