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Tuesday April 23, 2024
Rizwan Asghar
Rizwan Asghar

  • May 07, 2018

    Explaining war

    One of the many puzzles in conflict studies is that wars cost blood as well as treasure; but they occur nonetheless. Why do states go to war even...

  • January 04, 2018

    An ungrateful friend

    In his first tweet of the year, US President Donald Trump has accused Pakistan of providing safe havens to terrorist organisations and of repeatedly...

  • December 31, 2017

    Perceptual dilemmas

    South Asia is home to more than one-fifth of the world’s population, making it one of the most populous geographical regions in the world....

  • December 27, 2017

    Living with a nuclear North Korea

    The global community has spent almost three decades trying to prevent the Kim regime in North Korea from moving its fingers towards the nuclear...

  • November 18, 2017

    A world without nukes

    At long last, the advocates of nuclear disarmament have a reason to be optimistic about their journey towards achieving the goals of the Nuclear...

  • October 23, 2017

    Trump’s North Korea rhetoric

    A general sense of political uncertainty has loomed the past few weeks as US President Donald Trump continued his abusive and dangerous rhetoric...

  • October 23, 2017

    Trump’s North Korea rhetoric

    A general sense of political uncertainty has loomed the past few weeks as US President Donald Trump continued his abusive and dangerous rhetoric...

  • October 16, 2017

    The North Korea rhetoric

    A general sense of political uncertainty looms as US President Donald Trump continues his abusive and dangerous rhetoric over the ongoing nuclear...

  • October 05, 2017

    The nuclear taboo

    The US, along with eight other nuclear-armed states, remains unable to reduce reliance on threats to use nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, continued...

  • September 16, 2017

    Another push for the CTBT

    Over the past two decades, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization has emerged as one of the top-tier international organisations with an...

  • September 07, 2017

    North Korea’s nuclear test

    After conducting its sixth and significantly more powerful nuclear test, North Korea’s regime has left little doubt that it is on a collision...

  • September 02, 2017

    Nuclear North Korea

    As a student of the politics of nuclear non-proliferation, the possibility of a nuclear apocalypse causing the collapse of human civilisation on...

  • August 23, 2017

    A dangerous liability

    As of today, nine countries in the world are recognised as possessing nuclear weapons. These countries collectively have a total of 14,900 nuclear...

  • August 08, 2017

    The threat remains

    Something changed forever when the US dropped atomic weapons on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in August 1945. On the 72nd...

  • August 01, 2017

    Predicting proliferation

    One of the basic tenets of the realist theory of international politics is that power is based on the military capabilities and states always build...

  • July 24, 2017

    Revisiting the FMCT

    In 1963, President Kennedy highlighted the threats posed by the possession and the very existence of nuclear weapons and called for a global effort...

  • July 14, 2017

    Banning nuclear testing

    “The wars of the modern age teach us this truth. Hiroshima teaches us this truth. Technological progress without an equivalent progress in...

  • July 05, 2017

    Delegitimising nukes

    On January 24, 1946, the UN General Assembly adopted its first resolution which called for “the elimination from national armaments of atomic...

  • June 25, 2017

    Moving forward on the CTBT

    This year marks the 18th anniversary of the rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by the US Senate in October 1999. During these 18 years,...

  • June 07, 2017

    India’s unchecked ambitions

    Pakistan, with one of the largest armed forces in the world, is home to more than 200 million people. According to most recent estimates, Pakistan...

  • May 18, 2017

    After Pokhran-II

    Concerns about the proliferation of nuclear weapons began to emerge after the Chinese acquisition of nuclear capabilities in the early 1960s....

  • May 05, 2017

    Without a solution

    North Korea continues to expand its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, but the world remains clueless on how to deal with the rogue regime...

  • April 27, 2017

    The case for a nuclear ban treaty

    Nuclear states are not ready to recognise the threat posed by nuclear power and remain unwilling to pursue ‘good-faith negotiations’...

  • April 16, 2017

    The idea of politics

    Until the late 1980s, the inter-paradigm debate in the international relations theory largely focused on the distribution of material power in...

  • April 05, 2017

    Towards non-proliferation

    Global efforts to halt the quantitative and qualitative nuclear arms race by preventing nuclear weapons testing started less than a decade after the...

  • March 16, 2017

    How the US Congress works

    What motivates congressional behaviour? How do members of the US Congress make decisions? These are the questions that have persistently failed to...

  • March 12, 2017

    The power of global institutions

    As the world finds itself in a phase of transition from the post-cold war, US-led unipolar international order to a multi-polar or non-polar global...

  • March 07, 2017

    Realism is not obsolete

    Since the end of World War I, realism has broadly been viewed as an over-arching paradigm in the discipline of international relations. Many other...

  • March 02, 2017

    The climate change divide

    What prevents cooperation on climate change? In my previous column, ‘Failure on climate change’ , I tried to address this question by...

  • February 25, 2017

    Whither the American party system?

    It would not be wrong to say that the complexities of modern democratic systems cannot be comprehended without a firm understanding of the role of...

  • February 21, 2017

    Failure on climate change

    Global warming is a serious and immediate threat that the survival of humanity is facing today. Substantial scientific evidence indicates that our...

  • February 15, 2017

    Demystifying political representation

    Political representation is one of the most elusive concepts in political science literature, with many facets and theoretical complexities....

  • February 11, 2017

    The myth of a post-racial America

    Over the past few decades, scholars and political pundits have debated whether race and ethnicity matter to American politics. During this period,...

  • February 03, 2017

    Can trade prevent war?

    The world has experienced a dramatic increase in economic trade and exchange between states over the past few decades. This increased economic...

  • January 26, 2017

    Why do wars happen?

    Part - II Rational choice scholars propose that the failure of states to seek options short of war can be explained by a series of rational...

  • January 25, 2017

    Why do wars happen?

    Part - I One of many puzzles in conflict studies is that wars cost blood as well as treasure, but nonetheless they occur. Why do states go to war...

  • January 18, 2017

    A secure nuclear order

    The successful test-firing of the submarine-launched, nuclear-capable cruise missile Babur-III has made many people in our strategic community feel...

  • January 03, 2017

    Securing peace

    Millions of people in Pakistan and India live below the poverty line but our governments are too busy building a massive number of nuclear weapons...

  • December 30, 2016

    Nuclear Pakistan

    Pakistan continues to strengthen and expand its nuclear capabilities – diversifying weapons, fielding new delivery vehicles and accumulating...

  • December 20, 2016

    Democracy in the dock

    Authoritarian regimes in many countries often take decisions that prove to be disastrous for the political and economic well-being of millions of...

  • December 14, 2016

    Islamophobia in the US

    “Islamophobia has become so mainstream in this country that Americans have been trained to expect violence against Muslims – not excuse...

  • November 30, 2016

    The age of Trump

    “The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about...

  • November 23, 2016

    No exception for India

    India’s hopes of becoming the newest member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group have, finally, been quashed after the end of the inconclusive...

  • November 16, 2016

    Trump’s America

    The whole world stood still in shock last week as Americans elected Donald Trump as their 45th president. If this election has proved one thing, it...

  • November 02, 2016

    A historic vote

    The UN made history last week when it voted to start negotiations for a global ban on nuclear weapons. For the first time since the advent of the...

  • October 05, 2016

    India’s dangerous moves

    If there is one thing that made the peaceful end of the cold-war period possible, it is that the nuclear powers always behaved responsibly and never...

  • September 27, 2016

    No one wins

    The international community remains on edge as Pakistan and India have spent most of the past week exchanging accusations and war threats. In the...

  • September 13, 2016

    Nuclear North Korea

    There is little doubt left in the minds of nuclear scholars that North Korea has become a full-fledged nuclear weapons state. North Korea,...

  • August 23, 2016

    Nuclear disorder

    As Pakistan renews its proposal for a bilateral agreement on non-testing of nuclear weapons, the world community remains mum on the issue. This...

  • August 01, 2016

    On nuclear non-use

    The US, along with eight other nuclear-armed states, remains unable to reduce reliance on threats to use nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, continued...