Expressing his view on the U.S .invasion in Afghanistan and the long war in the country, Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader and the founder of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, once said:"Americans have all the clocks, but we have all the time.” After almost two decades of fighting against the Taliban and its various factions, the U.S., under President Joe Biden’s leadership, has announced the withdrawal of all its troops from the war-torn country by September 2021. It has urged India and Pakistan to take responsibility of furthering peace and the process of stabilization in the country.

An American withdrawal could probably leave the Kabul Government and its Afghan National Security Force (ANSF) in a weak position to counter a stronger Taliban which now controls over 50 percent of the country’s region. Any attempts of brokering a power-sharing agreement by its neighbors and the U.S. have been strongly rejected by the Taliban. The Pakistan-brokered Doha Accord which was signed to improve the conditions within Afghanistan and pave the way for a US withdrawal has strengthened the mujahideen’s bargaining power and has built a sense of victory among the Taliban who aim at rebuilding the Islamic Emirate they created in 1996.

The Taliban takeover of civil, military and political control of Kabul raises huge security implications for the entire region. Additionally, the country’s gain in women’s rights and political democracy under the elected government in Kabul also have a questionable future in a religiously authoritative Taliban-led state. Importantly, the pressure of U.S. withdrawal will be felt most by its immediate neighbors, for whom, peace in Afghanistan translates to peace in the South Asian region. There are threats related to radical cross-border terrorism, refugees and drug trading that loom large.

India has been the most reluctant to engage with the Taliban until now given its close ties with the elected government in Kabul. This skepticism rightly emerges from its disturbing history with the Taliban who among other instances, had carried out the hijacking of the Indian Airlines Flight in 1999. However, diplomatically dialogues with Taliban would perhaps be the most plausible course for India if it wants to avoid any dire circumstances in the region. For Pakistan, the fallout of the peace process and a war torn Afghanistan would mean very severe spill over effects which includes the country becoming a safe haven for militant groups.

How will regional players like India and Pakistan, in addition to China, Russia and Iran be impacted by a potential Taliban takeover and change in leadership in Kabul? What are the options left with the current Ghani-led government in Afghanistan? Will Afghanistan finally see peace and development post the U.S. withdrawal? What role will the U.S. have in the country post-withdrawal of its troops?

Join us for a conversation on the future of Afghanistan post the US withdrawal and its potential impact on the security dynamics, geopolitics and economics of South Asia with Amb. Gautam Mukhopadhaya; Amb. Husain Haqqani, Director for South and Central Asia, Hudson Institute and Prof. Vanda Felbab-Brown, Brookings Institution. The conversation will be moderated by Rudra Chaudhuri, Director, Carnegie India. 

Amb. Gautam Mukhopadhaya is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research. As a senior Indian diplomat, Amb. Mukhopadhaya served in various capacities in Indian Embassies and Missions in Mexico, Cuba, France, and the United Nations; the Ministry of Defence of India (2002-05); and eventually as India's Ambassador to Syria (2006-08), Afghanistan (2010-13) and Myanmar (2013-16). He also re-opened the Indian Embassy in Kabul in November 2001 as Charge d’Affaires after the ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan in November 2001.

Amb. Husain Haqqani served as Pakistan's ambassador to the United States from 2008-2011 and is widely credited with managing a difficult partnership during a critical phase in the global war on terrorism. Considered an expert on radical Islamist movements, he is currently Director for South and Central Asia at Hudson Institute in Washington DC. Haqqani also co-edits the journal Current Trends in Islamist ideology.

Vanda Felbab-Brown is a senior fellow in the Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. She is the director of the Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors. She is also the co-director of the Africa Security Initiative and the Brookings series on opioids: “The Opioid Crisis in America: Domestic and International Dimensions.

Rudra Chaudhuri is the director of Carnegie India. His primary research focuses on the diplomatic history of South Asia and contemporary security issues.He is the author of Forged in Crisis: India and the United States Since 1947 (published in the U.K. by Hurst, in 2013, and in the U.S. and South Asia by Oxford University Press and Harper Collins, respectively, in 2014). He is a senior lecturer at the Department of War Studies and the India Institute at King’s College London (currently on research leave).