Scowcroft Center Commentary, Analysis, & Reports

Atlantic Council Briefs NATO Secretary General-Designate

The Atlantic Council’s International Security Program hosted former Danish Prime Minister and NATO Secretary General-designate Anders Fogh Rasmussen for an all-day transition seminar.

India’s Election Surprise: What it Means for India and South Asia

By Basharat Peer

On a late April afternoon in Lucknow, the capital of India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, I met a rickshaw puller, a man who made $3 a day pedaling passengers through aggressive traffic and temperatures as high as 120 F. He was among the hundreds of millions of Indian poor and also on the lowest […]

McChrystal, COIN and Drones

By Bernard Finel

The firing of General McKiernan in Afghanistan and his replacement with General McChrystal has prompted some interested debate and discussion. Three of the arguments that emerged are of particular interest and deserve further comment.

U.S. Military: Future Scenarios

By Derek Reveron

The U.S. Department of Defense has begun its quadrennial defense review (QDR) with the goal of assessing the threats and challenges facing the United States in order to balance strategies, capabilities and forces.  This is the fourth QDR and the results will not be known or released until early 2010.

NATO Should Help in Pakistan

By Leo Michel and Shuja Nawaz

Pakistan needs help.  President Asif Ali Zardari and army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, who were publicly urged last month by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to “recognize the real threats to their country,” have sent a considerable military force to staunch the spreading extremist threat in the Swat region near Afghanistan.

What is the Threat in Pakistan?

By Bernard Finel

Andrew Sullivan approvingly quotes an essay by Professor Manan Ahmed that attacks the claim that Pakistan is a failed state.

New Central Asia, Caucasus Funding Effective?

By Peter Cassata

The State Department’s proposed budget for the fiscal year starting in October 2009 includes significant increases in economic aid for Central Asian countries as well as a net reduction in the combined amount given to Azerbaijan and Armenia.  Questions about the aid’s effectiveness linger.

In Pakistan, Great Expectations … As Yet Unfulfilled

By Shuja Nawaz

Last week’s tripartite summit in Washington, D.C. during which President Barack Obama hosted President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan was a lot like a Chinese meal.

Afghanistan Commander Replaced

By James Joyner

The United States is making a shocking shake-up in the leadership of the Afghanistan mission, replacing General David McKiernan with Lt. General Stanley McChrystal, according to various reports.  McKiernan has been in his post less than a year.

Pakistan: Too Big To Fail

By Jonathan Paris

Hardly a day goes by without reports highlighting Pakistan’s mounting instability or the growing strength of the Taliban inside its troubled borders. From the media and high-profile observers alike, doomsday scenarios abound. U.S. army general David Petraeus has called the Taliban an “existential threat” to the Pakistani state. His adviser on counterinsurgency in Iraq, David […]

Azerbaijan the Energy Partner Europe Needs Most

By Borut Grgic

Yesterday’s meeting in Prague on the ‘Southern Corridor’ – the pipelines that will bring gas and oil to Europe – produced a decent result, though still missing are agreements on a transit regime with Turkey and on the volumes to be sold on the European market. The key lies in Azerbaijan.

Australia Prepares for U.S. Decline

By James Joyner

The release a week ago of an Australian defense plan calling for a substantial upgrade in forces based on the assumption that the United States will be reducing its commitments to the Asia-Pacific region has slowly gotten the attention of the foreign policy commentariat.

China Must Do More in South Asia

By Damien Tomkins

In an open letter to the China Daily while on a trip to China last February, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari described the Sino-Pakistan relationship thusly:  Perhaps no relationship between two sovereign states is as unique and durable as that between Pakistan and China.

Russian Oil and Gas Starts Flowing East

By Boyko Nitzov

Since the beginning of the modern petroleum industry around 1850, oil exports from Russia and other countries in the North Caspian have flown almost exclusively one way: west. The Baku refineries in Azerbaijan were already linked to the Batumi port on the Black Sea by a kerosene-carrying pipeline in 1906. Once the oil treasures of […]

Taliban AfPak Strategy: A Jihadi Preemptive War

By Walid Phares

As the U.S. administration and its allies are devising a new strategy for the next steps in Afghanistan, the jihadists have already begun their next move — but this time it’s inside Pakistan. As I’ve written over the past few months, we need to look at Afghanistan, Pakistan and India as one regional battlefield where […]