Afghanistan

Lakhdar Brahimi, UN Special Envoy and former Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan, joins Conversations host Harry Kreisler for a discussion of the obstacles and challenges confronting negotiators in their efforts to resolve conflict. He discusses the lessons of Afghanistan and offers his reflections on the future of multilateral diplomacy.

KEYWORDS: United Nations, Negotiating.

Conversations with History host Harry Kreisler welcomes Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad for a discussion of the interplay between theory and practice in shaping national security policy. Ambassador Khalilzad reflects on the strategic challenges confronting U.S. policymakers after the end of the Cold War; he describes the difficulties facing the U.S. as it makes the Afghanistan/Pakistan crisis its top strategic priority eight years after the post 9-11 Afghanistan War; and he highlights the need for the U.S. to complement its military power with diplomacy and development aid. Ambassador...

Conversations Host Harry Kreisler welcomes Steve Coll, Pulitzer prize winning author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden for a discussion of how the superpower conflict in the last stages of the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy before and after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the political dynamics of South Asia created the setting in which Islamic terrorism took root and flourished.

http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people5/Coll/coll-con0.html...

Host Harry Kreisler welcomes Rory Stewart, Member of the British Parliament,for a discussion of his remarkable odyssey. Reflecting on his background and drawing on his work as a diplomat, soldier, explorer, provincial governor, policy advisor, university research fellow, director of an NGO, and parliamentarian, he describes what he has learned from these multiple experiences. Analyzing the failure of intervention by the West in Iraq and Afghanistan, he focuses on the contradictions between the abstract theories that guide Western policy and the social structures, the geography and history...