In the weeks leading up to Barack Obamaâ��s decision to send another 30,000 American troops to Afghanistan, he took care to ensure that several different expert opinions on the matter were heard. From military experts who explained the pros and cons of different options to him, to General McChrystal who vigorously and vociferously defended his plan, from the Vice President, Joe Biden, who is an expert on foreign policy, to domestic advisors like Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel whose job it was to give him an idea of how lawmakers in the Congress and the Senate would react. While he has been accused of â��ditheringâ�� and being indecisive, the fact is that Obama had to choose between the least of several difficult options, each as bad as the other. There are simply no good or easy decisions to be made on the war in Afghanistan. None of the options he was presented with came with simple consequences. 8 years in, this war is still no closer to being over than it was on 12th September, 2001. 

It has been suggested by many analysts that after the initial efforts in Afghanistan, put forward by Operation Enduring Freedom, US focus on the Middle East, particularly Iraq, detracted from efforts to fight the Taliban and the insurgency along the Af-Pak border. As a result the Taliban was able to re-group and strengthen its foothold not just in Afghanistan but in the tribal administered areas of Pakistan as well. Several years later, the issues in Iraq still remain largely unsettled and even forebode a treacherous path ahead for US foreign policy. 

President Obama’s decision to deploy an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan has, for the most part, been welcomed by the Afghan government and the regional stakeholders India and Pakistan. The Taliban, whose presence several analysts believe will be required at the negotiating table for a long-term peaceful solution to the Afghan crisis, have rebuffed the new strategy – bluntly stating that there will be an increase in American casualties and more opportunities to attack US assets. On the surface, Obama’s decision, coupled with the pledge to strengthen governance and provide non-military aid/development is being widely held as a prerequisite towards regional stability. Despite objections by the Afghani people, more boots on the ground will ultimately increase the physical possibility of securing vast areas of the country, which have otherwise seen a spread of the Taliban’s influence. 

Sundeep Waslekar comments on the future of various forms of property - physical, intellectual, private and public.

At the beginning of every new decade there are predictions of what the world-to-come is going to be like. However with the approach of the new decade this time around, the focus is not so much on 2010, as on 2012. This is mostly because of the recently released film 2012, based loosely on the end of the world prediction of the Mayan Calendar. The 5,125-year-long Mayan Long Count calendar predicts a series of cataclysmic events on 21 December 2012. It is highly unlikely that any such event will take place, but what is certain is that 2012 is going to be a defining year for the coming decade. 

Poverty, civil wars, pirates, environmental degradation, the highest number of HIV/Aids victims are some of the images conjured up when we discuss Africa. It is a land of high fertility and large families, where societies are under extreme stress and the young out number the old by almost double. The poorest region of the world, Africa rates low on the 2001 Human Development Index, where 29 of the 36 nations with the lowest human development are in Africa. The growth rate, at the lower end of the scale is 2.2 percent, as compared to the world average of 1.4 percent. In parts of Western Sahara, Niger, Uganda and Angola, fertility is the highest, with women having an average of 7 children. 

The last few months have seen a recent push from the Obama administration to speed up the Israel-Palestine peace process; a push that has not come without a fair share of resistance. The main challenge in the negotiation process has been the five final status issues – namely borders, Israeli settlements, the status of Jerusalem, water rights and lastly refugees and the right of return. These five issues -- aptly named ‘final status’ -- carry so much contention between the two-sides that during previous peace negotiations, discussing them in detail has often been deferred till the very end. 

China’s ambitions of taking its place among the major world powers are being seriously challenged by its stance on Iran’s nuclear program. At present, the People’s Republic seems to be caught in a tug-of-war between Iran and the West. It finds itself in the midst of the diplomacy being used by the two sides – one trying to levy sanctions on a ‘pariah state possibly working to make a nuclear bomb’ in an already explosive neighbourhood and the other trying to evade or defy them at all costs. As Iran’s traditional ally, China may have to take tough decisions over the question of sanctioning Iran’s nuclear program in the coming few months. China’s stand on Iran’s nuclear program will decide, to a large extent, its future position in the global power structure.