…but outside the corridors of power
Ashley J Tellis’s testimony before the US House of Representatives subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia is one of the most clear-headed assessments in Washington.
The only lasting solution to this danger is to press Pakistan to target groups such as LeT conclusively. Many in the United States imagine [...]
Trying to understand why terrorists are attacking Lahore
As Pakistan’s internal jihadi civil war intensifies, it is important to note that the groups targeting Pakistani cities—specifically the Pakistani army and law-enforcement agencies—are not the same ones as those that the Pakistani military establishment uses to attack India.
It is highly likely that the perpetrators of this [...]
Defence expenditure is the premium paid to insure against the failure of foreign policy
A good defence strategy is one that manages the risks of foreign policy going wrong for one reason or the other. It might turn out that foreign policy was based on the wrong presumptions, or unexpected events might upset the geopolitical balance [...]
General Kayani’s moves suggest that he sees the final lap
President Barack Obama gave his Af-Pak speech at West Point on December 1st, 2009 where he announced his intention “to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.” General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani signaled his policy by the end that month when [...]
Guns are necessary
The attack on Indian officials in Kabul on February 26th was no ordinary one—it was almost certainly an operation ordered by the ISI and carried out by one or the other of its errand boys. If the ‘taliban’ wanted to merely attack Indian nationals they could have picked any of the hundreds of [...]
…is that we don’t learn from them
Here’s a passage from my review of India & Counterinsurgency: Lessons Learned, a volume of case studies and analyses edited by Sumit Ganguly & David Fidler.
A recurring theme in the book is that lessons that were to be learnt in one counter-insurgency campaign were not learnt, and mistakes repeated [...]
Maoist leader has talktime
Here’s a delightful passage from today’s Hindu:
Mr Chidambaram had earlier given a fax number of the Union Home ministry for (Maoist leader Koteshwara Rao) Kishenji to make his offer of talks, with the stipulation that there should be “no ifs, buts and preconditions“.
Kishenji had responded by sharing a mobile number and saying [...]
Pragati—The Indian National Interest Review is three.
Thank you for reading us, thank you for writing for us, thank you for subscribing and thank you for referring us to your friends. And thanks to Quill Media, our fantastic franchisee, who not only deliver the print edition to your doorstep, but are also putting it in major [...]
Getting Saudi Arabia to take responsibility for Pakistan’s actions is in India’s interests
At a recent conference in Abu Dhabi on emerging powers and the Middle East, one of the arguments I made was that a stable Afghanistan requires a balance of two distinct sets of powers—India-Iran-Russia on the one hand, and China-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia on the [...]
Talks will call the bluffs in Rawalpindi, Islamabad & Washington
The sudden and unexplained manner in which the UPA government offered to resume talks with Pakistan has injected a lot of confusion in the public discourse. The confusion—and the political & strategic costs arising from it—must be blamed on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. A move as [...]
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