Journal of International Studies

The pre-2011 status quo in US-Pakistan relations is not coming back. Now's the time to determine its replacement.

Fundamental to the ideal and effective governance of any entity is the system, the administrators of the system and the belief of the governed in the system and its administrators. The three must be in concert for good governance to be a reality. It is a dynamic equilibrium that will cease to exist if one element in this balance is pulling in the opposite direction.  Disastrously for Afghans and Afghanistan, all are incompatible at the moment. The system and the administrators have failed the Afghan nation primarily because both are seen as illegitimate by a majority of its people. There was a window of opportunity in the beginning but thanks to colossal corruption and Machiavellian leaders, the battle to win the hearts and minds of the people was lost.  What Afghans themselves want and expect from their political system and leader is in conflict with the imposed democracy and its leaders of the past 95 years. This has become more evident in the past 35 years...

A man paints the logo of CHOGM 2013, ahead of the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) 2013, in Colombo, Sri Lanka November 11, 2013 (Dinuka Liyanawatte/Courtesy Reuters). On Friday, November 15, the biennial  Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting  (CHOGM) convenes in Sri Lanka. This year’s gathering of  fifty-three Commonwealth members  has been anything but routine, however. A number of countries have had heated internal debates about their attendance and its intended signals; three have elected to send delegations below the “head of government” level as a way to highlight concerns about Sri Lanka’s limited progress on post-conflict reconciliation, human rights and democracy, and accountability for violations at the 2009 end of the nearly thirty-year conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a  public statement  explaining his decision to skip this year’s CHOGM by ...

The security landscape in South Asia is changing radically due to the introduction of new nuclear and conventional military capabilities by both India and Pakistan.

I became acquainted with Secretary McNamara in the mid- 1990s when I helped organize a series of Track II dialogues between Americans and Indians and Pakistanis. This was before India and Pakistan became overt nuclear-armed states with their tests in 1998. In these dialogues the aim was to discuss with influential Indians and Pakistanis – former generals, foreign secretaries, and the like – the risks and burdens that arise from nuclear-armed competition. No one had wrestled so hard and openly with these challenges as Robert McNamara. He had done so while serving as Secretary of Defense during and after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and then in the decades following his government service. Thus, we were honored and moved that he would volunteer his time and subject his body to the wear and tear of travel to South Asia to share his experiences and perspectives. By the mid-1990s when we were conducting our dialogues in South Asia, the Cold War was over. McNamara had even earlier conclud...

On October 10th, 2013, the Taliban sympathetic Nawaz Government, yet again, arrested Former President Musharraf for the crime of being the President of Pakistan and Chief of Pakistan Army at the time the Red Mosque operation was successfully conducted against defiant hard core militants, extremists, terrorists and abductors, who were hiding in the Red Mosque. The Nawaz Government’s claim that they have acted in the Red Mosque matter to satisfy a court order could not be further from the truth. It is also important to underscore that, while the Pakistan Government has arrested the Former President, it has thus far failed to bring to justice militants that were named in 2007 in forty-two (42) separate First Information Reports (FIRs) registered to seek redress in abducting 7 Chinese expats, killing 13 Pakistan Army soldiers and paramilitary troops, and taking hostage Islamabad policemen, while hoarding, brandishing and using illegal weapons to cause physical harm and destruction to ...