Afghanistan Takes Center Stage In Pitt-Hosted Conference

As the United States and its NATO allies move toward a drawdown of forces in Afghanistan in 2014, many questions remain about the role that the global community—and the nation’s neighbors—will play in the country in the years to come.

Last week, a unique conference hosted by the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs addressed some of those questions. “Afghanistan: A Regional Way Forward” took not only a scholarly view of Afghanistan and the choices its leaders face but also considered the approaches and opportunities policymakers worldwide must now consider. The conference also explored ways that Afghanistan can be seen as not just a source of regional instability but also as an asset to its neighbors.

The keynote address was given by Peter Tomsen, an alumnus of Pitt’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, who served as President George H. W. Bush’s Special Envoy to the Afghan Resistance from 1989 to 1992. Tomsen, whose 33-year diplomatic career has emphasized Asia and the former Soviet Union, is the author of The Wars of Afghanistan: Messianic Terrorism, Tribal Conflicts, and the Failures of Great Powers (PublicAffairs, 2011). The book was named one of the top 50 nonfiction books of 2011 by The Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle.

The conference featured panelists and speakers from across the United States and abroad, including several experts on regions and nations of great significance to Afghanistan, such as South and Central Asia, the Middle East, the European Union, and the states of the former Soviet Union. Among the panelists was Daoud Yaqub, a native Afghan, who is a 1998 graduate of Pitt’s School of Law and former advisor to the Afghan National Security Council.

The Dec. 5-6 conference, which was held in Pitt’s University Club, was organized by Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, an assistant professor in Pitt’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, who has conducted groundbreaking research in Afghanistan. The conference was sponsored by the U.S. Institute for Peace, The World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh, and the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, Ridgway Center for International Security Studies, European Union Center of Excellence and European Studies Center, Asian Studies Center, and Russian and East European Studies Center.