Dr Qaisar Rashid

Americans — the citizens of the US — face a problem in understanding the issues ravaging foreign lands, not only because of the absence of domestic counterparts and even analogies of such issues in the American (or the US’) national experience, but also because the input to the foreign policy has come from other than […]

During his presidential two tenures from January 2009 to January 2017, Barack Obama, the first black President of America, has done marvellous things except addressing the race question. This is the central idea of Michael Eric Dyson’s book, “The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America,” published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, […]

It is convincing enough to assume that there exists the post-American Middle East, which has created a power — geo-political — vacuum to entice Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey to compete with the dwindling influence of the US there. The battle for Syria is one such example where external forces are contending to […]

With the margins of society becoming volatile, revolts from the margins are threatening peace in the core of society. This is the central thesis of Paul Rogers’ book, “Irregular War: ISIS and the new threat from the margins,” published by I.B.Tauris in 2016. Rogers is the Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University and Global […]

Certain forces govern politico-economic matters of the world from behind the curtain. This is the central idea of John Pilger’s book, The New Rulers of the World, the new edition of which has been published by Verso in 2016. Pilger is a veteran Australian journalist and a war correspondent. He has twice won the highest […]

A conflict pitting a rising power — China — against a dominant one — the United States (US) — could be forestalled through strategic reassurance. James Steinberg and Michael E. O’Hanlon postulate this as a central theme in their book, “Strategic reassurance and resolve: US-China relations in the Twenty-First Century”. In conjunction with O’Hanlon who […]

The United States (US) has been fast losing the American century since 1945 despite still dominating the world. This is the central theme of Noam Chomsky’s book, Who Rules the World? published by Penguin Random House in 2016. Chomsky is an author of numerous best-selling books, a professor emeritus of linguistics and philosophy at the […]

Geography is still the final determinant of a country’s success is the central theme of the book, The revenge of geography: What the map tells us about coming conflicts and the battle against fate, written by Robert D Kaplan, and published in 2013 by Random House. Kaplan, who is a senior fellow at the Centre […]

On October 20, Hassan Abbas, a constable rank officer of the Frontier Constabulary (FC) deployed as a security guard at a building of the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), Karachi, slapped Saima Kanwal, a female anchorperson/reporter of a Karachi-based local TV channel, K-21. The general argument about this incident being bandied about on social […]

The Simla Agreement was signed between Pakistan and India on July 2, 1972 and, in October 2016, the agreement is over 44 years old. For the sake of discussion, the agreement can be divided into two parts. One part is related to the nature of relations between Pakistan and India whereas the other part is […]