The Pakistani military and intelligence service will not easily break the ties with Islamist terrorist groups in Afghanistan like the Haqqani network. Islamabad wants to keep a foothold in Afghanistan when western troops leave and use Islamic extremism as a counterforce to ethnic conflict and inco
Many powerful states tend to view current global conflicts through the lens of Islamism, and to put military action at the heart of the response. But the deeper roots and character of these conflicts are to be found in poverty and marginalisation, not ideology.
India's successful launch of a long range inter-continental ballistic missile has led to hyper-nationalist posturing and antagonism with China, of a kind disappointingly reminiscent of Cold War hubris. The bombastic rhetoric must not undo the bilateral ties between the two states.
Mediation has been successful at bringing down levels of violence and bringing popular welfare and social justice demands onto the political agenda. These gains are underthreat as the government fails to take the process seriously.
Nepal is still awaiting a new constitution to complete its transition from a decade of conflict to democracy. So far, political leaders' control of the drafting process has handicapped progress. But the four-year debate has also created a foundation on which to build, says Leena Rikkila Tamang.
Caught between the restrictions placed on them by the state and a relationship with the general public framed by suspicion of collaboration with the West, Pakistani peacebuilders need to articulate their work on their own terms.
Pakistan has said NATO's supply convoys can cross the Afghan border so long as America's drones do not. Though the expanded use of cyberwarfare, covert special forces and drones is designed to overcome the frictional problems of waging war from a distance, logistics still matter. The world is not
Syrian diplomats have been expelled and the UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has explained that his priority is ‘to provide for the end of all violence’ amidst waves of public revulsion at the growing atrocities in poor Syria. Isn’t this cynical manipulation and hypocrisy?
The tension between Washington and Islamabad over the former's drone assaults on targets in Pakistan is rising. But a prospective geopolitical rivalry involving both countries has even wider ramifications.
A sea change is taking place in Indian politics, as the two main traditional political parties lose state elections to regional and upstart parties. What will this portend for India's next general election and how is it reshaping the Indian polity?
Any militant force fighting against NATO forces in Afghanistan has to abide by the Taliban war codes which compel outsiders to fight under only one banner, that of Emarat-i-Islami. Hitherto, this strategy has damaged but also benefited the allied forces by keeping the lethal Al Qaida and other ant
The combination of post-election protest in Egypt and parliamentary stalemate in Nepal teaches Vidar Helgesen a wider lesson about democracy.
