South Asia Archive

The United Nations has issued a blunt assessment of the dismal state of women’s rights in Afghanistan, criticizing families, local communities and government officials for complicity in failing to address a social system that continues to set women up as victims. “Afghan women have limited freedom to escape the norms and traditions that dictate a subservient status for females. Women in Afghanistan are also subjected to the violence inherent in armed conflict that has intensified in recent years and is exacting an increasingly heavy toll on Afghan civilians,” the report says. Intimidation, direct psychological and physical attacks, and high profile […]

I somehow overlooked Jim Molan’s outstanding assessment of the state of play in Afghanistan in my daily read of the Interpreter, but luckily caught it the second time around thanks to the gang at SWJ. Molan, a retired Australian general, says everything there is to be said for the time being — namely that, rhetoric and opinion shaping to the contrary, we’re in a holding pattern in Afghanistan. According to his estimates, we’ll need to triple troop levels before we break out of that holding pattern, and the necessary resources will come from the U.S., not NATO. That pretty much […]

NEW DELHI — While India’s immediate military aim is to build a potent strike force against Pakistan, it also harbors long-term plans to field a credible deterrent against China. This reflects the fact that although military efforts to counter Pakistan, such as the strengthened deployment along India’s western frontiers, are usually given precedence, the perceived threat from China remains very much on the radar. A case in point is India’s recent decision to buttress its military presence in the Northeast frontiers by basing its latest “air dominance” Russian Sukhoi-30 MKI fighters there. The move is meant to check China’s buildup […]

There are still a lot of question marks surrounding the violence in Xinjiang. Two things, though, seem obvious. First, this is the sort of deferred maintenance China will be facing for quite a while with regards to transforming its inchoate territory into a truly coherent nation. (Tibet is the other obvious flashpoint.) The costs will remain significant in terms of power investsed, both hard (domestically, in terms of security forces) and soft (abroad, in terms of pushing back against international pressure). And it points to the degree to which the risk of violent conflict involved in China’s rise will manifest […]

Brilliant. I wonder how they’ll tackle sexual harassment.

In 2006, when Dutch forces occupied Uruzgan province in southern Afghanistan, they expected to wage a traditional counterinsurgency campaign focused on winning the support of the local population. “We’re not here to fight the Taliban. We’re here to make the Taliban irrelevant,” said Dutch commander Hans van Griensven. An Australian reconstruction team subsequently joined the Dutch battlegroup, to help rebuild schools and roads, and to provide vocational training to local workers. Dutch and Australian troops were working at a pair of schools in July 2007 when the Taliban attacked. A suicide bomber blew himself up outside one school in the […]