South Asia

On Nov. 29, 1967, President Lyndon Johnson announced that Robert McNamara, the secretary of defense, would leave his post to run the World Bank. “I do not know to this day whether I quit or was fired,” McNamara wrote decades later. “Maybe it was both."

"What began in 2001 as a focused effort to topple the Taliban and rout al Qaeda has become an endless, costly, and unrealistic effort with no clearly discernible endpoint and little hope of success. It has become our forgotten war, and the chief aim of those in charge of the operation seems to be keeping it off the front pages and out of the public eye."

The Indian American community is experiencing unprecedented political success. During last year’s elections, four of its members – Ro Khanna (D-CA), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) – were elected to the United States Congress, while a fifth, Representative Ami Bera (D-CA), won re-election to a third term. This represents the largest number of Indian Americans to ever serve in Congressional history. Judge Dilip Singh Saund became the first Asian American to be elected to Congress in 1956. Nearly four decades later, Bobby Jindal (R-LA) was elected to the House of Representatives from Louisiana before launching a successful gubernatorial bid in the state.

David Saperstein, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom, spoke on Monday, November 14^th at the Harvard Kennedy School on “U.S. Efforts to Promote Religious Freedom Abroad.” In a wide-ranging discussion moderated by Future of Diplomacy Project Executive Director Cathryn Clüver, the diplomat and rabbi explained the importance of religion and human rights as part of an integrated approach to foreign policy.

Dr. Ian Bremmer, expert in political risk and founder of the Eurasia Group, gave a seminar sponsored by the the Future of Diplomacy Project on Thursday, November 9 at the Harvard Kennedy School, titled “Managing Risk in an Unstable World."