Strategic Paradigms by Ehsan Ahrari

India and Pakistan are two strange countries in a number of ways.  I will mention only one such trait here, to get the discussion going.  Despite India’s denial to the contrary, Pakistan is its chief obsession.  Pakistan feels similarly toward India, but it has many reasons to feel that way.  First, on the scale of [...]

The news that China and the U.S. have reestablished their military-to-military (mil-to-mil) contacts is indeed a positive development. However, the differences between these two major actors promise to keep the element of competition both alive and steady. Thus, while not denying the benefits of sustaining such contacts, one has to keep in mind that they [...]

Long before Usama Bin Laden’s death in Pakistan, al-Qaida had become irrelevant as an organization that could bring about political change in the Arab or Muslim world.  The Arab awakening, on the contrary, was very much in the driving seat of bringing about political change toward the end of the first decade of the 21st [...]

The author of a book entitled, The Audacity of Hope, has issued another audacious document in the form of his first National Security Strategy (NSS). That document will be known more for its marked departure from strategic issues, which were emphasized by George W. Bush in his NSS, than for its continuity. In doing that, [...]

The recent resignation of retired Admiral Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence, at the request of President Obama, underscores several iron rules regarding the workings of Washington. The foremost rule is that no “outsider” (which Obama claimed to be during the presidential campaign) would act like an outsider once he/she enters the White House. The [...]

As new idiosyncrasies of the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan are becoming pronounced, one wonders how many of them are pushing it toward a potential disaster, which President Barack Obama is as determined to avoid as his three predecessors – Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, and George W. Bush – did in Vietnam and [...]

The United States has become well accustomed to imposing economic sanctions against any state that defies it. Such actions are taken without regard to how badly they affect the quality of life of the people in the sanctioned country. The cruel rationale in Washington is that, if people suffered the terrible consequences emanating from those [...]

MAY BE DECLINING, BUT STILL THE UBERPOWER   Regardless of whether you are among those who are baffled about the economic problems that continue to ail the U.S. with no end in sight, or among those who are cheering the noisy fall of the mightiest among nations, here is one of the most cogent explanations [...]

The United States never understood one feral rule of the Arab Middle East and Muslim South Asia: there is little hope left that the conventional politics will resolve the Muslim misery or problems of liberty either from domestic tyrants or from the tyranny of occupiers.  That leaves only those who despise the U.S. and all [...]

ON YOUR MARK, GET SET, RESTART THE BARMY ARMS RACE!   The Cold War in its old form disappeared when the Soviet Union imploded.  But the U.S.-Russian competition did not.  The United States continued a strange policy of expanding the NATO membership and bringing that Alliance all the way to the Russian borders, despite strong [...]