Policymakers must act now in order to improve the efficacy of security assistance and cooperation in order to advance American interests.
Stephen Tankel is no longer with the Carnegie Endowment.
Stephen Tankel is an assistant professor at American University and was a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment in the South Asia Program.
His research focuses on insurgency, terrorism, the evolution of nonstate armed groups, political and security issues in South Asia, and U.S. policy responses to these issues. He has published widely on these issues and has conducted field research in Algeria, India, Lebanon, Pakistan, and the Balkans.
Tankel’s new book, Storming the World Stage: The Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba, is published jointly by Hurst & Co. and Columbia University Press.
Policymakers must act now in order to improve the efficacy of security assistance and cooperation in order to advance American interests.
Is scholarship relevant to the policymaker? Is the academy preparing people to go into the policy world?
There is a lot to unpack in terms of how New Delhi and Washington each views Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan.
Indian jihadists have operated for decades, with and without support from Pakistan.
India has been confronting jihadist violence for decades. Yet these dynamics remain underexplored and difficult to comprehend, particularly in terms of ties to external jihadist groups.
The jihadist insurgency will continue to cause problems for Pakistan’s new Chief of Army Staff, General Raheel Sharif.
It is very unlikely that the U.S. decision to kill Hakimullah Mehsud will significantly set back U.S.-Pakistan relations, but drone strikes will remain an impediment.
Given the addition of Pakistanis at senior leader levels in al-Qaeda, there may well be a continued growing focus on the insurgency in Pakistan and possibly on striking foreign targets in India.
Washington’s objective should remain the pursuit of a counterterrorism approach that enables the U.S. to manage and degrade jihadist groups without becoming captive to the threats they pose.
While the United States is fixated on negotiations over Syria’s chemical weapons, other talks of consequence were on the verge of beginning between Pakistan and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.