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Recruiting in the Afghan army from predominantly Pastun areas in the south and southeast is way down, almost nonexistent. For Kandahar, Helmand, Oruzgan, Zabul, Paktika, and Ghazni provinves with largely Pashtun people, the numbers show they make up 17% of the population and contributed only 1.5% of new recruits to the army since 2009. Kandahar and Helmand with 2 millon people contributed about 1200 recruits, or less 1% of 173,000 new recrutis since 2009. The northern provinces make up a large number of the new recruits, with Kunduz having a population of 900,000 and contributing 16,500 recruits. There are about 42% Pastuns in the population and a similiar number of Pastuns in the Afghan army, but most are from the northern or northeastern provinces where the insurgency has been weaker. One third are from one northeastern province- Nangarhar. The reason for this is fear of the Taliban finding out that that a young man has enlisted in the south and retaliation against the enlistee or his family. The lack of a southern Pastun presence in the army makes the army more of a northern institution. With withdrawal of American and NATO forces by 2014, this leaves Afghanistan deeply divided between the northern and southern regions. The southern region Pastuns have a significant presence across the border in the northern part of Pakistan, and the southern Pastuns draw support and resources from this region. Removing the foreign presence shifts the balance towards the southern Pastuns and Pakistani Pastuns in the largely mountainous country of this region. This is why the project in Afghanistan requires the support of all factions and ethnic communities in the South Asian region to succeed, setting aside differences and animosities of the past. D. Mahmood Khan, a member of parliament in Kandahar says ordinary Afghans in Kandahar see the Afghan government of Karzai collapsing in a week or two without foreign support and sense a much stronger Taliban....

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Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah sign a powersharing agreement brokered by the U.S Secretary of State Kerry and president Karzai after Afghanistan elections in 2014. The question is whether the two can set aside their differences and make it work, and can they negotiate some form of peace agreement with the Taliban to give Afghanistan and the region years of peace after so much conflict. Pakistan and India's elites and military need to step up to the plate to set aside differences by looking to the long term future of the region and the aspirations of the people for better infrastructure, services, education and healthcare, so long denied to the region. The Kashmir floods, and the floods in Pakistan before that, recent elections in India and Pakistan showing the clear aspirations for development of the people, are a reminder of so much that remains to be done and so much that was never done.

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Lt. Gen Zahir ul-Islam takes over as director general of the ISI, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, a key part of Pakstan's Army. The role of Army chief Kayani and ul-Islam now become critical in forging a U.S. peace settlement in Afghanistan.

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Chandrasekeran looks back on the troop surge ordered by President Obama on the advice of General Petraeus and General McChrystal in Afghanistan, and the results in Afghanistan as the U.S. withdraws troops in 2012-2013.

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Aghhanistan peace talks with the Taliban in Kyoto, Japan in June 2012.

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Muhammad Azhar Ali, factory manager for National Foods plant near Karanchi, Pakistan, describes what it is like running a manufacturing operation in Pakistan. National Foods is the largest manufacturer of pickles and other spice products in Pakistan. A big problem is the lack of security and terrorism. This remains a constant cause of anxiety for business people in Pakistan. Its like being in a war zone says the National Foods chairman Abdul Majeed. Another major problem is lack of reliable electricity supplies. Supply of electricity is only one third of national demand in Pakistan. Larger companies such as Lucky Cement generate their own electricity, with Lucky Cement producing 150 megawatts from its plants. Smaller companies like National Foods rely on diesel generators. To conserve electricity many factory, floor office and bathroom lights are turned off. For workers the lack of electric supplies and high inflation affect lives in many ways. National Foods has a weighing department and assesses workers picked up from many parts of Karanchi to see if they are fit for work or are unduly stressed from poor living conditions. This is a side of Pakistani life that is rarely touched on-the daily lives of workers and managers. Ali works harder than other production managers in other countries because of the power shortages and lack of security. He would like to devote time to increase productivity and be more like other production managers. The war with the Taliban has cost Pakistan $68 billion in destroyed infrastructure, security costs, lost foreign investment according to one estimate. ...

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How one war widow is coping with the death of a husband in the war in Afghanistan. Lisa Hallett in Puget Sound with three small kids has kept alive her husbands memory as she makes a 26 mile run through the streets near Puget Sound, Washington.

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Defense Secretary Gates does not see Russia as the threat it was in the Cold War, first because Russia's conventional forces are a "shadow" of what they were during the Cold War, and Russia has adverse demographic trends that will diminish Russia's ability in conventional forces. He sees the Georgian war in the context of Russia's seeking to exorcize, as he puts it, past humiliations. And Gates sees opportunities in the relationship with Russia. Such things as Russia's willingness to work with the US on Afghanistan. Evidence of this is Russia supporting the renwal of the UN resolution on Afghanistan. Another indication is that Russia he says is very worried about the drugs coming out of Afghanistan, and has been supportive to provide alternative routes for Europeans to get equipment and supplies into Afghanistan. These views come across in an interview on December 17, with Charlie Rose, a five time elected Congressman, for the PBS Charlie Rose show. They are also reflected in an article in Foreign Affairs journal's current issue. Gates was a CIA analyst and has some insightful observations. Gates told Charlie Rose that he does not see the Islamic radicals and violent Islamic extremists as a threat in the same way as the threat in the Cold War years. This threat is not as big as the threat to freedom during the Cold War. He says the failure in strategic communications was huge as agencies of the US government engaged in activities in other countries, like the Agency for International Development and the US Information Agency, were neglected starting in the in the 1990's. Communications in other countries of what the US represented and stands for was left to the Pentagon, a role the Pentagon was ill-suited for. He sees the Islamic terrorism as more of an ideological conflict. Speaking at a town hall meeting at the Balad Air Force base in Iraq, in December, Gates pointed to these communications failures as a real challenge for the new administration. But he now sees a huge opportunity in this past failure, and ways of addressing it creatively, in addition to commiting resources and people to this effort. Walter Pincus wrote this article, and its part of the fineprint analysis effort at the Washington Post in which speeches, reports, and other documents are examined by people like Pincus, to catch the really important things, uncovering the fine print that really makes the headlines. Another aspect of this fineprint effort is that there are a huge number of reports, and speeches and documents that had a tone reminiscent of the Cold War during the Georgia war and yet they do not correctly reflect the real situation about Russia, as Gates sees it from his analysis of what is actually happening. Gates has used Foreign Affairs, the Dec 17 Charlie Rose Show on PBS in which he was interviewed, and the speech at the Balad Air Force base in Iraq, to communicate his views and analysis. They are important to underline and emphasize precisely because they show that all that cold war hysteria reporting and speeches may be misleading and lead to improper conclusions and mistakes in policy, wasted effort, wasted resources, and lost lives. And just as the US strategic communications was starved of resources and effort, so also this necessary work to retrieve and give emphasis to the important things is neglected. One additional link to this is the speech, discussion, and QA session in Washington DC at the time of the G20 summit in which President Medvedev and the new administration's elder statesman and diplomat Marilyn Albright, former secretary of state, expressed their hopes and plans for a new era in Russian-American relations. ...

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As many as 2 million votes in the 2014 Afghanistan elections are called into question. This is 2 million out of a total of 8 million. In the last election it is estimated 1.3 million fradulent votes were made for Hamid Karzai. This time it is said security officials, government officials and others worked together to get as many as 2 million votes for Asraf Ghani, who Karzai supports. This is happening even as the Taliban are increasing attacks in the country and the Americans are withdrawing. It shows that instead of a withdrawal that the Obama administration promised their appears to be a situation that is no different from that of the Bush administration, where American lives were lost and sacrifices made without even the most basic results- no assurance that if the government collapses from strains within and outside, Taliban and terrorism could not happen again as is hapening in Iraq.

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Michael Getler describes the missed opportunity under President Obama for using one of America's most talented diplomats to engineer a peace agreement between the warring factions in Afghanistan- the U.S., the Pakistan army, the ISI and its support in the army, the Taliban, and the other parties such as the Haqqani faction and the Afghan government of Karzai. Holbrooke had used his experience for another President, with the same force of his larger than life personality, when he helped bring about the Dayton Accords in a similiar area of stubborn ethnic strife. Could Obama have tapped Holbrooke's skills and set aside the distractions of his personality as coming from an American with unique gifts, talent and achievement, is the question Getler asks. And is this a comment on the nature of the Obama Presidency and America's poorly invested hopes.

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Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. and Britain, has edited a collection of essays in a new book titled- Pakistan: Beyond the "Crisis State." It tries to form a new construct to move the debate on Pakistan into a future in which Pakistan can exist as a "normal country" free of a paranoia about India that affects its outlook, and free from the military connections that have shifted the focus from development that a friendly neighborly coexistence with India would provide. Intriguing essays include one by Saadat Hasa Manto who goes back to 1951, when the Cold War was at its peak and the U.S. formed a relationship with Pakistan based on military assistance, with only small fraction of aid going into development programs. Syed Rifaat Hussain, professor of strategic studies at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad puts it directly: Pakistan needs to become a normal state and the only way to to do this is for the rivalry and obsession with India to be resolved and put behind it. As it now stands the U.S., India and Pakistan all stand to gain tremendously in such an outcome- the U.S. disengagement from Afghanistan and the Taliban because at its core the Taliban issue goes back to the Pakistan rivalry with India, Pakistan and India because it puts the focus on development, infrastructure building, and economic gains....

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Continuing years of tension, protests and Indian army deployment in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir state (J&K) in India.