Tag: world affairs

Pakistan’s worst-kept secret is that its military dominates its government. Whether to safeguard the nation against chaos or to protect their own privileged access to power and wealth, its generals have manipulated the country’s politics for decades. Pakistan’s voters, like voters elsewhere, want change. February’s ugly election fiasco shows ...

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had foiled an alleged plot by an Indian official to murder a Sikh activist and American citizen in New York City. The DOJ’s press release discloses that Czech authorities detained and extradited the alleged assassin this past June. This ...

When Hamas launched its unprecedented attack against Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, like most world leaders, condemned Hamas’s horrific actions and expressed “solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour.” But the Modi government’s approach in the days and weeks that followed have ...

It is hardly remarkable to say that success for the United States in Afghanistan was never likely. For years, experts, scholars, and officials have coalesced on a common set of causes for failure—local grievances, political factionalism, corruption, Pakistani safe havens, and a deep-seated Afghan resistance to occupation. All are ...

“We are building roads and schools for people that hate us. It is not in our national interests,” Donald Trump, February 2012, Twitter “We saw a mission of counterterrorism in Afghanistan….morph into ..nation building, trying to create a democratic, cohesive and united Afghanistan. Something that has never been done ...

“Democracy” is the one word that gets thrown around a lot when India and America talk about their relationship. Democracy forms the basis of the “shared values” and the “common bond” between the “natural partners”—all phrases that invariably pop up in the communiques of their engagement. The “world’s oldest ...

For decades, the world has turned a blind eye to India’s abysmal human rights record. This approach draws from a broad perception of India as a strategic ally. For one, the United States, like much of the global community, sees India as an important counterweight to China. They are ...

For a country that continues to struggle on the economic front, Pakistan has handled Covid-19 admirably… making it one of the most unlikely COVID-19 success stories to date. But successfully dealing with a pandemic isn’t a cure for Pakistan’s democracy, which has been ailing for some time now. And ...

Since 1947, August has been an inauspicious month—a month of disempowerment and suppression—for the people of Kashmir. The most recent setback came a year ago, on Aug. 5, 2019—the day the Indian government revoked Kashmir’s special status by abrogating Article 370 and 35A, diluting whatever limited autonomy still existed ...

Americans won’t be the only voters going to the polls in November. Myanmar’s third national election since transitioning from half a century of military rule is slated for Nov. 8. Already, several questions loom over this test of the country’s democratic trajectory. How will the government ensure ethnic civilians ...