South Asia Archive

The Saudi intervention in Bahrain has upped the ante in the Saudi-Iranian cold war, crystallizing it into a wider Sunni-Shiite schism in the Muslim world. Saudi Arabia has reportedly invoked a treaty with Sunni-dominated Pakistan to secure troops to stabilize both Bahrain and its own oil-rich eastern provinces. Riyadh has also asked Turkey to make it clear to Iran that interference in the Gulf states will not be tolerated. At the other end of the spectrum, Shiites worldwide are enraged at what they see as Western duplicity in not stopping Saudi heavy-handedness in Bahrain, while showing solidarity with anti-regime protestors […]

With drone attacks, CIA activities and a lack of progress in Afghanistan widening the rift between the United States and Pakistan, the delicate counterterrorism alliance forged between the two after Sept. 11 is coming under increasing scrutiny. “It’s a mistake to presume the U.S. and Pakistan were ever entirely on the same page,” says Stephen Tankel a visiting scholar in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. Tankel, who spoke with Trend Lines this morning, explains that, initially, the U.S. was rather narrowly focused on targeting al-Qaida, and was careful not to push then-Pakistani […]

The Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, has made a visit to Pakistan to meet with his military counterpart in the nation. According to this report by the U.S. Defense Department’s own news channel, military relations between the U.S. and Pakistan remain strong.

Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan conducted a joint military exercise in Tuzla, Turkey, last month. The joint exercise had been decided on at a summit meeting in December under the auspices of the Turkey-Afghanistan-Pakistan Trilateral Forum. In an email interview, Ishtiaq Ahmad, the Quaid-i-Azam Fellow at St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, discussed the trilateral forum. WPR: What is the background of the trilateral forum, and to what extent has it been formally institutionalized? Ishtiaq Ahmad: The Turkey-Afghanistan-Pakistan Trilateral Forum was launched in April 2007 as a regional effort to resolve the conflict in Afghanistan by fostering multifaceted cooperation among three […]

The head of India’s navy, Adm. Nirmal Verma, recently met with senior military and civilian officials in Bangladesh, including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and President Mohammed Zillur. In an email interview, Sreeradha Datta, a research fellow at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis in New Delhi, discussed India-Bangladesh relations. WPR: What is the recent history of India-Bangladesh relations? Sreeradha Datta: Although they began as friends following Bangladesh’s independence, India and Bangladesh quickly lapsed into indifferent if not hostile and antagonistic relations. The worst phase in bilateral ties occurred from 2001-2006. The two subsequently emerged again as friendly and supportive […]

The plight of the Indian freighter MV Asphalt Venture has added a new dimension to India’s fight against piracy in the Indian Ocean. In a first, a spokesperson for pirates based in Harardhere, Somalia, announced last week that they had reached a “consensus” decision to retain seven Indian sailors as hostages — even though the pirates had released the ship itself after receiving the full ransom from its Mumbai-based owners. The move is an attempt to achieve the release of about 120 Somali pirates currently held in Indian prisons following a series of Indian naval actions in the Indian Ocean […]

The signals emanating from the mini-summit between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese President Hu Jintao, held on the sidelines of the recently concluded BRICS conference in Hainan, China, were largely positive. The leaders both showed an interest in arresting the downward slide in bilateral relations that had lately touched a low. Ties between the two Asian neighbors have been bedeviled by the infiltration of Chinese soldiers into Arunachal Pradesh, China’s intrusion into some areas of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Beijing’s issuance of stapled visas to residents of Jammu and Kashmir entering China. Piqued by these developments, India had suspended […]

With last month’s approval by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of a safeguards plan, China is set to construct the Chasma-3 and Chasma-4 nuclear reactors in Pakistan. By supplying the two new nuclear power plants, however, China will be in direct contravention of its nonproliferation commitments. Under the 1992 revised guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a global export-control body that China joined in 2004, transfer of nuclear technology and material from a NSG member state can only take place under the provisions of full-scope safeguards. These safeguards require that all nuclear facilities in the state receiving nuclear […]

CAMP KHELAGAY, BAGHLAN, Afghanistan — What most impressed the Hungarian army captain about his Afghan army counterparts wasn’t so much their proficiency at maneuvering and holding their own under enemy fire — they’ve been at it for a while, after all. Rather, it was their increasingly apparent ability to plan and execute entire operations almost on their own that impressed the captain, whose name must be withheld under standard Hungarian army media rules. The Afghans have proven capable of conducting difficult and dangerous missions such as finding and disposing of deadly roadside bombs laid down by the Taliban, the biggest […]

On April 5, the Obama administration delivered a stark evaluation of Pakistan’s counterterrorism campaign to Congress, stating that “there remains no clear path toward defeating the insurgency” (.pdf) festering in the country’s northwestern regions. Over the past decade, militants have killed thousands of Pakistani civilians and wreaked devastation on the country’s fragile economy. And since 2001, 2,575 Pakistani soldiers have been killed in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations. Why, then, have Pakistan’s leaders failed to develop a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy? It is true that Pakistan has made important progress against militancy in recent years. Starting in mid-2009, the army began a […]

Much of the global perception of America’s long-term decline as the world’s sole surviving superpower is in fact driven by our fiscal decline. That’s why I was disturbed to hear Democrats so quickly dismiss GOP Sen. Paul Ryan’s bold, if flawed, federal budget proposal on the grounds that it would “end Medicare as we know it.” Frankly, arresting our decline means ending a lot of things “as we know them.” That’s simply what being on an unsustainable path forces you to do. But as difficult as reforming federal entitlement programs will be, it is absolutely necessary, because a look at […]

Many Western observers hope that India’s growth as a global power will both balance China’s rise and ensure that rise remains peaceful. Indeed, the U.S. has identified India as a crucial partner for the coming century, and as part of its effort to cultivate a strategic partnership with New Delhi, Washington has even pledged to help India develop its nuclear energy capabilities. But the continued disappearance of India’s women and girls described in preliminary census figures released last week is putting the future of India’s security partnership with the West at risk. According to the census figures, the sex ratio […]

Africa’s longstanding position as the forgotten continent is rapidly being transformed. At the heart of this dramatic change is the rise of economic giants in the developing world — China, India and Brazil, in particular — whose state-owned enterprises and private companies, acting in combination with assertive diplomacy, have forged a growing partnership with Africa. Under the rubric of “South-South cooperation,” these emerging powers have made significant inroads into Western economic and political dominance on the continent. While the media has tended to focus on the dislocating effect that competitive emerging powers have had on key sectors of African economies […]

In March, Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor who shot and killed two men rumored to be agents of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, was released in return for a $2 million payment to the victims’ families. In an email interview, Shaun Gregory, a professor at Bradford University and director of the Pakistan Security Research Unit there, discussed relations between the CIA and ISI. WPR: What are the main areas of cooperation — and mistrust — between the CIA and ISI? Shaun Gregory: The interests of the CIA and ISI most closely converge around the fight against al-Qaida as well as […]

COMBAT OUTPOST BOWRI THANA, KHOST, Afghanistan – Since taking over this volatile district on the border with Pakistan earlier this year, Charlie Company of the U.S. Army’s 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment has come under a series of attacks from incoming rockets. One round hit just inside the small outpost, its shrapnel slicing off one soldier’s hand and leaving him with a hole in his thigh. Another, on a different day, scored another hit, throwing one lieutenant off his feet and sending him hurling through the air. “We took as many attacks — four — in a month as our […]