Dagestan’s outgoing leader was also once presented as a figure who would instill order in the republic and combat clan rule. Indeed, Ramazan Abdulatipov tried to reform the regional elite. But clan rule, nepotism, corruption, and the threat of terrorism are still there four years later. It has proved impossible to modernize Dagestan without changing the Russian system as a whole.
The unyielding antagonism between India and Pakistan remains one of the greatest tragedies of Asian politics.
India should focus on shaping the outcomes of the U.S.-Pakistan negotiations, since those talks will not only influence the situation in Afghanistan but could also have significant implications for the subcontinent as a whole.
The conflict in Karabakh is the only one in the post-Soviet space where Russia and the West are ready to work together. But none of the mediators are currently discussing the core issues in the dispute.
Planning for the future of Iraq after ISIS will be essential to consolidating coalition successes and avoiding yet another recurrence of insurgency and state failure.
Fundamentally, it seems irrational to leave an agreement that’s working today out of a fixation on potential growth of Iran’s nuclear program more than a decade from now, when such growth could happen tomorrow if we unravel the agreement.
A complete cessation of violence in southeastern Ukraine, the essential first condition of Minsk implementation, requires nothing less than a full-scale peacekeeping operation authorized by the U.N. Security Council.
India will inevitably have to do more in Afghanistan, since the United States will not bear the security burden forever. Any substantive India-U.S. strategic coordination, however, could presage a major change in the regional politics of South Asia.
Seventy years after gaining independence, India is poised to consolidate its dominance in South Asia.
Russia’s proposal for a UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas must be taken seriously. It could provide momentum for more meaningful Minsk process negotiations.