The release last week of an Indian think tank report entitled “Non-Alignment 2.0: A Foreign and Strategic Policy for India in the 21st Century” has prompted robust discussion about Indian foreign policy in the age of a rising China. Indian national security advisor Shiv Shankar Menon provided remarks at the …
An attack on an Israeli diplomatic vehicle today in New Delhi injured four, including the wife of an Israeli defense representative working at the embassy. The perpetrator reportedly used the same method of attack—detonating an explosive device that had been attached magnetically to the vehicle—that was used to assassinate an …
In a secret NATO report recently leaked to the British media, Taliban insurgents told their interrogators that they are increasingly confident that the Taliban will retake power once NATO forces depart Afghanistan, and that Pakistan is positioning itself for such an outcome. NATO officials have sought to downplay the report’s …
President Obama publicly admitted Monday for the first time that the U.S. is conducting an aggressive drone missile campaign against terrorists predominantly located in Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. U.S. officials in the past have been tight-lipped about drones, partly out of deference to Pakistani officials, who are sensitive about …
In listening to the State of the Union, you would never know that the U.S. still has close to 100,000 troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. While President Obama highlighted U.S. gains against al-Qaeda and the significance of the raid that eliminated Osama bin Laden last May, he downplayed the …
Ever since Sri Lanka ended a two-and-a-half-decade civil war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) in 2009, the government has faced questions about alleged violations of human rights and the killing of thousands of civilians during the war. Despite the Sri Lankan government’s initial resistance to exploring these …
The Bangladeshi army revealed today that it had foiled a coup attempt linked to Islamist extremists last month. Army officials said they uncovered a plot by 16 serving and retired military officials who conspired to overthrow the elected Sheikh Hasina government in order to establish an Islamist regime. While Bangladesh …
The British newspaper The Guardian has reported that the U.S. has agreed in principle to release high-ranking Taliban officials from Guantanamo Bay in return for the Afghan insurgents’ agreement to open a political office in Qatar. If true, this would demonstrate that the Obama Administration is dangerously naïve about the …
A NATO airstrike along the Afghanistan–Pakistan border on Saturday that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers has once again inflamed U.S.–Pakistan tensions and called into question the future of the partnership. The circumstances surrounding the strike are still unclear, and both NATO and U.S. Central Command have vowed to investigate the incident. …
The Pakistani media are having a feeding frenzy over an op-ed written more than a month ago in the London-based Financial Times by Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz. In his op-ed, Ijaz asserts that the Zardari government—through a senior Pakistani diplomat he later identified as Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S. Husain …
