Though India and Pakistan’s exchange of fire late last month did not trigger a wider aggression, tensions remain dangerously high. Worse, larger historical and political forces all but ensure that the region will remain on tenterhooks. Read Here – Project Syndicate
With India and Pakistan having demonstrated they are comfortable engaging in increasingly provocative uses of military force under the nuclear umbrella, they will have an incentive in the future to go up a few more rungs on the escalatory ladder to try to achieve goals that couldn’t be achieved further down that ladder. Regardless of […]
There was once an uninhabited islet lying close to the Chinese side of the Ussuri River, which marks the border between Russia and China in the Far East. “Was,” because it has since attached itself to the Chinese bank in a defiant act of geographic irony. But during the turbulent spring of 1969 this little […]
Pakistan will return a captured pilot “as a peace gesture” to India, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Thursday, amid efforts by the United States to defuse a crisis between the two nuclear powers a day after both downed enemy jets. Read Here – Reuters Also Read: A time for restraint
U.S. Ambassadors Dean and Raphel warned Washington unconditional support to Pakistan and fundamentalist factions of mujahedin was destabilising the region. The Reagan administration supported India’s active role in connection with Soviet withdrawal, but changed position when Delhi tried to keep extreme fundamentalists from coming to power. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program was major Indian concern in […]
If a negotiated settlement to the war is a priority, and the aim is to facilitate talks between the Taliban and Kabul, then a legitimate, stable Afghan government would be a prerequisite. But Afghanistan’s history to this date indicates that elections are not an effective way of producing legitimate and stable central government there. Read […]
Russia’s growing presence in the Middle East is generally discussed in military and economic terms. Moscow’s 2015 intervention in Syria to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad increased its influence with Iran and enabled it to draw a wedge between Turkey and the United States… A little-noticed trend, however, is Moscow’s focus on promoting […]
Social media has played an increasingly important role in Middle East politics ever since the 2011 Arab Spring. State actors such as Iran and Saudi Arabia have sought to use social media to influence discourse at home and undermine rivals abroad. How will this new era of online opposition and internet troll armies play out? […]
The United States has spent nearly $6 trillion on wars that directly contributed to the deaths of around 500,000 people since the 9/11 attacks of 2001. Some of the Costs of War Project’s main findings include: 370,000 people have died due to direct war violence, including armed forces on all sides of the conflicts, contractors, civilians, […]
This month, for the first time, the U.S. armed forces are recruiting young men and women who weren’t yet born when the invasion of Afghanistan took place. The war has been going on for 17 years now (17-year-olds can enlist with parental consent), making it the longest war in American history. Yet we are no closer […]
looking beyond borders 