Russia claims that the number of its soldiers killed and injured in the first six days of its invasion of Ukraine is a fraction of what Ukraine has said to be more than 5,000 dead and many more wounded. While neither side’s claims can be verified, even if we rely on official Russian figures, they are proportionally much higher than what the Soviet Union lost in Afghanistan over a decade in the 1980s. This raises serious questions about the ability and efficacy of the Russian military under Vladimir Putin in comparison to the forces his Soviet predecessors commanded during the Afghan war.

Lord Ismay, NATO’s first secretary general, memorably described its mission as being ‘to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down’. With the end of the Cold War, instead of disbanding, NATO became a military alliance in search of a new enemy and mission to justify its existence.

The Afghanistan war is over for the United States and its allies. But the suffering of the Afghan people has multiplied under the extremist, repressive rule of the Taliban in the name of Islam. No country today is in as much danger of losing half its population to starvation as Afghanistan. Who is responsible for this?

The nationwide public unrest in oil-rich and mineral-endowed Kazakhstan, triggered by a hike in fuel prices, has its roots in deeper governance problems and societal demands for structural reforms since the country’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. The upheaval has presented a serious challenge not only to Kazakhstan’s authoritarian regime, but also to Russia. It has carried the potential to destabilise what Russia considers its ‘near abroad’ or zone of security and interests.

On December 03, 2021, the South Asian headlines were dominated by the unfortunate lynching of a Sri Lankan factory manager, Priyantha Kumara. An Export Manager working in Pakistan since 2010, Priyantha Kumara, was beaten, killed and set on fire for removing posters with religious verses printed on them. The mob construed this as an act of blasphemy. The gruesome incident shook the conscience of many, with protests sparked within Pakistan and demands for justice in Sri Lanka.

Two unilaterally taken foreign and security policy decisions by the Biden administration within a few weeks made Europeans stand there at a loss. Since the departure of Donald Trump as President of the United States, has only the tone in transatlantic relations changed but not the substance of the "America first" policy?