Politics, economics, regional dynamics of South Asia
March 3, 2011: If an annual prize was given to the government that most effectively shoots itself in the foot, Bangladesh would be the odds-on favorite to win the award for 2011 for its sacking of Mohammed Yunus as managing director of the Grameen Bank.
Read full article at Bangladesh’s Grameen Saga.
Teresita C. Schaffer and Howard B. Schaffer speak with Samyukta Lakshman about the relationship between the U.S. and South Asia.
On Kashmir, I think the U.S. government does not favor Pakistan. It has taken a long time for Indian opinion to believe that view. I think it goes back to the Kargil attack by the Pakistanis across the Line of Control in 1999. To Pakistan’s dismay and India’s surprise, [the U.S.] supported the Indian position and declared that the sanctity of the LoC must be recognised by Pakistan.
Originally published by Gateway House on February 8, 2011.
A paper by Teresita C. Schaffer on the Indian Ocean’s geostrategic importance.
For the countries of South Asia, three themes dominate the way they look on the Indian Ocean: India; China; and economics. Beyond that, their interest reflects geography, economics, political relationships, and each country’s extra-regional role. For India, the Indian Ocean has huge and growing strategic significance, and it figures importantly in relations with the United States.. For Pakistan, it is an arena in their epic rivalry with India. The strategic perspectives of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are more inward-looking, but the major significance of the Indian Ocean is economic.
Dated February 1, 2011. Read the entire paper.
An obituary by Teresita C. Schaffer of American diplomat Richard Holbrooke, highlighting in particular his work in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Indians probably remember Holbrooke’s last assignment—Afghanistan and Pakistan—principally because of what it excluded: he did not have responsibility for India. He avoided any role on India-Pakistan issues, recognizing that this could only complicate his exceptionally difficult mandate. In a way, it is a shame he never had any direct involvement in U.S.-India ties. In the years before he took up his Afghanistan-Pakistan job, he visited India frequently, and was fascinated by the way it was emerging on the global scene. His twin passions for peacemaking and for power responded to different aspects of India’s post-Cold War foreign policy at a time when the United States and India were discovering how close their international interests had become.
Originally published by the News India Times on December 17, 2010.
A review essay by Teresita C. Schaffer of five books about South Asia: Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History, by Thomas Barfield; The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan, by Ronald E. Neumann; Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field, by Antonio Giustozzi; Asymmetric Warfare in South Asia: The Causes and Consequences of the Kargil Conflict, by Peter R. Lavoy; and Making Sense of Pakistan, by Farzana Shaikh.
Antonio Giustozzi has put together a remarkable collection of essays on the Taliban. But do not open this book with the expectation that it will make the Afghan tangle simple or clear. On the contrary, its real contribution is that it complicates the mental models we have of Afghanistan’s tribes, the Taliban movement, and their relationships with the Afghan government, its Western friends and Pakistan.
Originally published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in the October-November 2010 issue of Survival. Read the entire essay.