South Asia

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 […]

Pakistan Drops Peace Agreement, Future Hopes of Negotiations in Peril?

By Ahmed Bhadelia

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai are in Washington today to meet with President Obama about working together to combat militants in both countries. Surely headlining the meeting will be the recent news that the Pakistan government has abandoned its peace deal with the Taliban over control of the Swat Valley […]

Obama AfPak Strategy Déjà Vu All Over Again

By Hugh De Santis

President Barack Obama’s Afghanistan strategy is looking eerily similar to the approach former President George W. Bush employed in his effort to remake Iraq.  Through a combination of increased military muscle, diplomatic pressure, reconstruction aid, and support from friends and allies, the Obama administration hopes to end the scourge of al-Qaeda and the Taliban and […]

U.S. Prepared to Secure Pakistani Nukes

By James Joyner

“[I]f Pakistan collapses, the U.S. military is primed to enter the country and secure as many of those weapons as it can, according to U.S. officials,” report’s TIME’s Mark Thompson burying his lede three paragraphs into a story whose headline asks, “Does Pakistan’s Taliban Surge Raise a Nuclear Threat?”

Pakistan Solution Begins in India

By Bernard Finel

Coming on the heels of the imposition of Sharia rule in the Swat Valley in Pakistan comes news that the Pakistani Taliban has seized a foothold in the Buner district, a mere 70 miles from the capital Islamabad. Worse, the Pakistani military seems largely unwilling to confront this rising Islamist tide.

Pakistan Nearing Collapse

By James Joyner

“The move by Taliban-backed militants into the Buna district of northwestern Pakistan, closer than ever to Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad, have prompted concerns both within the country and abroad that the nuclear-armed nation of 165 million is on the verge of inexorable collapse.” So begins a report from TIME‘s Aryn Baker.

Optimism on Afghanistan

By James Joyner

This afternoon, Ashraf Ghani, former Afghan finance minister and member of the Atlantic Council International Advisory Board and Strategic Advisors Group, unveiled his report “A Ten-Year Framework for Afghanistan: Executing the Obama Plan and Beyond.”

Ghani, Ashraf — Transcript

FREDERICK KEMPE:  Welcome to everyone.  For those of you who don’t know, I’m Fred Kempe, president and CEO of the Atlantic Council.  And I say that partly because we record, so it shows up, then, on the transcript, and people will then Google and – let me, first of all, tell you what an honor […]