In the last two decades, the world has had a chance to see what tragedies and absurdities can be instigated by the imperial ambitions of Washington and the connivance of the international community. It was the White House’s desire to expand its political, economic and military domination that has brought chaos to many countries, resulted in the destruction of the …

The nature of the war in Afghanistan has shifted dramatically in recent months. While the US and Nato continue to be actively involved in the country — their strategic objectives having changed very little since the Bush administration launched the war in 2001 — the complexion of the battlefield, and the parties actively engaged in the war, has changed significantly. …

In early 2014, the Islamic State (IS), an organization then known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), swept across northwestern Iraq while simultaneously expanding the territory under its control in eastern Syria. It is led by members of what used to be al-Qaeda in Iraq and incorporates Iraqi Sunnis who hold grievances against the Shia-dominated government …

Why the Continent Fails Minority Groups What is it that draws thousands of young Europeans to jihadism and violence? What is it that has led 4,000 to travel to Syria to fight for the so-called Islamic State (ISIS)? And what is it that leads European citizens to engage in barbarous carnage such as those witnessed in Paris? The conventional answer …

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 gave birth to a dangerous American ideology called neoconservativism. The Soviet Union had served as a constraint on US unilateral action. With the removal of this constraint on Washington, neoconservatives declared their agenda of US world hegemony. America was now the “sole superpower,” the “unipower,” that could act without restraint anywhere in …

Aside from history of how it was structured in Greece and how it spread to other countries, democracy is an outcome of deep social, economic, theoretical and cultural revolutions in recent centuries in Europe. This article discusses how culture of democracy can be shaped and how source of legitimacy can affect democratic ideas. The piece also suggests some points aimed …

Over the decades during which I have worked in and written about Pakistan, there have been so many supposed national “turning points” at which the country failed to turn that I have almost ceased to notice them. But when earlier this year the Pakistani Government described China’s planned energy and transport corridor through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea as a …

The rising number of people entering Europe in 2015 in search of safety and a better life has captured the world’s attention with scenes of heartbreaking tragedy. Travelling hundreds and thousands of miles over land and over water, from Africa, the Middle East and Asia, people are risking everything in the hope of reaching their goal, and the danger does …

Thomas J. Christensen observes that post-1978 China has achieved economic progress that is unprecedented in world history and has registered equally dramatic advances in its economic and diplomatic ties abroad. It was perhaps inevitable that such a dramatic rise would elicit exaggerated analysis especially in the United States, to whose preeminence that phenomenon poses a singular challenge. Although the American …

Habemus consensus! That was the roaring message delivered by the representatives of the 195 countries on December 12 in Paris, following the two-week long COP21 summit that peaked with a dramatic last-minute upset that pushed the talks into overtime. More than 900 points of disagreement (or “brackets” in summit parlance) were smoothed over during the talks, yielding an agreement that …