India's history-geopolitics linkage

ROBERT KAPLAN of the Center for a New American Security analyzes the millenial history of India contrasting it with that of China and states that India would emerge as the key Eurasian pivot state because of its effect on relations between the United States and China. In a CNAS report "South Asia's Geography of Conflict", he provides an analysis of New Delhi's worldview  based on the geopolitics and geographical history of South Asia cautioning that the Washington-New Delhi relationship should not fall victim to the proclivity of U.S. to poor understanding of local histories.

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.

Transforming Indo-Bangla relationship

C. RAJA MOHAN, scholar of foreign policy and international relations at the Library of Congress calls upon New Delhi to seize the moment in the backdrop of the Bangladeshi PM's visit and engineer a paradigm shift in New Delhi-Dhaka relations that could serve as a template for the relations with the rest of the South Asian countries. In an op-ed in the Indian Express, "Look to our near east", he opines that New Delhi should move towards a relationship with Dhaka based on the principle of sovereign equality, emphasize 'interests' rather than 'sentiments', open its markets more generously and endorse Dhaka's aspirations to lead the process of regional and sub-regional cooperation in the sub-continent, thus facilitating its emergence as a great eastern hub of South Asia.