This book provides a comprehensive assessment of the perspective and approaches to Afghan security taken by the states bordering and in close proximity to Afghanistan, and the transnational dynamics that interconnect these states with Afghanistan and one another.

Rudra Chaudhuri is Lecturer in South Asian Security at the Department of War Studies, King's College London, UK
Emilbek Dzhuraev is Lecturer at the Department of International and Comparative Politics, American University of Central Asia, and holds a PhD in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland, USA
Sharibek Dzhuraev is Director of the Central Asian Studies Institute at American University of Central Asia, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
Shaun Gregory is Professor and Director of the Pakistan Security Research Unit in the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University, UK
Artemy M. Kalinovsky is Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Marc Lanteigne is Senior Lecturer at the School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations at the University of Wellington, Victoria, New Zealand
Marlene Laruelle is Research Professor of International Affairs at George Washington University, USA
Sebastien Peyrouse is Research Professor of International Affairs, Central Asia Program, Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, George Washington University, USA
Michaela Prokop was based in Kabul, Afghanistan from 2004 to 2007 as country economist for the Asian Development Bank
Amin Saikal is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (The Middle East and Central Asia) at the Australian National University, Australia
Farkhod Tolipov is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at The National University of Uzbekistan, Uzbekistan
Andreas Wilde is Assistant Professor at the Chair of Iranian Studies at the University of Bamberg, Germany?

PART I: INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND 1. Introduction: Including the Other Sides of Afghanistan; Stephen Aris and Aglaya Snetkov 2. Regional Dynamics of the Soviet War in Afghanistan and its Aftermath; Artemy M. Kalinovsky 3. Afghanistan's Attitudes towards the Region; Amin Saikal PART II: NEIGHBORING AND REGIONAL STATES' PERSPECTIVES 4. Pakistan: Security Perspectives on Afghanistan; Shaun Gregory 5. Negotiating its Way In: India in Afghanistan; Rudra Chaudhuri 6. Underestimated and Ignored. Iran's Current Afghanistan Policy between Soft Power and Hard Measures; Andreas Wilde 7. The Other Power: Security and Diplomacy in Sino-Afghanistan Relations; Marc Lanteigne 8. Russia in Afghanistan: Enduring Interests, Domestic Challenges and Regional Strategies; Marlène Laruelle 9. Towards conflict resolution in Afghanistan: The perspective of the bordering Central Asian Republics; Farkhod Tolipov 10. The Kazakh and Kyrgyz Sides of Afghanistan: So Near and Yet So Far; Emilbek Dzhuraev and Shairbek Dzhuraev PART III: REGIONAL INTERDEPENDENCIES AND STRATEGIES 11. An institutionalized 'regional solution'? Regional organizations in the regional space surrounding Afghanistan; Stephen Aris 12. From Arc of Crisis to Arc of Opportunity? - The Political Economy of Regional Economic Cooperation; Michaela Prokop 13. The Fight against Drug Trafficking: Mechanisms of Regional Cooperation and their Limits.; Sebastien Peyrouse 14. Conclusion; Stephen Aris and Aglaya Snetkov ?