Asian Powers – traditionally would refer to powers located in Asia itself – but in today’s international strategic milieu one has to also consider global powers and extra-regional powers who may be located outside of Asia but have a major presence in this continent and impact the politics of the region.
The OIC Secretary General recently made a reference to the possibility of an OIC peacekeeping architecture. The OIC may finally be getting something right in its new activism since even before anything substantive has happened, many external actors are already expressing their opposition covertly –often using NGOs within Pakistan which is leading this proactivism.
Two caveats to the notion of South Asia as a distinct sub region anymore. First, with the introduction of MRBMs and IRBMs by the countries of the region – and the ICBM programme of India (See slides), one cannot really talk of South Asia as a distinct region. Second, post-9/11 US forces in Central Asia,…
While 9/11 is seen as having altered the strategic dynamics of South Asia in a most stark fashion, the reality is that these dynamics began altering before 9/11 and 9/11 accentuated them. So let us identify some of the major trends coming to the fore with the end of bipolarity around the South Asian region and which have now become accentuated in the wake of 9/11.
Muharram in Pakistan is a most stark reminder of the plight of Muslims today. Here we are, in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and some amongst us have to practice our faith with the unseemly sight of armed security all around the mosques and Imambargahs. Sectarian divides do not exist only in the Muslim World.…