Kabul Center participates in IDSA regional security conference
Nov 5-6, 2008 New Delhi- Kabul Center for Strategic Studies joined other leading think tanks to participate in India’s Institute of Defense and Security Analysis annual regional conference. The theme of this year‟s event was The Changing Political Context in South Asia: In Search of Economic Cooperation and Security. Participants included some twenty experts and
strategists from across the region. Indian Vice President Shri M. H. Ansari delivered the keynote address.
Kabul Center‟s Executive Director, Waliullah Rahmani, presented a paper on Afghanistan entitled The New Great Game: The Contest for Afghanistan in which he attempted to apply the lessons of Afghanistan‟s history to the current battles going on in the political, economic and psychological arena.
Mr. Rahmani argued that if the insurgents win the political contest against the democratically-elected government of Afghanistan, the narcotics traffics win control of the economy, and the extremists win the contest for the heart and soul of Afghanistan, Afghanistan will become a safe haven for terrorists, criminals, and extremists and that the lessons of Afghan history teach that should these elements win today‟s Great Game in Afghanistan, Afghans are not the only people who will have to face the consequences of this type of state. By contrast, as Mr. Rahmani went on to argue, should however the democratically-elected government and law-abiding citizens of Afghanistan win, no neighbor or other state should ever have to live in fear
of Afghanistan‟s future. On this note, Mr. Rahmani ended his presentation with an appeal to the region‟s countries to join the Afghan government and the international coalition and devise a regional initiative to help end insurgency and instability in their Central Asian neighbor.
The New Great Game and the others presented at the conference will be published in a forthcoming book by the IDSA expected to be released in December.
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