Anarchy in Pakistan

AHMED RASHID, Pakistani journalist and author of "Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia" states that Pakistan's selective approach to countering extremism and its military's preoccupation with India had to end before it could defeat the jihadi menace. In an opinion piece for the The National Interest, "The Anarchic Republic of Pakistan", he states that groundwork was being laid for a genuine democratic dispensation inspite of the incompetence of the Government and that if modernization of juduciary and police services were coupled with policies to enhance economic stability, Pakistan had a brighter future than being currently portrayed.

Raising India's Lusophone profile

CONSTANTINO XAVIER, fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses states that in the wake of Goa's successful bid to launch the 3rd Lusophony Games in 2013, India had to recognize the Anglophone bias in its foreign policy and consider upgrading India's diplomatic engagement with the Portugese-speaking Lusophone world comprising of eight countries with growing economic and strategic influence. In a brief for IDSA Comment, "Portuguese-speaking countries: a new niche for Indian foreign policy?", he calls for India to diversify its foreign policy by expanding its profile within the Lusophone world, upgrade its relationship with the Community of Portugese Language Countries (CPLP) to that of associate observer status, host a regular Goa-based India-CPLP dialogue, and further build Goa as a  venue for training programs conducted in Portugese for Lusophone countries.

Scenarios for The Seven Sisters

NAMRATA GOSWAMI of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, analyzes the key factors determining the future of India's insurgency-ridden NorthEast to determine four possible future scenarios: 1) a tourism-anchored "Destination Northeast", 2) an insular "Island Northeast" based on xenophobia and violence, 3) a democratic "Multi-cultural Northeast" and 4) Global Northeast (on the back of a successful Look East policy). In an IDSA Occasional Paper, "India's NorthEast 2020: Four Alternative Futures", she recommends a policy focus based on developing human capital, fostering inter-state competition and rewarding progress to ensure the development of an open, multi-cultural, globalized and democratic North-east.

Sino-Pak nuclear collaboration

ASHLEY TELLIS of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace recommends that Washington should lead forcefully in urging China to rethink its plans to sell civilian nuclear reactors to Pakistan claiming that Beijing had a lot at stake if it chose to renege on its NSG obligations. In an opinion piece for the Wall Street, "Stop the Sino-Pak Nuclear Pact", he states that China's plans had raised alarms in foreign capitals given Pakistan's fragile leadership, and an implicit threat to withhold the forms of cooperation that China desire would convince Beijing to reconsider its decision.

South Asian Security and economics

MICHAEL O' HANLON of Brookings proposes a policy of complementing the hard power aspects of US policy in South Asia with a big push in soft power, particularly within the arena of economics. In an opinion piece for Politico, "Economics of Security in South Asia", he outlines a four-point economics and security initiative plan with tripling of annual economic aid to Pakistan, free-trade for Pakistan's tribal areas, encouragement of Indo-Pak trade and fuel pipelines from Central to South Asia through Afghanistan as the four key components.

Pushback in the South China Sea

YURIKO KOIKE, the former national security advisor of Japan speculates that the recent trip to Asia of the US Secretary of State had the potential of triggering a diplomatic revolution a la the 1971 Kissinger visit to Mao's China with the US unwilling to accept China's push for regional hegemony in the hydrocarbon-rich waters of the South China Sea. In an opinion piece in the Taipei Times, "US takes a stand against a shifting geopolitical landscape", she states that the US not only reaffirmed its commitment to security in Asia and the eastern Pacific but also exposed the dichotomy in China's policies of hegemonic behavior versus its mantra of 'peaceful rise' and gave pause to Chinese leadership that their country's overall international role was being tested primarily in Asia.

The land-inflation linkage

ARVIND SUBRAMANIAN, fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics reviews the high inflation figures for India and conjectures that the combination of serious microeconomic distortions afflicting the land market coupled with macroeconomic factors such as surging capital inflows into real estate and housing could be raising cost of production in the Indian economy as a whole, pushing up cost-push inflation and making the goal of double-digit growth elusive. In an op-ed in The Business Standard, "India's Inflation Puzzle", he states that inflation in India could be far more dependent on services and land as an input and India would need to address microeconomic distortions through structural reforms of the land market and address macroeconomic aggravators of inflation through dampening of foreign capital flows into real estate and housing and higher provisioning for real-estate lending.

Nation States - RIP

PARAG KHANNA, Director of Global Governance Initiative at the New America Foundation heralds the beginning of the urban age predicting that globalization would result in the emergence of global hub cities attracting talent and capital, and 3rd world megacities that would together drive governance, economics, innovation and diplomacy, pulling away from their home states while simultaneously competing for global influence among themselves and alongside states. In a commentary for Foreign Policy, "Beyond City Limits", he states that cities and the urban economies, like the Hanseatic league of yore, would serve as the centers of gravity for nations, being at the core of issues such as security, governance, climate change, inequality and poverty while making national borders and international organizations such as the UN irrelevant.

The Pecking Order within the Islamic world

JOSEPH LUMBARD and AREF ALI NAYED compile the list of the 500 most influential people in the Islamic world alongwith a brief history of Islam and its canon, and summarize the key Islamic doctrines and schools of thought and their relative influence within the ummah. In a report "The 500 Most Influential Muslims - 2010", the second in successive years published by the Amman-based Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center, the king of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al Saud continues to be the most influential Muslim in the world.
More than 25 of the top 50 influential Muslims are from the Middle East due to its special status as the heart of the Ummah with the holy sites, clergy, royalty and Islamic scholarship with leadership from Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Turkey alongwith its Cypriot area also lays claim to the top status with PM Recep Erdogan vaulting to #2 this year from #5 in 2009, possibly as a result of the recent change in strategy towards Israel. Surprisingly, Iran and Iraq are home to a total of only 3 top influencers with Ali Khamenei dropping to #3 from #2 in 2009.
In the sub-continent, India continues to have 3 individuals in the top 50 with Akhtar Raza Khan, the Grand Mufti of India at #26, Mahmood Madani of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind at #40 and Burhanuddin Saheb at #47. Abd al Wahhab, the Amir of Tablighi Jamaat (#16) and Taqi Usmani (#31) are the two Pakistanis making the top 50 cut this year while disgraced scientist AQ Khan has exited the top 50 this year while continuing to remain in the top 500 under the Science and Technology category. President Yudhoyono of the largest Islamic democracy, Indonesia makes a strong showing to finish at #9 in 2010. Hasan Nasrallah (#18) of the Hezbollah and Khaled Meshal (#38) retain significant influence while the Secretary-General of the OIC, Dr. Ihsanoglu has dropped down 4 places from #40 to #44.
Sheikha Munira Qubeysi of Syria, the leader of the largest women-only Islamic movement at #24 and Queen Rania of Jordan at #30 are the only two females in the top 50.

Nuclear black market

ROLF MOWATT-LARSEN and WILLIAM H TOBEY, fellows at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs analyze the pattern of seizures of nuclear material in the past seven years to state that elimination of the global nuclear black market been given its due because of a lack of international co-operation, organizational failures and skepticism among experts of the plausibility of nuclear terrorism. In an opinion piece for the Belfer Center, "The Armageddon Test: To Prevent Nuclear Terrorism, Follow the Uranium", they call for greater urgency and an international consensus on the nuclear threat, deeper co-operation among national intelligence and law enforcement agencies alongwith more teeth to the IAEA to eliminate the nuclear black market.

Growing private Indian philanthropy

ARPAN SHETH of Bain & Company analyzes the state of Indian philanthropy in comparison with other countres arguing that there existed potential for greater philanthropy among wealthier Indians whose relatively recent wealth accumulation, blurring between personal and corporate donations and underdeveloped donation support networks led to lower individual philanthropy. In a lecture "An Overview of Philanthropy in India", at the Indian Philanthropy Forum, he recommends modifications to the legal and taxation framework that hindered growth and operation of non-profits in India and calls upon non-profits to increase transparency, professionalism and effectiveness.

Beijing - Central Asia Express ...delayed

RICHARD WEITZ of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute analyzes the attractiveness of the Central Asian countries as sources of raw material, export markets, investment opportunities and conduits for trade for China stating that China could reap significant benefits although this would require significant investments to upgrade the region's railroad transportation infrastructure. In a China Brief article for Jamestown Foundation, "Afghanistan in China's Emerging Eurasian Transport Corridor", he concludes that various barriers such as suboptimal legal, policy and communications framework, and transnational threats such as narco-terrorism combined with obstacles around ownership, and financing in Central Asia to limit the effectiveness of a potential Eurasian rail network as an alternative for China to containerized cargo shipping by sea through the Indian Ocean.

Cyber Power

JOSEPH NYE of the Harvard University avers that the low price of entry, anonymity and asymmetries in vulnerability meant that smaller actors had greater capacity to exercise hard and soft power in a highly volatile environment such as cyberspace than in more traditional domains of world politics and could create power shifts among states such that small states could leverage asymmetrical warfare to leapfrog larger adversaries. In an essay for the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, "Cyber Power", he concludes that cyber-power was unlikely to be a game-changer and that while governments would continue to be the strongest actors, the cyber-domain would increase the diffusion of power to non-state actors illustrating the importance of networks as a key dimension of power in the 21st century.

Chinese soft power

JOSEPH NYE of the Harvard University and WANG JISI of the Peking University School of International Studies state that increasing references to soft power by Chinese leaders and academics reflected a sophisticated realist strategy to complement its rising hard power. In an article for the Harvard International Review,"Hard Decisions on Soft Power:Opportunities and Difficulties for Chinese Soft Power", they conclude that soft power was not a zero-sum game in the context of Sino-US relations and that if both became more attractive in each others’ eyes, the prospects of damaging conflicts would reduce significantly.

Future role of the WTO

URI DADUSH of the Carnegie Endowment states that the efficacy of the WTO has been reduced due to increasing difficulty in enacting comprehensive multilateral agreements driven by deepening international integration, increasing influence of new players, and growing trade complexity. In an article for the International Economic Bulletin, "The Future of the World Trading System", he states that despite the recent stalling of the WTO, world trade had advanced at unprecedented rates and that the WTO could reaffirm its leadership role by promoting regional and plurilateral liberalization processes to existing agreements.

Joining the game in the Indian Ocean

HARSH PANT of King's College reviews the growing Sino-Lankan relationship stating that China was rapidly expanding its profile in Sri Lanka with multiple infrastructure investments with ominous portents for New Delhi. In a commentary for ISN Security Watch, "The New Battle for Sri Lanka", he states that New Delhi had to be more proactive to keep ahead in the great game unfolding in the Indian Ocean.

Backing Soft power with hard power

JOHN LEE of the Australia's Centre for Independent Studies analyzes India's soft power and argues that India's soft power potential was based not just on its culture and values but also on the alignment of those values to regional and global standards. In a Foreign Policy Analysis article, "Unrealised potential: India's 'soft power' ambition in Asia", he cautions that India's potential suffered from lingering uncertainty since its soft power was not perceived as being adequately backed by 'hard power' and that could improve only if it undertook reforms.

National Security - The link to natural resources

CHRISTINE PARTHEMORE and WILL ROGERS at the Center for a New American Security call for increased focus within the national security community on the role and strategic consequences of the availability and depletion of resources such as water, forests, cropland, fish stocks and biodiversity. In a CNAS report, Sustaining Security: How Natural Resources Influence National Security, they propose two approaches: a targeted approach based on resource conservation in a few regions such as Afghanistan and Pakistan and a more long-term multidisciplinary approach based on incorporation of resources into national security strategy.

Look East Policy analyzed

SANDY GORDON of the Center of Excellence in Policing and Security at the Australian National University analyzes the evolution of Indo-ASEAN relationship from its tentative beginnings under India's 'Look East' policy to that of its current strategic partnership in the Indian Ocean, stating that this would be one of many partnerships that India would develop with other powers. In a workshop paper presented for the Australia India Institute, "India ‘Looks East’ as history", he states that India would do well to put in place labour and infrastructure policies to leverage its demographic dividend and as India developed, a strategic triangle between China, US and India was a distinct possibility

The Shale Hype

CLAUDIO GULER of ISN Security Watch states that recent advances in technology and elevated secular price for natural gas had made drilling of shale gas economical and this had in turn raised expectations of energy independence, improved security and reduced emissions among consumer countries while traditional gas producers such as Russia were impacted by reduced global gas demand as well as greater availability of unconventional gas such as LNG and shale gas. In a commentary for ISN Security Watch, "Shale Gas: Eureka or False Dawn?", he cautions that optimistic estimates of shale gas reserves were tentative outside the US and that shale gas was far from being a panacea for energy, environment and security.