Afghanistan-Pakistan

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    • The Mecca Joint Défense Agreement: A New Geometry of Middle Eastern Power?
  • Analysis

    • The Mecca Joint Défense Agreement: A New Geometry of Middle Eastern Power?

    On August 7, 2026, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Défense Agreement, a collective-defense pact widely compared to NATO’s Article 5. This essay argues that the comparison is misleading. Mecca borrows NATO’s language of solidarity without yet possessing NATO’s institutional machinery, and the Houthi offensive against Saudi Arabia in September 2026 provided an early and revealing test of what the agreement actually means in practice. Neither Pakistan nor Turkey automatically entered the fight on Saudi Arabia’s behalf, and Washington, despite an initial reluctance to strike directly, remained indispensable through intelligence support and a major proposed F-35 sale. Drawing on realist alliance theory — Hans Morgenthau, Kenneth Waltz, Stephen Walt, Glenn Snyder, and Steven David — and on the precedent of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), the essay contends that the Middle East is not dividing into rival blocs but moving from hierarchy toward a looser, overlapping geometry of hedged partnerships, in which American exclusivity is eroding considerably faster than American primacy.

    The Mecca Alliance Meets the Red Sea – Saudi Arabia’s New Defense Pact Faces Its First Major Test
  • Commentary

    • The Mecca Alliance Meets the Red Sea – Saudi Arabia’s New Defense Pact Faces Its First Major Test

    When Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan agreed to a mutual defense pact in August, it was principally seen as a political commitment. The “Mecca alliance,” as it was dubbed, stipulated that an armed attack on one would be treated as an attack on all three, accompanied by deeper military cooperation.

    The Case for a Middle Course in Afghanistan
  • Commentary

    • The Case for a Middle Course in Afghanistan

    I was a teenage Afghan refugee in Pakistan’s tribal areas when the Twin Towers fell. Almost nobody around us understood the politics of what had happened, but we knew that something had changed for good. Afghanistan, which until then had been our private tragedy and our first exile from Taliban rule, had suddenly become the world’s concern, with the United States leading the response.

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    The Taliban: Unrecognized and unrepentant
    Photo by Saifurahman Safi/Xinhua via Getty Images
  • Analysis

    • The Taliban: Unrecognized and unrepentant

    Despite expectations that China, Russia, and other states would try to exploit the Western military departure from Afghanistan, the Taliban’s regime remains unrecognized by any other government. Neighboring countries have not gone beyond limited diplomatic engagement, economic detachment, and security containment.

    April 1, 2022

    Richard Weitz Weitz

    China draws closer to the Taliban as regional foreign ministers prepare to meet in Beijing
    Photo by Li Ran/Xinhua via Getty Images 
  • Analysis

    • China draws closer to the Taliban as regional foreign ministers prepare to meet in Beijing

    Despite the loss of crucial foreign aid, a deepening food crisis, and a sinking economy, little attention has been given to the effects of Afghanistan’s current political instability on the Taliban’s international relations. The international community has certainly taken an interest in Afghanistan, urging the Taliban to implement reforms, such as political representation for all Afghan ethnicities and respect for women’s rights, particularly when it comes to education and work. For its part, however, China has not let such concerns get in the way of establishing strong ties with the Afghan Taliban.

    March 24, 2022

    Vinay Kaura

    To save Afghanistan, try differently
    Photo by Paula Bronstein /Getty Imageshttps://www.mei.edu/sites/default/files/2022-03/To%20Save%20Afghanistan%2C%20Try%20Differently.pdf
  • Analysis

    • To save Afghanistan, try differently

    As global attention shifts further away from Afghanistan to Ukraine and elsewhere, time is running out to change course before the country’s freefall under the Taliban becomes irreversible. The international community needs a two-pronged, interlinked approach to normalize the economy and stabilize the political scene.

    March 14, 2022

    Sayed Madadi

    Connecting Beijing’s global infrastructure: The PEACE Cable in the Middle East and North Africa
    Photo by AMELIE HERENSTEIN/AFP via Getty Images
  • Analysis

    • Connecting Beijing’s global infrastructure: The PEACE Cable in the Middle East and North Africa

    One of the most ambitious elements of China’s Digital Silk Road is the Pakistan & East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) fiber-optic cable. China has long expressed its ambition to connect the greater Middle East, Africa, and Europe with Chinese fiber optics in order to expand its presence in the region, and Beijing now boasts strategic infrastructure assets in geopolitical hotspots, such as the Pakistani port of Gwadar.

    March 7, 2022

    Thomas Blaubach

    Taliban rule of Afghanistan at six months
  • Podcast

    • Taliban rule of Afghanistan at six months

    Marvin Weinbaum and Sayed Madadi discuss Afghanistan’s worsening economic and humanitarian crises six months after the Taliban reclaimed control of the country.

    February 25, 2022

    The Pakistani Taliban’s radical rebranding: Is there more than meets the eye?
    Security officials and relatives attend a funeral ceremony of a slain policeman, who was killed in an attack claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in the border town of Chaman on January 28, 2022. (Photo by Abdul BASIT / AFP) (Photo by ABDUL BASIT/AFP via Getty Images)
  • Analysis

    • The Pakistani Taliban’s radical rebranding: Is there more than meets the eye?

    In a statement released on Feb. 12, the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) distanced itself from international terrorism, declaring that its violence was singularly focused on Pakistan. While the TTP’s recent comments on America are unprecedented, they do fit into its broader rebranding effort under the leadership of Noor Wali Mehsud, who took over the group in 2018.

    February 24, 2022

    Arif Rafiq

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