The Council on Foreign Relations sponsors Independent Task Forces to assess issues of current and critical importance to U.S. foreign policy and provide policymakers with concrete judgments and recommendations. Diverse in backgrounds and perspectives, Task Force members aim to reach a meaningful consensus on policy through private and non-partisan deliberations. Once launched, Task Forces are independent of CFR and solely responsible for the content of their reports. Task Force members are asked to join a consensus signifying that they endorse "the general policy thrust and judgments reached by the group, though not necessarily every finding and recommendation." Each Task Force member also has the option of putting forward an additional or a dissenting view. Members' affiliations are listed for identification purposes only and do not imply institutional endorsement. Task Force observers participate in discussions, but are not asked to join the consensus. --Book Jacket.

Compares the reasons for and the responses to the insurgencies in Afghanistan and Pakistan since October 2001. Also examines the lack of security and the support of insurgent groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan since the 1970s that explain the rise of the Pakistan-supported Taliban. Explores the border tribal areas between the two countries and how they influence regional stability and U.S. security. Explains the implications of what happened during this 10-year period to provide candid insights on the prospects and risks associated with bringing a durable stability to this area of the world.

This book makes a compelling case that lethal drone deployment as a counterterrorism tool and instrument of statecraft in targeted states engenders far-reaching consequences for US grand strategy. By examining how successive US administrations since 9/11 have deployed drones in pursuant of different typologies of US grand strategic objectives, the book probes the putative political and strategic goals drones supposedly advance, and the impact of its continued proliferation for US for international security. The book provides a powerful base of evidence for policy makers and researchers by pointing to the perils of deployment of drone technology beyond their immediate or short-term objectives. It also explores how non-state actors and authoritarian regimes such as armed groups are harnessing armed drone technologies for their own political and military ends, as well as the underlying implications for US grand strategy and international security at large.

The landscape of the Middle East has changed dramatically since 2011, as have the political arena and the discourse around democracy. In Islam and Democracy after the Arab Spring, John L. Esposito, John Voll, and Tamara Sonn examine the state of democracy in Muslim-majority societies today. Applying a twenty-first century perspective to the question of whether Islam is "compatible" with democracy, they redirect the conversation toward a new politics of democracy that transcends both secular authoritarianism and Political Islam. While the opposition movements of the Arab Spring vary from country to country, each has raised questions regarding equality, economic justice, democratic participation, and the relationship between Islam and democracy in their respective countries. Does democracy require a secular political regime? Are religious movements the most effective opponents of authoritarian secularist regimes? Esposito, Voll, and Sonn examine these questions and shed light on how these opposition movements reflect the new global realities of media communication and sources of influence and power. Positioned for a broad readership of scholars and students, policy-makers, and media experts, Islam and Democracy after the Arab Spring will quickly become a go-to for all who watch the Middle East, inside and outside of academia.

Explicating the pre- and post-Bin Laden Pakistan, Imtiaz Gul relooks at questions plaguing the nation: Why and how this country became home to the world’s most wanted terrorist? Bin Laden’s escape from the Tora Bora Mountains in Eastern Afghanistan in December 2001 to his last hideout in Abbottabad, and to find answers to the dozens of questions surrounding his stay in Pakistan as well as the US blitz raid in the wee hours of 2 May 2011. Had the world’s most wanted person at all been living in Pakistan for all those years, how did he manage to stay undetected, together with his big family, including an eight-month-old son? Who from within the security establishment provided the safety network to the family? What stakes did the Pakistan Army and the ISI have at all – if they were complicit – in protecting him? Why did Bin Laden fascinate certain people and groups within Pakistan? Pakistan: Before and After Osama is an attempt to analyze present-day Pakistan in the light of two narratives – one stitched together in Washington and the other woven in Pakistan – about the checkered history of its relations with Pakistan and its involvement in the region, and how differences over how to tackle Al Qaeda and its local affiliates continue to sour and strain the ties between the two long-time ‘allies’.

The focus on the war in Afghanistan has prevented the United States from developing a South Asia strategy rooted in the relative strategic importance of the nations in the region. India, a stable democracy enjoying rapid growth, clearly has the most potential as a strategic partner. Pakistan, as the home of al Qaeda leadership and over 60 nuclear weapons, is the greatest threat to regional stability and growth. Yet Afghanistan absorbs the vast majority of U.S. effort in the region. The United States needs to develop a genuine regional strategy. This paper argues that making the economic growth and social reform essential to the stability of Pakistan a higher priority than the conflict in Afghanistan is a core requirement of such a strategy.