Case Studies
The Eagle, the Dragon and the Tiger
The world’s geo-economic and geopolitical landscape is changing, especially in Asia. This has a growing impact that extends not only across Central Asia and the Middle East, but also to South-Central Asia, Africa, South America and the United States. These changes represent an ever-quickening shift of the economic centre of gravity away from the United States and European Union toward Asia. Two ancient Asian powers, like slumbering giants, have awoken from a long sleep. China and India, having chosen economic liberalisation, in 1978 and 1991 respectively, are showing unprecedented economic growth, and are rapidly taking on a greater role in the international economy. Continue Reading »
The Dilemma of Intervention
Should outsiders such as the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation intervene in internal wars? The U.N. mission to end wars and promote peace is still an illusory goal that remains as out-of-reach as an ever-shifting mirage in the desert. During the years of the Cold War, the U.N. could not do what it set out to do because of a contest of wills between East and West, with each wanting its system to dominate at the expense of the other. The euphoria at the end of the Cold War gave multi-lateral diplomacy a new thrust. Continue Reading »
Beyond Atrocity
Conflict is like a debilitating disease that slowly invades the body politic. By the time the symptoms are recognised, the disease is often far advanced, leaving a country and its people in pain and trauma. Following the same analogy, conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction are the cure. Continue Reading »
Sierra Leone: A Dream of Freedom
In March 1991, warlord Foday Sankoh of Sierra Leone and the Rebel United Front invaded Sierra Leone from a part of Liberia controlled by Charles Taylor, who then led the insurgent National Patriotic Front of Liberia. It was the beginning of a nine-year civil war. However, the events that led to the war started long before. Continue Reading »
Pakistan and Democracy
A new generation of Islamic militants is on the rise in Pakistan. These are not the Taliban militants forged by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan who controlled the country in the 1990’s. They are not even the Taliban that U.S and international allies drove across Afghanistan’s southern border into Pakistan a month after Islamic militants attacked the World Trade Centre in New York, and the Pentagon in September 2001. This younger generation of Taliban and al-Qaeda Islamic extremists is increasingly impatient with older members whom they do not feel are militant enough. Sadar (2007) says this new generation is responsible for almost daily attacks against the Pakistani army in their quest to cleanse and turn Pakistan into a pure Islamic state. “Their jihad is aimed not just at infidels occupying Afghanistan but also the infidels who are ruling and running Pakistan and maintaining the secular values of Pakistani society” (Sadar, 2007, p. 29). Given the instability that has marked Pakistan these past few months, this neither bodes well for the country nor for the international community. Continue Reading »