Afghanistan and Pakistan lie at the center of U.S. interests and strategy within South Asia. The two countries are often referred to jointly as “AfPak,” emphasizing the extent to which events and policy on one side of the Durand Line influence events on the other. In particular, Pakistan’s porous northwestern border has become a haven for extremist insurgent groups such as the Taliban and the Haqqani Network, to whom Kabul has accused the Pakistani security forces of providing support--even as the United States relies on Islamabad’s help in battling those same insurgencies. Meanwhile to the southeast, tensions between Pakistan and India remain consistently high over the disputed Kashmir region, among other issues.
Latest in South Asia
India, now the global epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, is wrestling with what is likely its greatest crisis since Partition. This post walks through the various factors that led the world’s largest democracy from confidence to chaos.
Pakistan’s two newest political disrupters could not be more different. Here’s why that matters.
Worries about foreign Islamic fighters tend to center on European citizens. But fighters from Southeast Asia also pose a significant problem.
China and the Philippines plan to conduct talks and potentially sign an agreement regarding joint exploration for hydrocarbons, oil and natural gas in South China Sea. This agreement could cover portions of the South China Sea such as the Reed Bank that were under dispute in the 2016 South China Sea Arbitration.
There has been growing legal, policy, and academic attention to the topic of Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA), the mechanisms for evidence held in one country to be provided to a different country for law enforcement purposes. This post summarizes recent developments and proposes a new mechanism for MLA that could be used for the important country of India, and also more generally.
Earlier this week, a suicide bomber outside a crowded hospital in Quetta, Pakistan killed at least 74 people, most of them judges or lawyers, and wounded dozens more. Yesterday, another blast in Quetta wounded an additional 13 people. The provincial interior minister told Reuters that the bombing targeted police escorting a judge, who was not killed in the attack.
Barak Mendelsohn comes on the show to discuss his new book, The al-Qaeda Franchise: The Expansion of al-Qaeda and Its Consequences. Some of the topics covered include:
The on-going debate on encryption and exceptional access for law enforcement agencies to encrypted communication—which recent attacks in Paris and California have only intensified—is also being closely studied in India. How India regulates encryption will be crucial for two reasons. First, India is among the fastest growing digital economies in the world, and its encryption policy could offer a template for other developing countries. What’s more, technology continues to flow from the West to the East but information is now firmly moving in the other direction.
C. Christine Fair comes on the show to talk about Islamism in Bangladesh. Some of the topics covered include:
History of Islamism in Bangladesh and its intersection with mainstream politics The role of Bangladeshi Islamists with Rohingya refugees History of al-Qaeda’s involvement in Bangladesh and its newest enterprise through Ansar al-Islam What we know about recent Islamic State attacks in BangladeshLinks:
By all accounts, what took place in the Afghan city of Kunduz over the weekend was horrific. It appears that several airstrikes hit a hospital run by Médecins Sans Frontières, killing more than twenty and wounding dozens. MSF describes the attacks on the medical facility as repeated and precise: