IT may not be the first but it is certainly the most significant face-to face contact between the Afghan Taliban and representatives of the Kabul government. Although both sides have tried to downplay the hype built around it, the Doha meeting has broken the ice raising hopes of a renewed peace process in Afghanistan. But […]
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry championed the new Sri Lankan government’s push for democratic reform and promised closer ties with the strategically located Indian Ocean nation. Read Here – The Guardian
The 19th Amendment to the Constitution puts Sri Lanka well on the road to meaningful democratic reform and signalled the return of a vibrant parliamentary democracy. For a President who has just completed 100 days in office, it is a shining moment. Read Here – Daily FT
A big new State Department assessment has identified a major threat to global security. It’s not ISIS or Vladimir Putin. It’s not a rickety global economy or climate change or the threat of global pandemics. Instead, the report argues, these individual problems are symptoms of a much bigger issue — namely, a slow breakdown in global […]
Over the past month, two members of the Obama administration have made public statements regarding different aspects of America’s ongoing “war on terror.” The second has (understandably) received much more public attention than the first, but the first says something more important about the ultimate course of that long struggle. Read Here – The National […]
For the second year running, a Gallup poll rates U.S. leadership more highly than that of other big powers. Read Here – Bloomberg
Until recently, most Europeans believed that their post–Cold War security order held universal appeal and could be a model for the rest of the world…Russia shattered that assumption last year when it invaded Crimea. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
As India’s growth in wealth, influence and power becomes more manifest, it has presented the United States with a unique form of diplomatic challenge. While Chinese nationalists have argued in favor of a “new model of great power relations,” India’s political leadership seeks, first and foremost, a new model of strategic partnership. Read Here – […]
Saudi Arabia’s incursion into Yemen reflects a new foreign policy that assertively presses Saudi claims in the Middle East and even uses its own armed forces to ensure its interests. After centuries of relying on external empires—first British and then American—to safeguard its territory and protect its regional interests, the House of Saud is beginning […]
For the Pakistani man on the street, the relationship with Saudi Arabia, the custodian of Islam’s two holy sites, is literally an article of faith. A Pew survey in 2013 found that 95 per cent of Pakistanis had a favourable opinion of the desert kingdom, and Pakistan was the only country in the Islamic world […]
looking beyond borders 