This book deserves to be read carefully by scholars and laymen of foreign policy dealing with the former Soviet Union, Russia and South Asia, and particularly by the political leaders of India and Pakistan. The book is a multi-dimensional analysis of (a) Soviet-American rivalry; (b) Soviet determination to expand in the direction of South Asia and the Gulf; (c) the regional dynamics of the Middle East most especially Iran, Afghanistan and China, the major power in Asia.
Hilali provides an excellent study into the US-Pakistan partnership under the Reagan administration. The book explores the causes of Pakistan's involvement in the Afghanistan war and the United States' support to prevent Soviet adventurism. It shows that Pakistan was the principal channel through which assistance was provided to Afghan freedom fighters; it also provided access to its military bases to use against the Soviet Union. The study looks at the consequences of the war on Pakistan and explains how it became enmeshed within its domestic politics. Furthermore, it evaluates the role of Pakistan as a key partner in the global coalition against terrorism and discusses how General Pervez Musharraf brought about Pakistan's development towards a progressive, moderate and democratic society. Ideally suited to courses on foreign policy.
The 2013-14 Strategic Asia volume examines the role of nuclear weapons in the grand strategies of key Asian states and assesses the impact of these capabilities—both established and latent—on regional and international stability. In each chapter, a leading expert explores the historical, strategic, and political factors that drive a country's calculations vis-a-vis nuclear weapons and draws implications for American interests.
This book seeks to understand the evolution of Soviet policy towards the countries of South Asia, the regional constraints and policy opportunities which influenced the policy process in Moscow, and the relationship between Soviet perceptions and policy objectives. The author divides Soviet foreign policy into three aspects: a perceptual aspect in which assessment of the regional and international environment occurs; a formulative aspect in which aims and strategies are developed; and an implementation aspect. The book analyses Soviet policy objectives and instruments in distinct historical phases: 1970-1978, which covers the Indo-Pakistani War and bilateral relations; 1979-1985, which covers the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and and its impact on regional politics; and 1985 to the present which examines the Gorbachev era and the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The emergence of a new Russia--a post-communist European state with a vast store of nuclear arms--raises many complex questions. What kind of foreign and defense policies will Russian pursue into the 21st century? What will be the impact of the loss of the former empire? And what are the implications for western policymakers?This volume attempts to answer those questions by examining Russia's relations with the Near Abroad (the newly independent states on its borders), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and its Pacific neighbors, as well as its peacekeeping role in the former Soviet states. In addition, the book explores the historic patterns of Russian foreign policy (issues of internationalism, accommodation, "Soviet Russia"), the Soviet legacy, institutional mechanisms for policymaking, and the effects of domestic policy.The Emergence of Russian Foreign Policy concludes with a discussion of western perceptions of Russian's evolving national security doctrine and the future of Russian-American strategic relations.
This book is the first critical assessment of the likelihood and implications of such a contract. Linda Cook pursues the idea from Brezhnev's day to our own, and considers the constraining effect it may have had on Gorbachev's attempts to liberalize the Soviet economy.
Focusing on the two tumultuous decades framed by Indian independence in 1947 and the Indo-Pakistani war of 1965, The Cold War on the Periphery explores the evolution of American policy toward the subcontinent. McMahon analyzes the motivations behind America's pursuit of Pakistan and India as strategic Cold War prizes. He also examines the profound consequences—for U.S. regional and global foreign policy and for South Asian stability—of America's complex political, military, and economic commitments on the subcontinent. McMahon argues that the Pakistani-American alliance, consummated in 1954, was a monumental strategic blunder. Secured primarily to bolster the defense perimeter in the Middle East, the alliance increased Indo-Pakistani hostility, undermined regional stability, and led India to seek closer ties with the Soviet Union. Through his examination of the volatile region across four presidencies, McMahon reveals the American strategic vision to have been "surprinsgly ill defined, inconsistent, and even contradictory" because of its exaggerated anxiety about the Soviet threat and America's failure to incorporate the interests and concerns of developing nations into foreign policy. The Cold War on the Periphery addresses fundamental questions about the global reach of postwar American foreign policy. Why, McMahon asks, did areas possessing few of the essential prerequisites of economic-military power become objects of intense concern for the United States? How did the national security interests of the United States become so expansive that they extended far beyond the industrial core nations of Western Europe and East Asia to embrace nations on the Third World periphery? And what combination of economic, political, and ideological variables best explain the motives that led the United States to seek friends and allies in virtually every corner of the planet? McMahon's lucid analysis of Indo-Pakistani-Americna relations powerfully reveals how U.S. policy was driven, as he puts it, "by a series of amorphous—and largely illusory—military, strategic, and psychological fears" about American vulnerability that not only wasted American resources but also plunged South Asia into the vortex of the Cold War.
From Moscow, the world looks different. It is through understanding how Russia sees the world—and its place in it—that the West can best meet the Russian challenge. Russia and the West are like neighbors who never seem able to understand each other. A major reason, this book argues, is that Western leaders tend to think that Russia should act as a “rational” Western nation—even though Russian leaders for centuries have thought and acted based on their country's much different history and traditions. Russia, through Western eyes, is unpredictable and irrational, when in fact its leaders from the czars to Putin almost always act in their own very predictable and rational ways. For Western leaders to try to engage with Russia without attempting to understand how Russians look at the world is a recipe for repeated disappointment and frequent crises. Keir Giles, a senior expert on Russia at Britain's prestigious Chatham House, describes how Russian leaders have used consistent doctrinal and strategic approaches to the rest of the world. These approaches may seem deeply alien in the West, but understanding them is essential for successful engagement with Moscow. Giles argues that understanding how Moscow's leaders think—not just Vladimir Putin but his predecessors and eventual successors—will help their counterparts in the West develop a less crisis-prone and more productive relationship with Russia.
