India is planning to buy $100 billion worth of new weapons over the next ten years.

Al Qaeda is stronger today than when it carried out the 9/11 attacks.

Many comparisons of India and Pakistan attribute India's democracy to Hinduism and Pakistan's autocracy to Islam.

Washington and its allies could still win in Afghanistan if they are given the time they need.

Although it has problems, a de facto partition of Afghanistan, in which Washington pursues nation building in the north and counterterrorism in the south, offers an acceptable fallback.

Americans have growing doubts about the U.S. mission in Afghanistan that U.S. President Barack Obama seems to share. But the United States should and will maintain a major presence in Afghanistan for years to come.

The Chinese and Indian economies often elicit breathless admiration from commentators. In fact, domestic deficiencies and regional tensions mean that the rise of China and India is hardly assured.

The most realistic and acceptable alternative models of governance in Afghanistan are decentralized democracy and a system of internal mixed sovereignty.

Can Louis XIV's consolidation of power in seventeenth-century France guide the way for state builders in Afghanistan today?

As three new books show, defeating the Taliban will require local, bottom-up efforts -- beginning with a deep understanding of tribal and subtribal politics.

The United States' mission in Afghanistan will not be accomplished until a central government exists there that can control the country's territory.

The future of the U.S.-Indian relationship will depend on whether India chooses to align with the United States and whether it sustains its own economic and social changes -- and on what policies Washington pursues in those areas that bear heavily on Indian interests.

As the Obama administration prepares to send more troops to Afghanistan, what are the problems U.S. forces will face, and what, if anything, can they do to overcome them?

The BJP's Hindu nationalism may have won it votes in the past, but the party now faces an identity crisis that is imperiling its future.

Is a lasting peace in Sri Lanka possible?

The deployment of more U.S. troops to Afghanistan is necessary to tip the balance of power against the Taliban. But this military "surge" must be accompanied with a political one designed to persuade insurgents to give up their fight.

Two new books offer insightful analyses of how to succeed in Afghanistan.

The Taliban and al Qaeda may not pose enough of a threat to the United States to make a long war in Afghanistan worth the costs.

Already the world's preeminent energy and trade interstate seaway, the Indian Ocean will matter even more as India and China enter into a dynamic great-power rivalry in these waters.