South Asia

8 Items

Afghan security personnel guard around the Green Zone,

AP/Rahmat Gul

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Affairs

The Hearts-and-Minds Myth

| July 15, 2021

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.

Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders talks to reporters as he arrives at at Quicken Loans Arena before the start of the second day session of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Tuesday, July 19, 2016.

(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Analysis & Opinions - Project Syndicate

Putting the Populist Revolt in Its Place

| October 6, 2016

In many Western democracies, this is a year of revolt against elites. The success of the Brexit campaign in Britain, Donald Trump’s unexpected capture of the Republican Party in the United States, and populist parties’ success in Germany and elsewhere strike many as heralding the end of an era. As Financial Times columnist Philip Stephens put it, “the present global order – the liberal rules-based system established in 1945 and expanded after the end of the Cold War – is under unprecedented strain. Globalization is in retreat.”

In fact, it may be premature to draw such broad conclusions.

Some economists attribute the current surge of populism to the “hyper-globalization” of the 1990s, with liberalization of international financial flows and the creation of the World Trade Organization – and particularly China’s WTO accession in 2001 – receiving the most attention. According to one study, Chinese imports eliminated nearly one million US manufacturing jobs from 1999 to 2011; including suppliers and related industries brings the losses to 2.4 million.

A man looks at an exhibit on climate change during the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, Dec. 1, 2010. The host nation has called the U.S. pledge to cut GHG emissions "modest," while praising other nonbinding offers made by India and China.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - Christian Science Monitor

Why Cancun Trumped Copenhagen: Warmer Relations on Rising Temperatures

| December 20, 2010

The climate change talks in Cancun, Mexico, didn't solve all the world's climate problems. But they were hugely successful. Through the Cancun Agreements, 194 countries reached landmark consensus (even the US and China) to set emissions targets and limit global temperature increases.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon delivers his speech on "Preserving Our Common Heritage: Promoting a Fair Agreement on Climate Change" during a lecture at the United Nations University in Tokyo, Japan, Feb. 2, 2010.

AP Photo

Policy Brief - Harvard Project on Climate Agreements

Institutions for International Climate Governance

| November 2010

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has significant advantages but also real challenges as a venue for international negotiations on climate change policy. In the wake of the Fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP-15) in Copenhagen, December 2009, it is important to reflect on institutional options going forward for negotiating and implementing climate change policy.

A British flag is burned in front of the Foreign Ministry in Buenos Aires, Feb. 23, 2010. Latin American and Caribbean states backed Argentina's claim to the Falkland Islands in a growing dispute with the UK over drilling for oil off the islands.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - The Huffington Post

Another Nail in the Coffin of the Special Relationship

| March 10, 2010

"Let us not forget the times when we needed US assistance and it was not forthcoming. Take the Americans' reluctance to impede IRA fundraising efforts in the US. A reluctance for thirty years, a period which saw the deaths of over eighteen hundred people, including 1100 members of the British Security Forces and 630 civilians. That is above and beyond the billions of pounds of damage their bombs did to UK mainland cities. Or the US invasion of Grenada, a former British colony and member of the Commonwealth after Reagan had assured Thatcher that no such incursion was planned. Or the US siding with Mexico, Peru and Brazil in trying to force the UK to the negotiating table when the Falkland Islands — sovereign British territory — had been invaded by Argentina. Or the subsequent refusal of US Secretary of State Alexander Haig to allow the UK to use an airfield on Ascension Island (UK territory) to refuel Vulcan bombers to bomb Argentinean runways in Port Stanley (UK territory)."