Despite the fact that Malala Yousafzai, the fourteen-year-old Pakistani women's rights activist, survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban, similar attacks against women, like the one in India, are on the rise. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon says that these attacks are efforts to stamp out women's progress and the potential of women worldwide will not be realized if this type of violence is tolerated.
The United States and Pakistan spent most of 2011 and at least half of 2012 lurching from crisis to crisis, their relationship teetering at the edge of an abyss. In recent months, however, moves by Islamabad have raised hopes in Washington that Pakistan might be navigating a "strategic shift" that would restart normal, workmanlike cooperation and, more important, would allow America to escape from its war in Afghanistan.
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey held this press conference on January 10, 2013. They discussed Afghan President Karzai's visit, defense sequestration, and possible chemical weapons in Syria.
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon says that the war in Afghanistan, which has spanned a decade and cost more than 2,000 American lives, has now faded to one key, albeit short-sighted, question: How many U.S. troops will remain after 2014?
A brutal New Delhi gang rape has triggered outrage across India. CFR's Isobel Coleman highlights three things to know about the case, and discusses the larger issue ofviolence against women in the country.
Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes and Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for South Asia Doug Lute held this conference call on January 8, 2013, to preview President Karzai's visit to the White House.
Jerome A. Cohen says, "Beijing's pending prosecution of deposed Politburo member Bo Xilai and the recent murder conviction of his wife, Gu Kailai , have again brought China's criminal justice system to world attention."
Two preeminent experts on the Indian economy argue that despite myriad development strategies, only one can succeed in alleviating poverty: the overall growth of the country's economy.
A thought-provoking study of democratization proposing that the spate of retreating democracies, one after another over the past two decades, is not just a series of exceptions.
Jagdish Bhagwati argues that growth can reduce poverty and that slow economic growth will hurt social development, which he also argues in his new book with Arvind Panagariya, "India's Tryst with Destiny: Debunking Myths that Undermine Progress and Addressing New Challenges."
Women have made strides in Afghanistan since 2001, but huge issues still remain. While the United States focuses on withdrawal, Afghan women are still in the fight and will be long after 2014, says Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.
A precipitious drawdown to 6,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014 would cripple the U.S. counterterrorism mission and Afghan security forces, vastly increasing the risk of a Taliban takeover, says Max Boot.
In the next decade, China will continue to rise, not fade. Its leaders will consolidate the one-party model and, in the process, challenge the West's smug certainty about political development and the inevitable march toward electoral democracy.
Li is far too confident in the benefits of Chinese authoritarianism. So far, what has held China back is not any lack of demand for democracy, but a lack of supply.
A recent essay by Robert Ross characterized the Obama administration's "pivot" to Asia as a hostile, knee-jerk response to Chinese aggression. But the shift was not aimed at any one country; it was an acknowledgment that the United States had underinvested in a strategically significant region.
CFR's Daniel Markey examines the prospects for new talks with the Afghan Taliban, especially given improving relations between the United States and Pakistan.
A conservative and a progressive appear to offer South Koreans sharply different presidential options, but both are likely to pursue similar foreign policy tracks, says CFR's Scott Snyder.
For more on the complex challenges that lie ahead for the world's largest and most rapidly changing continent, visit the Asia Program.
CFR Experts Guide
The Council on Foreign Relations' David Rockefeller Studies Program—CFR's "think tank"—is home to more than seventy full-time, adjunct, and visiting scholars and practitioners (called "fellows"). Their expertise covers the world's major regions as well as the critical issues shaping today's global agenda. Download the printable CFR Experts Guide.
The author analyzes the potentially serious consequences, both at home and abroad, of a lightly overseen drone program and makes recommendations for improving its governance.