India Archive

When assigning homework exercises for a survey course that I teach on American foreign policy, I tell my students that no matter how strong the arguments they use to defend their positions, if they neglect to examine how demographic trends will affect their proposals, they will get an F. What is true for my students is true for global policymakers: Demographic trends will shape our future in a much more profound sense than most of the developments we see on the front page of the New York Times. Four major demographic trends in particular will shape the global security landscape […]

In a speech at the Asia Society in New York this September, Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar laid out a foreign policy agenda that she described as Pakistan’s “regional pivot” within Asia. Khar explained that Pakistan would now pay more attention to building and stabilizing relations within its immediate region. In arguing that Pakistan was on the path to normalizing relations with its neighbors, Khar pointed to Islamabad’s pursuit of policies that privileged enhanced trade relations and energy cooperation over zero-sum security competitions. For many in attendance the speech was both surprising and intriguing. The ruling Pakistan People’s Party […]

Editor’s note: This briefing and the CSIS report on which it is based was co-authored by Priscilla Hermann and Sneha Raghavan. The U.S. strategic “pivot” toward Asia announced by President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in January 2012 has reinvigorated research efforts on defense policies in the region. However, a detailed analysis of defense spending by key Asian countries, crucial to understanding their military priorities and capabilities, has been lacking. In an attempt to fill this gap, the Center for Strategic and International Studies recently completed a study on the five largest Asian defense spenders: China, India, […]

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s recent visit to New Delhi gave India-Australia relations a major boost. In a speech at the end of the trip, Gillard stressed the “compelling” need for a robust bilateral relationship and included India in a select group of countries that matter most for Australia. Security has been catapulted to the forefront of India-Australia relations. The two countries are planning to re-engage in a lapsed quadrilateral security dialogue, an idea initially mooted by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2007 with the U.S. as the fourth partner. The “arc of democracies,” as the association came to […]