South Asia

It is ironic that when President Trump finally made his first major foreign policy decision, he ran with the advice of his “cooler heads” — the Generals he admires — over his own instincts to cut U.S. losses and get out of this jungle. In extending U.S. involvement in Afghanistan for the narrower purpose of battling the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS and associated groups, every U.S. soldier killed and wounded in Afghanistan from this day forward becomes in effect a casualty of the scourge of terrorism the president is determined to thwart.

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."

In the global revulsion at the recent terror attacks in four Muslim countries, the United States and its allies have a new opportunity to build a unified command against the Islamic State and other extremists. FDP Senior Fellow David Ignatius examines the diplomatic relationships needed to create an effective counterterrorism strategy.

The tensions unsettling the Saudi royal family became clear in September, when Joseph Westphal, the U.S. ambassador to Riyadh, flew to Jiddah to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, nominally the heir to the throne. But when he arrived, he was told that the deputy crown prince, a brash 30-year-old named Mohammed bin Salman, wanted to see him urgently. Senior Fellow, David Ignatius, discusses Mohammed bin Salman opportunity to transform Saudi Arabia.

Ronak Desai examines how India remains one of the most corrupt countries in the world, according to a recent report by prominent watchdog group, Transparency International.

"A negotiated solution would require a military stalemate on the ground, and this depends on NATO forces guaranteeing that Afghan forces in key positions will not be overrun. This is the political objective that should inform Western military support in Afghanistan from here on out: to make clear to the Taliban that they can achieve more through a peace deal than through fighting and to make clear to Western electorates that this isn't a forever war."

"Two important new reports in the United States this week clarify the difficulties involved in defeating ISIS or at least reducing its impact around the world. The first is a study by the Program on Extremism at George Washington University that analyzes the range of individuals who were involved in legal action against them, showing that there is no single profile of a typical ISIS recruit. Rather, the very wide range of people who explore ISIS and similar ideologies suggests that no single strategy — like social media counter-narratives or more public activism by “moderate” Muslims — will succeed in reducing this threat..."

"Kunduz is potentially a game changer because it exposes the gap between the paper plan for the defense of Afghanistan and the reality on the ground, particularly in two key areas: first, the capability Afghan ground forces; and second, the credibility of their NATO back-up."