Quotes of the week: “The ability to win a local war cannot be translated into the ability to fight it safely and therefore cannot provide a firm foundation for either deterrence or coercion.” — Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the…
The attack on an Indian military encampment at Uri, most probably from well-armed, well-trained cadres of a “proscribed” group based on the Pakistan side of the Kashmir divide, is the costliest since the 2008 Mumbai attacks. This attack was preceded…
After Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surprise visit to Lahore, hope was in the air. After eight long years of strained relations, the structure of a composite dialogue was revived. Serious exchanges between the Indian and Pakistani Foreign Secretaries and National…
Trend lines in the subcontinent are poor and will not improve until there is substantive dialogue between India and Pakistan. Hopes that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would pull a “Nixon goes to China” maneuver with Pakistan have been dashed, at…
The Stimson Center and the Carnegie Endowment published a 20,000-word essay on Pakistan’s nuclear program and diplomatic ambitions last week. My co-author Toby Dalton and I did not write this assessment to cause harm to Pakistan. We support Pakistan’s quest…
[Note: This post has been corrected.] Very bad news often follows when adversaries give up on improved relations. We’re at this juncture now on the Subcontinent. High-ranking Indian and Pakistani officials are lobbing over-heated public recriminations about abetting terrorism in…
Pakistan has been failing for a long time. There have been periods of economic growth, backed up by foreign patrons – mostly the United States and increasingly China — but for the most part, Pakistan’s economy and internal security continue…
