Najam Publishes OpEd in The Hill on Trump and South Asia
Adil Najam, Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published an Op-Ed examining how U.S. President Donald Trump’s new Afghanistan strategy will impact South Asia, and specifically how the strategy has been received in Pakistan.
Najam’s Op-Ed, entitled “Trump Triggers New ‘Great Game’ in South Asia,” was published in The Hill on August 29, 2017.
From the text of the article:
For the entirety of the last seven decades — including throughout the Cold War, when India was firmly ensconced as a Soviet ally — the American goal in South Asia was, above all, to maintain regional stability… As of last week, the new American policy is to pit neighbor against neighbor in South Asia.
One day, one hopes, someone will explain to President Trump, like Chinese President Xi Jinping did about why North Korea is “complicated,” why the India-Pakistan relationship really is as fraught with danger as it is.
Meanwhile, an abdication of America’s traditional stabilizing role in South Asia has been announced. Afghanistan that will get kicked around the most, as five of the six largest militaries in the world (China, India, the United States, Russia and Pakistan), all nuclear, jockey for advantage in whatever the new South Asian balance of alliances might become.
Let us all hope that the unimaginable remains unimagined.
Najam was also recently interviewed by several media outlets on the implications of U.S. President Donald Trump’s new Afghanistan strategy, specifically in terms of its possible consequences on US-Pakistan relations.
Adil Najam is the inaugural dean of the Pardee School and is the former Vice Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences in Lahore, Pakistan.