In The News

Uygur Detainees: Canberra Caught in Diplomatic Vice

Jonathan Pearlman June 4, 2009
The US has asked Australia to resettle a small group of Uighurs that, though released from prison, remain at Guantanamo Bay. They were captured in Afghanistan during the US sweep against the Taliban, but no proof of their involvement as terrorists has been found. As a result, the Uighurs, a minority group within China, have become a diplomatic hot potato as Beijing has asked Australia not to...

Think Again: Child Soldiers

Scott Gates, Simon Reich May 29, 2009
Most of the stereotypes about child soldiers are inaccurate or downright wrong. From properly identifying the issue to adjusting statistics to defining causes, this article corrects much of the received wisdom based on erroneous information on child soldiering. Notably, the authors contend that child soldiers are not a phenomenon of globalization: child members of the military have been extant...

Pakistan Expanding Its Nuclear Capability

Robert Windrem May 13, 2009
While the Taliban challenge to the government in Pakistan has grown, the country has been busy building two of the world’s largest nuclear reactors in an area not far from Taliban-controlled land. A researcher at New York University quoting analysts writes that, without the proper infrastructure needed for power generation or any proximity to the electrical grid, the reactors’ sole purpose could...

Pakistan, Taliban and Global Security – Part II

Robert D. Blackwill May 12, 2009
It is a welcome development that the US and President Obama personally are engaged in dealing with the worsening situation in Pakistan brought about by the Taliban insurgency. But such engagement does not go far enough, according to former US Ambassador to India Robert D. Blackwill. To be sure, the US needs to help secure Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe...

Pakistan, Taliban and Global Security – Part I

Leonard S. Spector May 8, 2009
With the Pakistani army battling Islamist insurgents barely 100 miles from the capital, the world’s wary eyes are turned increasingly on the safety of the country's nuclear arsenal. In the first of our two part series on Pakistan and global security, non-proliferation expert Leonard Spector outlines the danger that the Taliban poses to Pakistan's nuclear assets. Spector shows that the...

“We All Have to Think Multilateral”

May 8, 2009
R. Nicholas Burns, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, analyzes President Obama’s ongoing challenges, including building a strong relationship with India and fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in this interview with Nayan Chanda, editor of YaleGlobal. He also stresses that the complexity of transnational issues is going to require an “unprecedented level of...

Tactics in a Cosmic War

Reza Aslan April 22, 2009
Former President Bush made a grave error when casting the “war on terror” as a “crusade,” according to Reza Aslan, author of “How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror.” By relying on distinctively religious rhetoric, Bush played into the jihadists' hands: that of conflating the war on terror with a war on Islam. President Obama has reversed such a stance...