Letter From the Editors
By looking back at the past, we can put events in their proper context and perspective.
International relations analysis is often forward-looking: discussing how the events of today will shape tomorrow. But we should not overlook the benefits of hindsight, either. By looking back at the past, we can put events in their proper context and perspective based on what actually followed. In this issue of The Diplomat magazine, we revisit some past headlines – from the August 2022 military drills in the Taiwan Strait to the Sino-Indian border war of 1962 – to understand their impact today.
When the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan in August 2021, many analysts warned about a coming rise in terrorism. “The temperature of the jihadist cauldron has fluctuated over the past year,” writes Dr. Jonathan Schroden of the CNA Corporation. But, he notes, “it appears to be slowly rising overall.” In our cover story, Schroden catalogues the status and activities of four major terrorist groups using Afghanistan as a base – al-Qaida, ISK, TTP, and ETIM – and what efforts, if any, the Taliban have made to control them.
In October 2020, on the back of botched parliamentary elections, Kyrgyzstan experienced what could be called the country’s third revolution. From the political tumult a powerful pair ascended: Sadyr Japarov, freshly busted from jail, became president, and his long-time ally, Kamchybek Tashiev, took over the security services. Two years later, Dr. Asel Doolotkeldieva, a senior lecturer at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, argues that the revolutionary Japarov government provides much of the same old authoritarianism in new, populist clothes.
In October 1962, war broke out along the contested Sino-Indian border. Although the conflict ended fairly quickly, the underlying dispute was never resolved, and it flared to violent life against in June 2020 at Galwan Valley. Sushant Singh, a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, India, examines the two fronts of the Sino-Indian border dispute: Arunachal Pradesh/Zangnan in the east and Ladakh/Aksai Chin in the west. The conflict, Singh writes, is driven by the fact that the dispute is inextricably tied to domestic concerns for both China and India. That’s why, 60 years after their war, China and India are no closer to a solution.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan in August kicked off a month of tensions in the Taiwan Strait, including unprecedented military drills – and incursions – by China’s navy and air force. The embroglio occurred as campaign season for Taiwan’s midterm local elections, due in November, was really heating up. Yet, as Taiwanese journalist Brian Hioe and Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies research fellow Lev Nachman note in their article, cross-strait issues in general, and China’s military drills specifically, have not featured in the political debates. For midterm elections, Hioe and Nachman emphasize, Taiwanese are more concerned with local issues – including candidates’ personalities – than big-picture geopolitics.
We hope you enjoy these stories, and the many more in the following pages.