South Asia

Jacqueline L. Hazelton's Bullets not Ballots: Success in Counterinsurgency Warfare (Cornell University Press, 2021)is the subject of a Roundtable Review.

For many, integrating “decarbonization” into public policy, corporate and financial strategies has become a requirement, not an option — yet, what happens when the critical link between climate stability and decarbonization breaks?

Jacqueline L. Hazelton  details why the international jihadi terrorist threat to the United States is down since the al-Qaida attacks of 20 years ago. Not through war or other uses of organized violence, but through cooperation, use of legal and financial tools, and strengthening homeland defense and resilience.

Joseph Nye asks: When the next terrorist attacks come, will US presidents be able to channel public demand for revenge by precise targeting, explaining the trap that terrorists set, and focusing on creating resilience in U.S. responses? That is the question Americans should be asking, and that their leaders should be addressing.

Stephen Walt suspects that what really bothers European allies about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is what it might reveal about America's willingness to keep subsidizing allies who aren't pulling their weight. 

Stephen Walt explains why the withdrawal from Afghanistan has not been a strategic disaster for the United States.

Fredrik Logevall reviews THE AMERICAN WAR IN AFGHANISTAN: A History by Carter Malkasian and The AFGHANISTAN PAPERS: A Secret History of the War by Craig Whitlock.

Jacqueline L. Hazelton analyzes why the United States fails at counterinsurgency in light of its withdrawal from Afghanistan. She asserts that the belief that democracy is necessary for long-term stability and can flow from the barrel of a gun is rooted in misleading accounts of past counterinsurgency campaigns, such as the Malayan Emergency and the 1948–1954 insurgency in the Philippines.

Stephen Walt writes that understanding why it was so hard to end the Afghan war could teach future presidents two valuable lessons: It is usually easier to invade a foreign country than it is to leave it, and wars of choice should never be waged for frivolous or ill-considered reasons.

Stephen Walt warns that after making the right call on withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden better get ready for second-guessing from hawkish critics convinced the war could somehow be won and by Republicans looking to exploit the issue.