The Workshop and its Objectives

On 21 January 2019, the Academic Outreach program of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) hosted a workshop to consider Afghanistan’s fragile peace process and the prospects for stability in the country. Experts discussed the effectiveness of the negotiations, as well as the related domestic and regional impediments which challenge progress towards peace.

Held under the Chatham House rule, the workshop was designed around the work of six experts from Canada, Europe and the United States, and benefited from the insights of security practitioners representing a range of domestic and international experiences. The papers presented at the event form the basis of this report. The entirety of this report reflects the views of those independent experts, not those of CSIS.

The CSIS Academic Outreach program seeks to promote a dialogue between intelligence practitioners and leading specialists from a wide variety of disciplines working in universities, think-tanks, business and other research institutions. It may be that some of our interlocutors hold ideas or promote findings that conflict with the views and analysis of CSIS, and it is for this specific reason that there is value to engage in this kind of conversation.