Pakistan’s Afghan Problem

It is an indicator of how peculiar the Pakistani psyche is that we have never truly reconciled to our geographical inheritance. Having insisted on carving out a country from the ruins of the British Raj, we then proceeded to engage ourselves in an unending quarrel with the folks next door, which in a strange way […]

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Sri Lanka: A Lesson For U.S. Strategy

Colombo’s interactions with the great powers should provide lessons for Washington on a re-emerging paradigm in world politics, one that it should note in its approach to the Middle East. A reprioritization of certain drivers of foreign policy is needed in order to successfully compete with China in the future multipolar world order. Read Here […]

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Are China’s GDP Numbers Believable?

Almost immediately after the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics released its second quarter GDP growth estimate of 7 percent in mid-July, a group of China watchers were crying foul. China officially targeted full-year growth of around 7 percent in 2015, a number matched exactly by its reported GDP figures for the first half of the […]

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Blame Nawaz

Nobody but nobody doubted where Nawaz stood on India. The only difference opinion-wise lay in whether he was viewed sympathetically or somewhat derisively for still, in a third stint, being unable to wrest any space from the boys. So Nawaz had two options: either split the difference between Modi and the boys in Ufa or wait […]

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The New “Two Chinas” Question

Today, a new, but very different, “two Chinas” question is emerging. It centers on whether China is best understood as a strong country, with a promising future despite some short-term difficulties, or as a country facing serious structural problems and uncertain long-term prospects. In short, two very different Chinas can now be glimpsed. But which […]

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For Pakistan, Maturity The Need Of The Hour

Maturity is the need of the hour in Pakistan’s foreign policy, as a thaw with Iran opens up opportunities to the west, and the possibility of building an economic partnership with India to the east — however remote it might seem at the moment — remains a viable foreign policy goal. It’s time to emerge […]

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China Wants Great Power, Not Great Responsibility

Forty-three years after Richard Nixon made his famous visit to China, that country has seemingly decided to take a page from the former U.S. president’s Treasury Department. As China lowers the value of the yuan, the country’s economic policy makers are mimicking the blasé attitude of Nixon-era Treasury chief John Connally, who dismissed international complaints […]

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