As the violence in Afghanistan increases, some NATO members are considering a new path to peace in the troubled country: supporting government talks with Taliban insurgents. While negotiations would be restricted to insurgents who have abandoned their ranks; nonetheless, this new strategy, backed by the UK, signals a shift in the tide.

“Peace and security in Afghanistan does not turn purely on the men in uniform; it depends on a broader and more inclusive political settlement,” British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said in a speech to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. This indicates an emergent theme of looking beyond the military to find a broader, more inclusive, path to peace.