The Eurasian Sand Table

After Iraq Part 3: American Eclipse
by Arthur Waldron, Ph.D

Published on December 16th, 2006
Quite unexpectedly American difficulties in Iraq are precipitating a shift in the entire world situation which though long in the making will nevertheless be disconcerting for all concerned.

A New Era in Sino-Indian Relations or Deja-vu All Over Again?
by June Teufel Dreyer, Ph.D

Published on January 19th, 2008
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s mid-January visit to Beijing produced the standard cant of high level diplomatic exchanges, dutifully repeated by the media and several Western analysts.  Singh, who received a red carpet welcome at the Beijing airport, said that bilateral ties were now poised to enter a “vibrant and dynamic phase,” and that India attached high priority to strengthening its relations with China, which was a focal point in its Look East policy. Disputes, said Singh, could be solved in the Asian way of avoiding confrontation while building trust, confidence, and consensus. China and India, echoed India’s minister of trade and industry, were now seen as the engines of economic growth by the rest of the world.  Particularly since the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States and other factors engendered fear of an economic recession in the west, investors’ hopes had turned to Asia.

Foreign Aid and the Fight Against Terrorism and Proliferation: Leveraging Foreign Aid to Achieve U.S. Policy Goals
Testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs
by Douglas Farah

Published on July 31st, 2008
There is growing recognition that there is no purely military solution in the fight against terrorism, whether the use of this tactic is driven by religion (radical Islamism), ideology and nationalism (Tamil Tigers), control of natural resources or “honey pots” (multipronged wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo, recent wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia) or a mixture of these elements (The FARC in Colombia, Taliban in Afghanistan, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the janjaweed in Sudan). Our approach to combating terrorism, and the aid we give, is often limited by our confinement to dealing with individual states as entirely separate entities. But this is an increasingly unsustainable.

Nuclear Proliferation: The Next Wave
by Arthur Waldron, Ph.D

Published on August 17th, 2008
On May 11, 1998 India tested a thermonuclear bomb. A short while later I found myself in India discussing this and other events with the then Minister of Defense George Fernandes. The talking point from Washington was that India had done this to warn Pakistan. Fernandes was careful to refute this specifically telling me that the bomb was intended to deter China and that suitable delivery systems would follow. To drive the point home he stated that the Prime Minister had specifically authorized him to state that the Chinese threat and not Pakistan was driving the Indian nuclear and defense program, then just entering its current phase of impressive modernization.

Iran In The Western Hemisphere
Oral Testimony Before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs
by Douglas Farah

Published on October 27th, 2009
I believe the growing influence of Iran is a significant threat to the United States and is an under-reported part of the equation that is driving the instability and uncertainty in Latin America, from the crisis in Honduras to the rapidly-closing space for democratic freedoms in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and elsewhere where the Bolivarian revolution has gained a foothold.

The Enemy of Hegemony is My Friend: Pakistan’s de facto ‘Alliance’ with China
Testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee
by John Tkacik

Published on July 26th, 2011
Since the successful elimination on May 1st of al Qaeda chieftain Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and Pakistan’s official expressions of unhappiness with America’s perceived violations of Pakistan’s sovereignty, there has been considerable speculation in the news media that somehow China recently has begun to eclipse the United States as Pakistan’s most important ally. This is unfounded, unrealistic and betrays a lack of understanding of Pakistan’s strategic relationship with China.  China has always been Pakistan’s most important strategic ally, and the intensity of Pakistan’s relationship with the United States has always been a subset of Pakistan’s all-consuming strategic calculus about India.

Mongolia Moves Toward Europe and Implications for the OSCE
Testimony for The U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (U.S. Helsinki Commission)
by John Tkacik

Published on October 12th, 2011
On the question of Mongolia's application for status as a participating state in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Mongolia has become even more important geopolitically – in every way – to America’s and Europe’s security.  The imperative of giving Mongolia status as a participating OSCE state lies in its geopolitical importance in Eurasia, specifically as a moderating influence in relations between Russia and China.Mongolians themselves are acutely sensitive to their role as a buffer between Eurasia’s two most massive powers. They understand the absolute necessity of not allowing their land to become a satellite of either great power lest the other great power seek to rebalance in the opposite direction. Mongolians descriptively call their strategy the “Third Neighbor Policy.”

The Challenge of Failed and Failing States, The Muslim Brotherhood and Radical Islam*
by Douglas Farah

Published on July 11th, 2007
The emergence of a generation of radical Islamist movements, the root of which is the Muslim Brootherhood, is fueld by twin, seemlingly contradictory phenomena: global integration through free trade, the dawn of the Internet age and mass migrations; and global disintegration as states implode, government structures fracture under the accumulated scourges of corruption, poverty and renewed ethnic rivalries, and the massive traffic in small weapons that gives more and more groups the possibility of waging conflict at very little cost.

“To Our Great Detriment”
Ignoring What Extremists Say About Jihad
by Stephen C. Coughlin, Esq.

Published on July 2nd, 2007
In comments made at the National Defense University on 1 December 2005, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace explained to his audience the importance of “understand[ing] the nature of the enemy” if we hope to defeat jihadi extremists.  Comparing our situation today, with that faced by an earlier generation who had to deal with the reality of the Nazi threat, General Pace suggested a simple solution to complying with his injunction:  “read what our enemies have said.  Remember Hitler….  He said in writing exactly what his plan was that we collectively ignored to our great detriment (emphasis added).”  Just as we ignored Hitler’s articulation of his strategic doctrine in Mein Kampf, so too are we on the verge of suffering a similar fate today, if we fail to seriously assess the extremist threat based on jihadi strategic doctrine.