The Post-Partisan Emporium

  Imperial Anthropology? America in Afghanistan Counter-insurgency, scholar-soldiers and the failure of the Human Terrain System (2005-2014) STONE AGE HERBALIST The kinetic phase of the war ended. Soldiers and Marines found themselves immersed in an alien culture unable to differentiate friend from foe. Today, the enemy's motives often remain a mystery, and the constant casualties due to the inability to understand the enemy and to predict his actions have been tragically too great… In the late 19th century, the British army developed a habit of sending bright young officers to different regions of the world to study the cultures and live with the local leaders and learn their habits. Names like China Gordon, T.E. Lawrence, I think all testified to the wisdom of that custom, a custom that the British Army continues today. Think about a culture-centric approach to future warfare that creates a cadre of what commonly now has been called global scouts, officers and non-commissioned of...

  Russia, SCO, BRICS: The Normalization of Afghanistan PEPE ESCOBAR   The whole Russia-Taliban affair involves a humongous package – encompassing oil, gas, minerals and loads of rail connectivity. This past Sunday in Doha, I had a meeting with three high-level representatives of the Taliban Political Office in Qatar, including a founding member of the body (in 2012) and a key official of the previous Taliban government of 1996-2001. By mutual consent, their names should not be made public. The cordial meeting was brokered by Professor Sultan Barakat, who teaches at the College of Public Policy at Hamad bin Khalifa University – set in an outstanding, immaculate campus outside of Doha which attracts students from across the Global South. Prof. Barakat is one of those very few – discreet – players who knows everything that matters in West Asia, and in his case, also in the intersection of Central and South Asia. With my three Taliban interlocutors, we talked extensively about the...

WHO IS BETTER DRUG FIGHTER: US OR TALIBAN “TERRORISTS”?   Afghan poppy After returning to power in 2021, the Taliban vowed to end illicit drug production in Afghanistan and in April 2022 banned poppy cultivation, which is used to produce opium and heroin. A report by the   UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)   said poppy cultivation has fallen by about   95 percent , from   233,000 hectares (575,755 acres)   at the end of 2022 to   10,800 hectares   in 2023. Opium production also fell from   6,200 tons   to   333 tons   in 2023. This year’s crop is estimated to produce   24-38 tons   of heroin suitable for export, down from   350-580 tons   last year. UNODC warned of possible “humanitarian consequences for many vulnerable rural communities” due to the sudden contraction of Afghanistan’s opium economy, as farmers have had to switch to much less lucrative alternative crops. Farmers’ incomes, estimated at ...