Int’l Affairs

Post-Pandemic Geopolitics Estimating the long-term effect of the current pandemic is not an exact prediction of the future, but an exercise in weighing probabilities and adjusting current policies. When envisioning the international order in 2030, five scenarios stand out. There is no single future until it happens, and any effort to envision geopolitics in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic …

Defensive & Offensive Realism Realists are a dominant school of thought in international relations. After classical thoughts in realism, structural realism or neorealism gained popularity due to its relatively more relevance to understanding global politics. Offensive and defensive realism are actually subdivisions of structural realism or neorealism proposed by Kenneth Waltz in his monumental work ‘Theory of International Politics’—published in …

Winners and Losers of the Pandemic Economy Michael Spence While it is true that bullish equity markets are out of step with the historic contraction in the real economy, to say that they are disconnected from it misses the point. In fact, the lofty valuations of companies with high intangible capital per employee make perfect sense in today’s economy.

  Israel-Palestine Question and the Muslim World Is the Abraham Accord a new ploy to divide the Muslims? Afaque Ahmed Introduction Gaza strip of Palestine continues to be bombed by Israel with impunity. And in the West Bank, its nefarious designs to annex the parts that form the Palestinian state continuously haunt the people belonging to the region. The move …

Heading for Thucydides’s Trap US-China Athar Mansoor Thucydides’s concerns were recently echoed by Graham Allison in his book, “Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?” An outcome of a decade-long research project, Allison’s book drew similarities between the rise of China against the United States and that of Athens against Sparta and warned, “China and the US …

Afghan Peace Process … as Afghan President sees it! On August 13, President of Afghanistan, Dr Ashraf Ghani, during a virtual session with James B. Cunningham at the Council on Foreign Relations, shared his thoughts on various aspects of the ongoing peace process in Afghanistan. In this conversation, Dr Ghani elaborated the recent developments ranging from the decision of Loya …

Rise of Populism and Frightening Prospects of World War-3 After World War II, the world became bipolar, with the United States supporting liberal democracy and the USSR being the torch-bearer of communism. In their Cold War, both states were, in pursuit of power and alliances, investing in new democracies financially and diplomatically. The Cold War ended with the fall of …

Quest for Peace in Afghanistan Afghanistan is notoriously difficult to conquer, primarily due to three factors. First, it is situated at the crossroads of South Asia, East Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. It has been invaded many times and is settled by a plethora of tribes, many mutually antagonistic and hostile to each other and outsiders. Second, due …

India-China Geopolitical Contest The term ‘strategic stability’ is many a time used totally out of context due to which its misplaced use creates confusion and further misperceptions. For instance, a US Department of Defense 2010 report titled as ‘Nuclear Posture Review Report (2010)’used terms like ‘stable’, ‘stability’ and ‘instability’ more than 70 times. But a cautious study of the Report …

Will Coronavirus bring an end to globalization? Haroon Gulzar It was 19th of December 2019 when a 55-year-old individual from Wuhan city in China tested positive for a new type of flu. Initially, people considered and dealt with it like normal flu but the havoc that it would play with everyone’s life in the year 2020 was beyond everyone’s imagination. …