Nawaz Sharif’s return to the helm in Islamabad is sparking optimism that a more stable and constructive India-Pakistan relationship is in the offing. But South Asia is a rough-and-tumble neighborhood that regularly eviscerates the best of intentions. Indeed, given the potent brew of pernicious forces acting on bilateral affairs – contiguous but bitterly contested territory, sharp historical […]
Am I lucky or what? Made it through Heathrow, UK airport security, and onto the plane headed back for the US a measly 48 hours before a British-born Islamic extremist of Nigerian extraction drove his car over a British soldier outside the Woolwich Artillery Barracks and then tried to hack the victim’s head off with a rusty meat cleaver. Across the pond, before the UK went into shock, and Cameron’s government into an emergency meeting designed to address what common-sense suggests might be the response of the British people: rage and retaliation. . .
Citizens of Balochistan protesting the election results Photo Credit: Facebook Balochistan Balochistan – the province comprising some 44 percent of the entire land mass of Pakistan and merely five percent of the population, it is possibly the most ignored province in Pakistan. Balochistan remains the poorest province, while also the most naturally rich with massive […]
Russian Spy Games By Edward Lucas Foreign Affairs The Cold War may have officially ended and the rest may be the new policy, but Russia and the U.S. are still adversaries, says Lucas. While Ryan Fogle’s, the 29-year-old third secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, gamble may seem absurd, the extraordinary thing about […]
By Tyler Hooper With U.S., NATO and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) personnel set to withdraw the bulk of their military personnel from Afghanistan in 2014, regional powers such as China, India and Pakistan will have the opportunity to play an influential role in the country’s future. Both India and Pakistan have historically been involved in […]
This documentary is all over the place. It is in part a history of modern Afghanistan and also a film about independent journalists – some of whom were killed – trying to report on the situation on the ground. Afghanistan is called “The Graveyard of Empires” for good reason: Every country or empire that has […]
I argued in an earlier post that much of Pakistan’s future direction will hinge on events unfolding this year. The first of these are the national elections scheduled for May 11, which could be decided by a large number of first-time voters. These voters are the product of one of the world’s largest youth bulges […]
Each week, the editorial team at ForeignPolicyBlogs.com publishes a list of must-read articles from around the web. This week: Tweeting diplomacy, Cuba, Jordan, the U.S. in Pakistan, and one article on Margaret Thatcher.
By Sarwar Kashmeri It would be a mistake to view President Obama’s visit to Israel as just a fence-mending exercise. It is in fact part of a planned redesign of U.S. foreign policy that will change the face of American leadership around the world. The redesign began with the appointment of John Kerry as Secretary […]
Up until recently, the debate over drone policy has largely been the territory of a small group of vocal critics — a persistent if not particularly high-profile media issue, but not one that particularly troubled the U.S. public. Polls indicated broad popular support for the use of drone strikes abroad, mainly out of a belief […]
My last post focused on the domestic implications in Pakistan of the latest revelations about the 1999 Kargil mini-war. Since the crisis is a key point of contention – a sort of Rorschach test, really – in the debate over whether the proliferation of nuclear weapons in South Asia has stabilized or aggravated the India-Pakistan […]
Each week, the Foreign Policy Blog’s editorial team compiles the five best long-form reads and five best in-house blog posts. This week’s features India-Pakistan relations, drones, Gérard Depardieu and much more.
My last post noted how skirmishes in the disputed Kashmir region last month have put a spanner in the promising rapprochement between India and Pakistan. This is a familiar theme in bilateral affairs. The exemplar of how military tussles in Kashmir can escalate into a wider confrontation and subvert important diplomatic initiatives is the 1999 […]
Despite the promising rapprochement (here and here) that gathered pace between India and Pakistan last year, disruptive military tensions are never far from the surface. This point was amply demonstrated by last month’s skirmishes along the 450 mile-long boundary – known as the Line of Control (LOC) – separating the two armies in the disputed […]
This film is riveting. It is a fictional look at the hunt for and eventual killing of Osama bin Laden, the man who is believed to have masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. Jessica Chastain rightfully won the best actress in a drama at the Golden Globes. She has also […]