You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on strategy, defense and foreign affairs.

My name is Ryan Evans.

I'm the CEO of War in the rocks.

In this episode we talk about the talks with the Taliban.

Where are they going? Is it anywhere good?

Orsala, name it. I am director of Afghanistan Research in Evaluation Unit. This is a research thing thank based in Afghanistan and

focusing mostly on social policy related issues.

Hey I'm Vikram Singh it's good to be Ryan. Thanks. I'm a senior advisor for Asia, the United States Institute of Peace, and was formerly Senior Pentagon and State Department official, you know, government government including Deputy Special Representative

for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I'm Laurel Miller.

I'm the Director of the Asia Program at the International Crisis Group, which is a conflict prevention and

resolution research and advocacy organization. And I was also at the State

Department working on Afghanistan, different time period than Vikram.

2013 to 2017 I was the deputy and then acting Special Representative for Afghanistan and

Pakistan.

So we all, everyone around this table has pretty solid Afghan creds.

I worked as most of our listeners know for the Department of Defense for a little while in

Helmand.

It's great to be sitting across the table for someone from your leader of your organization. I've been

reading the reports for years and they've been tremendously useful and helping

understand Afghanistan so thank you for the work that you do. I was hoping we can get

someone of a more hawkish persuasion I was hoping we can get someone of a more hawkish persuasion. I was telling

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