College and graduate students engage with CFR fellows and other experts for an interactive discussion on Pakistan during the unveiling of CFR's Crisis Guide: Pakistan, as part of the first annual Back-to-School Event.

College and graduate students engage with CFR fellows and other experts for an interactive discussion on Pakistan during the unveiling of CFR's Crisis Guide: Pakistan, as part of the first annual Back-to-School Event.

South Asia may be halfway around the globe from the United States, but what happens there—as the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda tragically underscored—can affect all Americans. After the terrorist attacks and the massing of one million troops on the borders of nuclear-armed India and Pakistan in 2001, the critical importance of South Asia to global and U.S. national security is clear. Securing a moderate Muslim state in Pakistan, consolidating and deepening increasingly important U.S.-India ties, actively encouraging peaceful relations between India and Pakistan, and ensuring an Afghanistan in which terrorists can never again find shelter must be foreign policy priorities for the United States.

The United States successfully toppled the Taliban in the Afghan war, but it is in danger of losing the peace following the conclusion of that war. Without greater international support for the transitional government of President Hamid Karzai, security in Afghanistan will deteriorate further, prospects for economic reconstruction will dim, and Afghanistan will revert to warlord-dominated anarchy. This failure could gravely erode America’s credibility around the globe and mark a major defeat in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, warns this informative chairmen’s report.