International cooperation is in decline both in the political and financial spheres. The UN has failed to address any of the major conflicts since the end of the cold war; the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference left a sour aftertaste; the World Trade Organization hasn’t concluded a major trade round since 1994. The International Monetary […]
For the past eighteen months as representatives from Iran and the P5+1 have negotiated a potentially historic nuclear agreement, a debate has raged on the contents of the deal. While the document itself is critical, what will be more decisive for the success or failure of the agreement is the set of regional, global, and […]
Saudi Arabia’s aggressive, interventionist foreign policy has so far led it to wage two external wars in addition to an ongoing battle on the domestic front. The government does not appear to be fighting the three campaigns with the same degree of commitment and dedication, but more important, none of its battles is yet to result in victory. Read […]
The Iraqi people have been the subject of mass executions, rape, torture and, in addition, the destruction of the country’s infrastructure. The international community has been mostly deaf to the needs of Iraqis, who have undergone difficulties much greater that during the regime of President Saddam Hussein. Read Here – Japan Times
One year after coming to power, the first thing that strikes one about the foreign policy of the Narendra Modi government is its remarkable consistency with that of its predecessor. Read Here – The Wire
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are each other’s wild cards. Each is the other’s out-of-region game-changer, a factor that must play into the calculations of all other players in the Middle East and South Asia alike. Think you’ve got the complex equation sorted out of Arabs vs. Persians, Sunnis vs. Shi’a, Ba’athists vs. Islamists? Well, if […]
The appearance of Colonel Gulmurod Khalimov in an Islamic State propaganda video on May 27 sent a chill across Central Asia. The head of Tajikistan’s Special Assignment Police Unit (OMON), a key element in President Emomali Rahmon’s security apparatus, had disappeared shortly before. In the video he promised to return to wage violent jihad. Read […]
During the financial crisis, when the global economy faced its gravest threat since the 1930s, policymakers sprang into action. To stimulate the economy, central banks slashed interest rates and politicians spent lavishly. As a result, the recession, though bad, was far less severe than the Depression. Unfortunately, however, that quick response nearly exhausted governments’ economic arsenals. […]
Burkina Faso, Congo, and Burundi are among the world’s poorest, least developed, worst governed countries. Compaoré, Kabila, and Nkurunziza are corrupt and unaccountable men, more like Mafia godfathers than like public servants, and they hardly bother to pretend otherwise. When they say that they must remain in office, they make no case for what good […]
Forget the loons and the kooks, the puff-chested braggarts and the incorrigible denialists, and ask yourself this: what is the Pak-India relationship really about? At its core, as defined in the present era, stripped of hype and hyperbole, denuded of posturing and silliness, what is it that Pakistan and India need of each other in strategic […]
looking beyond borders 