Meeting

Virtual Roundtable: Prospects for Peace in Afghanistan

Thursday, July 16, 2020
Omari/REUTERS
Speakers
Seth G. Jones

Harold Brown Chair; Director, Transnational Threats Project; and Senior Adviser, International Security Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Laurel E. Miller

Program Director, Asia, International Crisis Group

Presider
Paul B. Stares

General John W. Vessey Senior Fellow for Conflict Prevention and Director of the Center for Preventive Action, Council on Foreign Relations

from Contingency Planning Roundtable Series and Center for Preventive Action

More than four months after the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement to start a peace process, meaningful steps toward an intra-Afghan peace deal have yet to take place. With multiple hurdles to successful talks, including questions about the Taliban’s interest in a deal and about the future makeup of the Afghan state, there remains a real risk of the peace process stalling or collapsing entirely. Our speakers, Seth G. Jones, Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Laurel Miller, International Crisis Group, discuss a recent Contingency Planning Memorandum on the possibility of a failed Afghan peace deal and what U.S. policymakers can do to prevent it.

Explore More on Afghanistan

Afghanistan

The Taliban in Afghanistan
The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, twenty years after their ouster by U.S. troops. Under their harsh rule, they have increasingly cracked down on women’s rights and neglected basic services.

by Lindsay Maizland August 14, 2025

Taiwan

Why China-Taiwan Relations Are So Tense
Differences over Taiwan’s status have fueled rising tensions between the island and mainland. Taiwan is the likeliest potential flash point in U.S.-China relations.

by Lindsay Maizland and Clara Fong March 19, 2025

Military Operations

Sea Power: The U.S. Navy and Foreign Policy
The U.S. Navy’s dominance of the world’s oceans has made it an indispensable foreign policy tool and a guarantor of global trade, but a mix of challenges is raising difficult questions about its future.

by Jonathan Masters June 12, 2024

Top Stories on CFR

Global Governance

The State of Global Governance: Middle Powers and the Search for Stability
The rise of middle powers in recent decades has offered a counterweight to the strain created by the United States, China, and Russia in international affairs. But although middle powers challenge great power leadership within multilateral institutions, they also create stability within those institutions and have a vested interested in maintaining it. 

by Esther Brimmer December 17, 2025

United States

The Great Aid Recession: 2025’s Humanitarian Crash in Nine Charts
The world faces unresolved conflicts, growing climate crises, attacks on aid workers, two famines, and diminishing political will—along with significant aid cuts. Altogether, 2025 has earned a grim new superlative: the worst humanitarian year on record.

by Sam Vigersky December 23, 2025

U.S. Foreign Policy Program

Ten Most Significant World Events in 2025

As 2025 comes to a close, here are the ten most notable world events of the year.  

by James M. Lindsay December 23, 2025 The Water's Edge