Scowcroft Center Commentary, Analysis, & Reports

Pakistan-US Relations: A Marriage That Needs Work

By Harlan Ullman

For more than 60 years the U.S.-Pakistani relationship has veered between despair and euphoria. In a very social sense, the two states could be characterized as an aging married couple occupying very distant parts of a large, deteriorating house whose plumbing, electrics and phone systems are in disrepair and who are at a loss on […]

Iran’s Nuclear Threat to NATO

By Gregory Schulte

As NATO prepares a new Strategic Concept, the Alliance must address the dangerous prospect of a new and direct security threat:  Iran, under the grip of a hostile and authoritarian leadership, armed with and emboldened by nuclear weapons.

U.S. and Kazakhstan Need a Truly Strategic Partnership

By Boyko Nitzov

The omens are good, the stars in a benign juxtaposition: during recent hearings on the hill, Kazakhstan’s foreign minister Kanat Saudabaev and hearing participants struck a common note on a number of strategic issues. We may be witnessing the birth of a much needed strategic partnership.

Obama’s Iraq Policy Must be Focused on More than Withdrawal

By Henry Kissinger

In a 71-minute State of the Union address, President Obama managed no more than 101 perfunctory words about Iraq. Throughout its term, the administration has recoiled from discussing Iraq’s geostrategic significance and especially America’s relation to it.

Virtual Threats in the Real World: The Challenge of Cyberspace

By Derek Reveron

Within just the last decade, people have become as dependent on the virtual world for their daily activities as they are dependent on the physical world for human activities. Consider the implications for yourself when the network is down, cell phone calls are dropped, or a virus crashes your network.

The Next Four Years in American Defense

By Derek Reveron

After too many leaks, the Defense Department released its quadrennial defense review (QDR). Congress mandates a periodic strategic review of the national defense strategy, force structure, force modernization plans, infrastructure, budget plan, and other elements of the defense program and policies of the United States.

Afghanistan and U.S.-Pakistan Relations

By Arnaud de Borchgrave

All the talk is how to end the Afghan war, not how to win it. Until recently, powers that be in Washington were proselytizing about the need for a long-term commitment – five to 10 years if necessary – to defeat the Taliban.

Justice in Bangladesh after 34 Years

By Zafar Sobhan

Bangladesh’s long national nightmare is finally over. Not entirely over, of course. There are still six convicted killers absconding beyond the reach of the law, and there remain, and perhaps always will remain, unanswered questions about that dark night in Bangladeshi history and its aftermath.

India and Pakistan are Nuclear States—Let’s Make it Official

By Luv Puri

In May 1998, surprise nuclear tests by India and Pakistan transformed regional strategic calculations and added a dangerous new dimension to tensions between the two. According to Taylor Branch, writing in The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, Indian officials who spoke with Bill Clinton were fully aware of the potential devastation a clash […]

Transnistria Remains the Only Really “Frozen” Conflict

By Vladimir Socor

in 2008, Russia “unfroze” the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia through outright war and occupation of these Georgian territories. In the latter part of 2009, the United States and Russia each accelerated negotiations on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, with Washington and Moscow each pressing for some kind of quick results.

Bombing Al Qaeda

By Don Snow

The contest against Al Qaeda (the “war on terror”) has moved to Yemen, where a franchise of the original organization, Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has set up shop and is organizing and dispatching terrorist missions against the United States (Ft. Hood, the Christmas underwear bomber) and apparently Great Britain

Bangladesh’s India Charm Offensive

By Zafar Sobhan

American Security Attitudes Driving Policy

By Derek Reveron

The  results of the latest Pew-CFR quadrennial survey of public and elite attitudes on foreign policy are startling not only for the gap between public and elite attitudes on international security, but also for the types of concerns held by the average American. Simply, Americans feel scared, wary, and alone.

India and Pakistan: Deadlines for Dialogue

By Suhasini Haidar

As a slew of new informal initiatives try to build a "roadmap" for a new India-Pakistan dialogue, it may be time to look at some of the circumstances in which dialogue has been derailed in the past — and hunt clues for the future.

Giving Futurism a Bad Name

By Robert Manning

When a major publisher publishes a book by an author whose book jacket describes him as “a renowned expert in geopolitics and forecasting,” one might be expected to take it seriously.  Indeed, George Friedman’s The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century was dutifully reviewed by mainstream reviewers as such when Doubleday released […]

Afghanistan Polling Difficult But Not Impossible

By James Joyner

A recent ABC-BBC-ARD survey of Afghanistan has both given hopes to those who support NATO’s mission in Afghanistan and created a backlash among doubters. ABC News polling director Gary Langer begins his summary of the findings with the good news: Hopes for a brighter future have soared in Afghanistan, bolstered by a broad rally in […]

Connecting the Dots is Not the Prolem

By Harlan Ullman

In the wake of the attempted Christmas bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit, once again criticism has focused on failure to connect the poor, overworked dots. Yet, however understandable this reaction, Rome is burning in a metaphoric sense and we are attacking dots. We must wake up. Consider several stunning — indeed staggering […]

The Future of Iran’s Green Movement

By Nazenin Ansari and Jonathan Paris

The deadline for Iran to accept a U.N.-brokered deal on its controversial nuclear program expired on December 31, proving yet again that the policy of modifying the behavior of the Islamic Republic is not working. While Washington frets over what the Obama Administration should do next, legitimate power is tilting away from the central government […]

South Asia in 2010: A Make or Break Year for Afghanistan

By Jawad Joya

2010 will most likely define the character of the next decade for U.S. foreign policy in Central and South Asia. For Afghanistan and Pakistan, the year will foreshadow what awaits them in the new decade – fatal chaos, expensive stability (with some hope) or a blend of both.