Is Afghanistan's political future at an impasse? There are both internal and external reasons supporting a response in the affirmative. Although considerable gains were made in the country following the 2001 international intervention, increasing insurgent attacks threaten the fledging post-Taliban government while strategies of regional and sometimes extra-regional states threaten to destabilise and weaken it from the outside. Efforts to guarantee stability continue to be undermined by the implications of a political settlement with the Taliban and other armed opposition groups. The purpose of the volume is to critically examine the functioning of the present political arrangement and gaze into the possible alternative political scenarios factoring in the role of various stake holders such as the different ethnic groups, the insurgents, the warlords, the traditional political institutions in Afghan society. It discusses the options like federalism and the problem of ethnic diversity, parliamentary or presidential forms of government, the question of neutrality of Afghanistan, the problem of traditional and modern political institutions, resurgent groups and the role of regional and extra-regional powers in Afghanistan's political future