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Contends that attempts to apply Guiding Principle 29 to the restoration of property to displaced Afghans are complicated by widespread landlessness; intense competition for land; overlapping claims as successive governments instituted different land policies; & the appropriation of vast parcels of land by powerful elites. The reliance of IDPs on traditional decision-making & mechanisms like shura & jirga

Almost all policymakers, journalists and researchers recognize the ethnic fissions and fractions as the predominant lines of conflict in Afghanistan. What this approach ignores is the fact that, despite the ethnicization of the conflict, the ethnicization of the Afghan people themselves failed. Although ethnicity became a political-military force to reckon with during the 23 years of ongoing war in Afghanistan, the significance of ethnicity as basis of political articulation and social organisation remained very limited. Hence ethnicity has been opposed by competing identities as well as by strategic considerations of the war factions. This article will, firstly, discuss the particular meaning of ethnicity in Afghanistan in past and present, and, secondly, how the international community has dealt with ethnicity in its endeavour to bring peace to Afghanistan and to rebuild a political system. Ethnicity has emerged as one of the most problematic and precarious obstacles for the political reconstruction and state building process in Afghanistan. As in many other violent conflicts tinged by ethnicity the general question is to what extent the consideration of ethnicity - mostly in the form of proportional representation - is a political tool that will supersede or aggravate ethnic tensions. The dilemma of how to cope with ethnicity in process of peace building, state reconstruction and national formation always arises in accordance with the question of what constitutes ethnicity in the particular country and what the boundaries and relationships between ethnic groups are. This question of how to define 'ethnicity' and 'ethnic groups' is discussed extremely controversially in the academic world as well as in the arena of policy-making. Regarding Afghanistan, most researchers and policy-makers either explicitly or implicitly share the view that ethnic groups have existed since time immemorial. They assume that ethnic groups are solid cultural units which are divided by obvious boundaries and have engaged in conflicts for hundreds of years. Set against that opinion, this article argues that the meaning of ethnicity has always been very blurred in Afghanistan, and usually the so-called ethnic groups enclose a socially and culturally amorphous set of people and still do not constitute the main reference of identity and solidarity for the population, even if the war is tinged by ethnicity.

Afghanistan und Pakistan gelten aus Sicht der Regierung Obama als 'Epizentrum' des gewalttätigen islamistischen Extremismus und als eine verbundene Konfliktregion. Washington befürchtet Dominoeffekte, sollten die Taleban in Afghanistan die Macht übernehmen: zum einen die Destabilisierung des Atomwaf-fenstaates Pakistan und in deren Folge den Zugang extremistischer Gruppen zu Nuklearwaffen, zum anderen die ideologische und personelle Stärkung al-Qaidas im Falle einer Niederlage der USA und des Westens in Afghanistan. Die amerikanische AfPak-Politik speist sich daher einerseits aus worst-case-Annahmen, beruht aber andererseits auf best-case-Erwartungen: der Hoffnung nämlich, dass Fortschritte in einzelnen Bereichen der 'ganzheitlichen' counterinsurgency-Strategie - militärische Schwächung der Aufstandsbewegung, bessere Regierungsleistungen und größere politische Legitimität, wirtschaftlicher Aufbau, pakistanische Kooperation - sich gegenseitig verstärkende Wirkungen entfalten. Diese counterinsurgency-Strategie ist von ihrer Logik her ein langfristiges, kostspieliges Unterfangen, das mit einer schnellen 'Afghanisierung' nicht in Einklang zu bringen ist. Die mehrdimensionale AfPak-Strategie benötigt Zeit für einen Erfolg, der jedoch alles andere als gewiss ist. Aus innenpolitischen Gründen muss Obama ein Interesse daran haben, bis zum Wahljahr 2012 Risiken und Kosten des Afghanistanengagements zu reduzieren. Die militärische Eskalation, insbesondere die Offensive im Kerngebiet der Taleban, scheint daher kurzfristig dazu gedacht, aus einer gestärkten Position heraus die Konfliktkonstellation 'reif' für eine Verhandlungslösung zu machen, die einen Truppenabbau ermöglicht

Though long in the offing, US withdrawal from Afghanistan became a reality with the signing of the Doha Agreement on 29 February 2020, ultimately leading to the establishment of Taliban 2.0 in Kabul. The unravelling of the two-decade-old US-led war and reconstruction effort in Afghanistan led to a long-predicted scramble among the regional powers to fill the vacuum created by US withdrawal and threw up a plethora of intriguing questions, particularly regarding China's role and interests in the region. This article seeks to understand and analyze China's ever-growing engagement in Afghanistan through the paradigm of Realism, arguing that China has long-term geo-strategic and geo-economic interests in the region which requires it to coordinate more closely with Pakistan and Iran and innovate diplomatically. This article is divided into two sections. The first section focuses on China's interests in Afghanistan viz. BRI-CPEC extension in Afghanistan, rare earth, and the need to ensure peace and stability. The second section assesses China's response to the emerging situation by focusing on China's engagement with the Taliban 2.0 and co-opting of Pakistan and Iran for safeguarding its long-term interests. This article concludes while looking at the position of India in the gamut.

Abstract This article raises the question of how NATO became bogged down in Afghanistan. I scrutinise how the alliance became involved in Afghanistan and how it formulated its strategy. In doing this, I follow the general premises of practice theory. However, instead of the common focus on diplomats and their everyday doings, this article suggests an approach that pays more attention to the structure of the field of positions. I demonstrate that the actions of permanently seconded representatives of member states and of NATO's administrative cadre were crucial in drawing the alliance into Afghanistan. I argue that their actions significantly contributed to the creation of a fatal common sense: namely that the alliance had to become and remain engaged even in the absence of clear political goals. This provided the basis for a means-focused and endless mission.

AbstractThis article raises the question of how NATO became bogged down in Afghanistan. I scrutinise how the alliance became involved in Afghanistan and how it formulated its strategy. In doing this, I follow the general premises of practice theory. However, instead of the common focus on diplomats and their everyday doings, this article suggests an approach that pays more attention to the structure of the field of positions. I demonstrate that the actions of permanently seconded representatives of member states and of NATO's administrative cadre were crucial in drawing the alliance into Afghanistan. I argue that their actions significantly contributed to the creation of a fatal common sense: namely that the alliance had to become and remain engaged even in the absence of clear political goals. This provided the basis for a means-focused and endless mission.

The development of the international political changes in Central and South Asia is analyzed in the article in connection with the consequences of the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan and the Taliban's second rise to power (the first one was in 1996). It is shown that the peaceful transformation of Afghanistan is impeded by such persistent threats as religious extremism, terrorism, illegal drug trafficking. The complex mosaic of regional relations, in which Afghanistan is becoming an important element due to the changes that have happened in this country, is determined in Asia by the growing rivalry and competitive struggle of major economic states of the region, as well as global players, and by the efforts of all of them to build various international coalitions (Shanghai Cooperation Organization, RIC – Russia, India, China; Quadripartite Security Dialogue – QUAD, C5+1, Organization of Turkic States, etc.). Of particular interest in this regard is the position of the neighboring states – the three Central Asian nations (Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan), as well as China, Pakistan, India and Iran. Apart from that, this study also outlines the most important challenges for the national security interests of Afghanistan's Asian neighbors. An optimal scenario for both Afghanistan's Asian neighbors and Russia would imply achieving a stable consensus in this country. Afghanistan becoming a full member of such an influential international bloc as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, where Russia, Central Asian states and major Asian economic powers are already represented, can have positive consequences for the stabilization of the situation in the country and the whole Asian region. This would create favorable conditions for successful economic and political interaction between the Central and South Asian states. In conclusion the author emphasizes that the transformations in Afghanistan have complicated regional challenges, prompting neighboring states to focus on the military-political component of their security. Aiming to prevent a negative scenario in Afghanistan, they also multiplied diplomatic contacts with the current leadership of the country. The new international political configuration that is emerging in modern Asia dictates new approaches in the security sphere for the Asian states.