South Asia

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.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi traveled to Washington last week, making his fourth trip to the United States since taking office just two years ago. India and South Asia Program Fellow, Ronak Desai examines the strategic approach to India's relations with the United States.

As part of the India and South Asia Program’s annual speaker series, Ambassador MaleehaLodhi, the Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the United Nations discussed her country’s regional agenda.

"A century ago this month, Europeans stood on the brink of a war so devastating that it forced historians to create a new category: 'World War.' None of the leaders at the time could imagine the wasteland they would inhabit four years later. By 1918, each had lost what he cherished most: the kaiser dismissed, the Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolved, the tsar overthrown by the Bolsheviks, France bled for a generation, and England shorn of the flower of its youth and treasure. A millennium in which European leaders had been masters of the globe came to a crashing halt."

With lessons learned from WWI, Graham Allison asks, how likely is another world war?

The Belfer Center's Graham Allison, Nicholas Burns, Ashraf Hegazy, Joseph S. Nye, and Stephen Walt consider the U.S.'s shifting foreign policy in the Middle East.

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.

"Belfer and Carr Center fellows and Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) students have been busy since fall supporting the work of the Joint Staff 's Afghanistan-Pakistan Coordination Cell (PACC). The PACC, created by General Stanley McChrystal and directed by Brigadier General John Nicholson, plays a crucial role in supporting counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan."

Mr. Obama took a giant step beyond the Bush administration's "Afghanistan policy" when he named the issue "AfPak" -- Afghanistan, Pakistan and their shared, Pashtun-populated border. But this is inverted. We suggest renaming the policy "PakAf," to emphasize that, from the perspective of U.S. interests and regional stability, the heart of the problem lies in Pakistan.

On August 6, 1945, the United States carried out the first attack with nuclear weapons, against the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The weapon would fundamentally alter the face of conflict, and shape strategic thinking for subsequent generations. If strategists couldn't always agree on what force posture the United States should adopt, there was consistently broad agreement that the spread of nuclear weapons posed a fundamental threat to United States national security.

Dr. Ashton B. Carter testifies before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.