Israel’s Election and the Iran Crisis

Israel’s January 22 elections will produce a new government. The extent to which it will differ from the outgoing government remains to be seen. But efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons might be affected. Could the composition of a new Israeli government indirectly impact the Israeli-U.S. discourse on Iran’s nuclear program? Assuming the […]

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India-Pakistan: The Establishment Strikes Back

In the last two years India and Pakistan have managed to rebuild ties after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks struck a devestating blow to bilateral relations between the two countries. However, the escalation of tensions over the latest incident on the Line of Control (LoC) threatens this normalization of ties. In 2012, after much discussion and deliberation, both countries […]

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Stubborn National Politics Drag Down The Global Economy

Four years ago world leaders, meeting in the G20 crisis session, agreed they would all work to move from recession to growth and prosperity.  They agreed to a global growth compact to be delivered by combining national growth targets with coordinated global interventions. It didn’t happen. After the $1 trillion stimulus of 2009, fiscal consolidation became the established order […]

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The Pacific President

On Monday, as Barack Obama is sworn in again as President, his allies in the West will ask themselves the same nervous question they posed four years ago: how much does he care about us? The British, in particular, are worried. War looms in Mali, yet Washington seems happy to let the French take charge, […]

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India’s Foreign-Policy Fog

It’s no easy task navigating through heavy fog in the dead of night. But on one memorable occasion in New Delhi, my driver wasn’t going to be stopped. It was 3 a.m. as we careened out of Indira Gandhi International Airport and onto the highway leading to my downtown hotel. The fog was so thick […]

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China’s Me-First Foreign Policy

China’s more assertive foreign policy over the last two years has played a key role in getting two arch-conservatives — Japan’s Shinzo Abe and South Korea’s Park Geun-hye — elected to lead their respective countries. Some Chinese observers believe that Abe and Park will be forced by China‘s inexorable rise to come to terms with their giant neighbor. Don’t count on it. To […]

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Grandchildren Run South Korea’s Economy

South Korea’s tycoons were relieved when the pro-business Park Geun Hye was elected last month as the nation’s 11th president. The main criticism against her predecessor and party mate, Lee Myung Bak, was that he was as beholden to corporations as leaders get. Park’s win was seen as a victory for the economic system that raised Korea […]

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Cold War Lessons For India And Pakistan

Russia’s missiles may still be trained on the United States but it is the nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan that worries Russian experts more than American nukes. Scholars gathered at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (Imemo), a top-rated Russian think-tank advising the Kremlin, rang alarm bells about the threat of […]

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Cinematic Reflection Of US Policy In Middle East

America’s Middle East policy has been enthusiastically endorsed. Not at the UN or Arab League, however, but by the powerbrokers of Hollywood. At the Golden Globes, there were gongs for a heroically bearded CIA spook saving hostages and American face in Iran (Argo); a heroically struggling agent tracking down Bin Laden (Zero Dark Thirty) and […]

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