Political stability has been a central theme of policy for all governments and political systems in the history of modern Afghanistan. Since its inception in the mid-nineteenth century, the country experimented with a diverse succession of political systems and state ideologies matched by few other countries' political histories. In the span of less than nine decades since independence in 1919, the Afghan state was substantially restructured at least a dozen times. This volume looks at Afghanistan's historic relations with Central and South Asia, ethno-nationalism and development, Soviet occupation and transformation of relations with Pakistan, stability of the Islamic State and regional cooperation. It examines how Afghanistan's different political systems reformed and readjusted policies to make them more conducive to political stability. Yet political stability, at best, has remained a dream unrealized in Afghanistan.

While security concerns have assumed salience across the globe, Afghanistan’s proximity to Central Asia has meant that security or perceptions of insecurity dominate the strategic discourse in the region. Issues that stand out include the challenges that the Central Asian states will face in terms of stability, ethnic tensions, radicalization of youth, destabilization of commodity flows and energy security and the impact that these could have on Central Asian society. However, security cannot just be defined in terms of security at the borders. It needs to be defined in ‘cosmopolitan’ terms through an array of issues like movements across borders, radicalism within states, the sharing of water, and various multilateral attempts at combating insecurity. This volume is an attempt to focus on some of these issues that reflect on perceptions of security principally from Indian and Uzbek positions. It examines shifts over the last two decades, from debates on the geopolitical importance of the region from a great game perspective to the salience of new engagements within the international arena.

For 35,000 years ancient Afghanistan was called Aryana (the Light of God) has existed. Then in 747 AD what is today called Afghanistan became Khorasan (which means Sunrise in Dari) which was a much larger geographical area. In the middle of the nineteenth century the name Afghanistan, which means home of the united tribes, was applied originally by the Saxons (present day British) and the Russians. During the Great Games in the middle of nineteenth century, the Durand Line was created in 1893 and was in place until 1993. Saxons created the state of Afghanistan out of a geographical area roughly the size of Texas: in 1893 before which there were 10 million square kilometers, larger than the size of Canada, as means to act as a buffer zone between the Saxon-India & Tsarist-Russia and the Chinese.

Throughout history, Central Asia has formed an important strategic link between the East and the West and been described as the ‘great pivot’ in the early-twentieth century. This book looks at the relations between the Central Asian states and major external powers. It shows how these nations have kept the fragile geopolitics of the region free of the so-called ‘New Great Game’. The volume evaluates the roles of major powers such as Russia, United States, China, Iran, and Turkey, as well as India and its ‘Silk Road Strategy’. It also compares the regional geopolitics of Central Asia with its neighbour Caucasus. The study indicates how, despite limited inter-state cooperation, the region has prevented conflicts and wars, due to which these states have been able to enjoy greater strategic autonomy in their dealings with other countries. The book will benefit scholars and researchers of international relations, political and strategic studies, area studies, and Central Asian studies apart from the interested general reader.

This book examines the perspectives and issues of variously situated peoples in Greater Central Asia in terms of four major issues: government repression, ethnic group perspectives, devices of mutual support, and informal grounds of authority and influence. Responding to the need for in-depth studies concerning the social structures and practices in the region, it provides a distinctive, timely insight into this increasingly influential part of the world.

Presents a thematically indexed bibliography devoted to Afghanistan. Following the pattern established by one of its major data sources, viz, the acclaimed Index Islamicus, both journal articles and book publications are included and indexed.

Small-scale traders play a crucial role in forging Asian connectivity, forming networks and informal institutions separate from those driven by nation-states, such as China's Belt and Road Initiative. This ambitious study provides a unique insight into the lives of the mobile traders from Afghanistan who traverse Eurasia. Reflecting on over a decade of intensive ethnographic fieldwork, Magnus Marsden introduces readers to a dynamic yet historically durable universe of commercial and cultural connections. Through an exploration of the traders' networks, cultural and religious identities, as well as the nodes in which they operate, Marsden emphasises their ability to navigate Eurasia's geopolitical tensions and to forge transregional routes that channel significant flows of people, resources, and ideas. Beyond the Silk Roads will interest those seeking to understand contemporary iterations of the Silk Road within the context of geopolitics in the region. This title is also available as Open Access.

A Slow Reckoning examines the Soviet Union's and the Afghan communists' views of and policies toward Islam and Islamism during the Soviet-Afghan War (1979–1989). As Vassily Klimentov demonstrates, the Soviet and communist Afghan disregard for Islam was telling of the overall communist approach to reforming Afghanistan and helps explain the failure of their modernization project. A Slow Reckoning reveals how during most of the conflict Babrak Karmal, the ruler installed by the Soviets, instrumentalized Islam in support of his rule while retaining a Marxist-Leninist platform. Similarly, the Soviets at all levels failed to give Islam its due importance as communist ideology and military considerations dominated their decision making. This approach to Islam only changed after Mikhail Gorbachev replaced Karmal by Mohammad Najibullah and prepared to withdraw Soviet forces. Discarding Marxism-Leninism for Islam proved the correct approach, but it came too late to salvage the Soviet nation-building project. A Slow Reckoning also shows how Soviet leaders only started seriously paying attention to an Islamist threat from Afghanistan to Central Asia after 1986. While the Soviets had concerns related to Islamism in 1979, only the KGB believed the threat to be potent. The Soviet elites never fully conceptualized Islamism, continuing to see it as an ideology the United States, Iran, or Pakistan could instrumentalize at will. They believed the Islamists had little agency and that their retrograde ideology could not find massive appeal among progressive Soviet Muslims. In this, they were only partly right.

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an important developmental measure that started from September 2013 when Chinese President Xi Jinping initiated the strategic concept of building a new Silk Road Economic Belt, as a model for global economic development and growth.This book focuses on the BRI's influence on the interregional cooperation between Asia and Europe. It discusses a variety of topics including financial security — featuring how financial institutions, such as Asian Infrastructural Investment Bank, World Bank and Asian Development Bank provide feasible financial support for the economic development of countries along the BRI route; China's Economy and the 'New Normal' transformation; the integration of high-speed railways, equipment manufacturing into the Initiative; the China Dream and many more.