In my new piece I report that drug seizures at Torkham on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border have increased sharply in recent weeks, pointing to a trafficking boom.

For Nikkei Asia, I interviewed the head of India’s Narcotics Control Bureau, who expressed deep concern about the risk of increased drug-trafficking from Afghanistan and Myanmar.

Read my story (published during the holiday season in December) on the remarkable boom in drug-trafficking that is apparently taking place despite the COVID-19 pandemic and supply-chain crisis.

In August the Taliban vowed to ban drugs, but opium cultivation and narco-trafficking have continued since they seized power. Read my new story for more.

My latest piece for The National Interest shows that Pakistan’s relations with the new Taliban regime have been tense and sometimes acrimonious. Ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan have long been strained by deep structural factors which will not go away simply because the Taliban is in power.

I have an essay on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region in the new issue of Development Advocate Pakistan, a publication of the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

My new essay for The National Interest argues that the West will remain dependent on Pakistan in various respects even after leaving Afghanistan.

My latest covers a new report by the EU drugs agency warning of the threat posed by Afghanistan’s thriving methamphetamine industry to Europe.

My new story, based on interviews with Chinese analysts and examination of state media, shows that China’s apparently enthusiastic approach to the new Taliban regime in Afghanistan is more cautious than it looks.

My latest argues that the US was right to pull its troops out of Afghanistan but should remain engaged in the country, especially by providing humanitarian aid.