war in Afghanistan should be studied in relation to political culture, political economy and broader national and regional history. After the formation of the modern nation-state between 1880-1929, Afghanistanhas witnessed at least seven major conflicts. Starting from the war of state construction and establishing a centralized authority between 1880-1901; on through the 1919 conflict with British India and guerrilla war against the Soviet invasion and the Communist administration in Kabul (1979–92); onto the civil war among the rival mujahedeen factions (1992–96); and the ongoing fight against the Taliban, war has been an almost continual presence in the lives of Afghans. Mainstream literature on Afghanistan tends to…

“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce,” a saying attributed to Karl Marx, comes to mind in this time of Trump. To those of us raised in the Truman era, when the Red Army was imposing its bloody Bolshevik rule on half of Europe, and NATO was needed to keep Stalin’s armies from the Channel, the threat seemed infinitely more serious. And so it was. There were real traitors in that time. Alger Hiss, a top State Department aide, at FDR’s side at Yalta, was exposed as a Stalinist spy by Congressman Richard Nixon. Harry Dexter White, No.…

The persuasive power of evidence is overrated. If you are not collateral damage in the escalating trade wars, the bulletins from the wars’ multiplying fronts are hilarious reading. You are collateral damage only if you are a manufacturer, farmer, or consumer, so relax and enjoy the following reports. Whirlpool, which makes washing machines and demands for government protection, wheedled Washington into imposing tariffs on, and quotas for, imported machines. Unfortunately for Whirlpool, American steel and aluminum makers horned in on the protectionist fun, getting tariffs — taxes paid by Americans — imposed on imports of those materials that, the Wall Street…

From militancy in the southern Philippines to hardline preachers taking shelter in Malaysia, politicized forms of conservative Islam are on the rise in Southeast Asia. Encouraged by governments and local elites who seek to draw legitimacy from local traditions, extremist thought is spreading among young people across the region. Nowhere is this more evident and more worrying than in Indonesia, the region’s largest and most populous Muslim state, home to 260 million people, 87 percent of whom are Sunni Muslims. A young democracy with a history of religious tolerance toward its Christian and Hindu minorities, Indonesia has nevertheless had to wage…

Iraqis disagree about many things but on one topic they are united: they believe they live in the most corrupt country in the world, barring a few where there is nothing much to steal. They see themselves as victims of a kleptomaniac state where hundreds of billions of dollars have disappeared into the pockets of the ruling elite over the past 15 years, while everybody else endures shortages of everything from jobs and houses to water and electricity. The popular rage against the political class that came to power in 2003 explains why the movement led by the populist-nationalist cleric…