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.

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 ?