Courtesy: Secretary of Defense/Flickr
Pakistan’s refusal to re-open NATO supply routes into Afghanistan has made the country an instant pariah in the U.S. at the NATO Summit. The communiqué released confirms a withdrawal of 130,000 troops by as early as mid-2013. Can the remaining soldiers help maintain peace when a force much larger could not?
Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons/Htoo Tay Zar
The West is quick to claim that their sanctions against Myanmar have forced the government to implement political and economic reforms in the country. However, such bans do not usually achieve their stated purpose of forcing regimes to change their behavior.
Courtesy: U.S. Department of Defense
An important take-away from the preliminary pact reached by Kabul and Washington is that unlike the 1990s, the Americans are not just packing their bags and leaving. This is good news in terms of regional stability, and the upcoming NATO summit may answer some questions this draft agreement raises.
Courtesy: LGEPR
With turmoil in the Middle East, a drawdown in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Iran-Israel-U.S. conflict, the international community has paid little attention to the democracy of a small group of people - the Bahrainis. More worrisome, however, is that politics now responds to the elite.
Courtesy: Flickr/freeedomania
By forcing regime change in Libya, and attempting the same in Syria, and by promiscuously arming disparate groups of Wahabbis and Salafists to achieve this aim, NATO is creating more room for instability in the region. What Syria needs is engagement, not isolation; it needs dialogue and not the arming of rebels.
The scope for any process on nuclear talks with Iran to founder on distrust, misunderstanding and political in-fighting in both Tehran and Washington remains formidable. Equally disturbing are the wider political realities. Can the upcoming talks in Istanbul launch a process that can, over time, lead to agreement?
Courtesy: Al Jazeera English/Flickr
The author outlines the partnership between NATO and Wahhabi extremists, and how the West assisted in an armed Sunni movement, which has spread to many countries in West Asia. Consequently, the Shia population suffers from serious discrimination at the hands of Wahabbi.
Courtesy: Afghanistan Goverment/WikimediaCommons
Afghanistan has become the first significant theatre of effective confrontation between the West and China. But with its deep-rooted economic ties, could the U.S. and NATO actually confront China?
Courtesy: nazeah/Wikimediacommons - Ramesh Lalwani/Flickr
The year 2011 saw various events - the Arab Spring, anti- corruption protests, Europe's sovereign debt crisis - transform countries and reshape the world order. Gateway House takes a look at what these events mean for India, and presents India's top foreign policy cheers and jeers for the year.
Courtesy: UN Photo/Paul Banks
After the crass misuse of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in Libya, the broader question is: where is R2P headed? Do the events in Libya herald a more explicit assertion of this doctrine in other parts of the world? And should India rethink its viewpoint towards this ambiguous doctrine?