Asia & the Pacific

Many academics and policymakers argue that the removal of leaders is an effective strategy in combating terrorism. Leadership decapitation is not always successful, however. A theory of organizational resilience explains why some terrorist organizations survive decapitation. Application of this theoretical model to the case of al-Qaida reveals that the deaths of Osama bin Laden and other high level al-Qaida operatives are unlikely to cause significant organizational decline.

"Iran has always been a major power in that region. Under Saddam however, Iran and Iraq were bitter enemies who fought a long war and were strongly opposed to one another. There was almost a rough balance of power between the two countries. By reducing Iraq's power and by allowing the Shia to become the dominant political force in Iraq, the US removed the main country balancing Iran, and helped bring to power a government that has at least some sympathies and links to Iran. So, Iran is by far the main strategic beneficiary of the Iraq War, which made it even more difficult for the US and its allies to deal with the country."

Realist scholars have long debated the question of how much power states need to feel secure. Offensive realists claim that states should constantly seek to increase their power. Defensive realists argue that accumulating too much power can be self-defeating. Proponents of hegemonic stability theory contend that the accumulation of capabilities in one state can exert a stabilizing effect on the system. The three schools describe different points along the power con­tinuum. When a state is weak, accumulating power increases its security. This is approximately the situation described by offensive realists. A state that con­tinues to accumulate capabilities will eventually triggers a balancing reaction that puts its security at risk. This scenario accords with defensive realist as­sumptions. Finally, when the state becomes too powerful to balance, its oppo­nents bandwagon with it, and the state’s security begins to increase again. This is the situation described by hegemonic stability theory. These three stages delineate a modified parabolic relationship between power and secu­rity. As a state moves along the power continuum, its security increases up to a point, then decreases, and finally increases again. This modified parabolic re­lationship allows scholars to synthesize previous realist theories into a single framework.

Why has transnational war volunteering increased so dramatically in the Muslim world since 1980? Standard explanations, which emphasize U.S.-Saudi support for the 1980s Afghan mujahideen, the growth of Islamism, or the spread of Wahhabism are insufficient. The increase in transnational war volunteering is better explained as the product of a pan-Islamic identity movement that grew strong in the 1970s Arab world from elite competition among exiled Islamists in international Islamic organizations and Muslim regimes.

"Revolutions either expand to export their ideologies or preserve themselves from the outside world. The 1979 Islamic revolution of Iran is no exception. A careful reading of Iran's actions in the region shows how and why Iran has shifted its policies to meet the latter aim. Since the revolution, Iran's leaders have faced the challenge of balancing their ideological (idealism) and geopolitical (pragmatism) approaches to foreign policy. Gradually, the Iranian leadership has come to focus on the geopolitical factor in the conduct of foreign policy; today, ideology one factor among many other sources of Iran's power, and serves the aim of preserving Iran's national security and interests...."

Xenia Dormandy, a former director for South Asia at the National Security Council and currently director of the Project on India and the Subcontinent at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, agreed that Mrs. Bhutto's assassination had put Mr. Musharraf's future in jeopardy.

"He is being widely blamed for the assassination attack by PPP cadre, either directly or for complicity in not providing her sufficient security,” Ms. Dormandy said.

"Benazir Bhutto, twice-elected prime minister of Pakistan and the first woman head of a Muslim state, decided to terminate her self-exile and return to Pakistan last week. By all accounts, more than a million people (mostly poor and young) welcomed her enthusiastically in the port city of Karachi on October 18. In the midst of the celebration, the political rally was targeted by a series of suicide attacks killing around 140 people. Bhutto and her top party leaders, however, remained unhurt.

Who would have been the potential beneficiary of Bhutto's elimination?"

The notion of "tribal culture" in the West often brings to mind images of backward, uneducated and unsophisticated societies. Perpetual chaos in states like Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, for instance, is often attributed to tribal culture. It is a sweeping judgment as in many cases geopolitical, historical and even religious factors often play a more significant role than the impact of tribal ethos in defining what causes underdevelopment and violence. Pashtun tribal culture is generally portrayed as the root cause behind their support and sympathy for the Taliban and al-Qaeda. This analysis investigates these notions by studying the profiles of the Pashtun tribes that populate the seven tribal agencies that form Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

"The strategy has four main objectives: homeland defense, defeating terrorism, preventing WMD proliferation, and developing cooperative agendas with other "centers of global power," primarily China, Russia, and India."

"How has a state whose founding fathers were secular people who believed in rule of law and democracy drifted toward religious extremism and authoritarianism? Three primary factors—variations on the Triple A theory of influence (Allah, the Army, and America)—have led Pakistan down this path: a powerful independent military, the mushrooming of religious militant groups, and the hydra-headed monster that is the intelligence services."