Enduring and Emerging Issues in South Asian Security

Analyzing regional challenges and their implications for U.S. foreign policy This book is an impressive overview of security and governance issues in South Asia and their implications for U.S. foreign policy in the region. The focus is on major enduring issues that include India-Pakistan relations, India-China relations, conventional forces, and nuclear weapons. The book's contributors also tackle a number of often underexplored issues, including democratic backsliding in India, authoritarian hardening in China, and the international ramifications of both. The impact of Pakistan's political culture on democracy, and the insurgency in Pakistan's Baluchistan province, along with examinations of the internal security challenges in Nepal, Bangladesh, and the Maldives provide lessons for other states on how to counterviolent extremism and insurgencies related to identity and marginalization. Anyone interested in South Asian security and U.S. policy toward the region will be rewarded with new insights on these topics, written by academics and analysts specializing in the issues. The chapter authors were close colleagues or advisees of long-time Brookings Institution senior fellow Stephen Philip Cohen. Cohen was the first American scholar to work on South Asian security studies. He largely defined the field, trained and mentored many of its leading analysts, and was himself its most experienced and insightful scholar-practitioner until his death in 2019. This book is dedicated to Cohen in recognition of his contributions to scholarship and policymaking on South Asia.

About the Author :
Sumit Ganguly is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science and holds the Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.Dinshaw Mistry is Professor of Political Science and Asian Studies at the University of Cincinnati.

Review :
"Blending academic insight with policy relevance, these essays explore a host of critical governance and security challenges facing contemporary South Asia that have clear implications for U.S. foreign policy. The volume is a fitting tribute by former colleagues and students of Professor Stephen Cohen, who both pioneered the field of South Asian security studies in the United States and counseled successive American administrations on their engagement with the region." --Walter Ladwig III, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, King's College, London "Ganguly and Mistry's Festschrift to Stephen P. Cohen bears the hallmarks of the characteristic sympathy and penetrating analysis that distinguished his own work during his lifetime. The essays in this volume illuminate the diverse security predicaments that bedevil the various South Asian states in ways that are deeply insightful for both scholars and policy practitioners alike--a perfect reflection of Cohen's own oeuvre and his enduring intellectual legacy to South Asian security studies." --Ashley J. Tellis, Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace "Blending academic insight with policy relevance, these essays explore a host of critical governance and security challenges facing contemporary South Asia that have clear implications for U.S. foreign policy. The volume is a fitting tribute by former colleagues and students of Professor Stephen Cohen, who both pioneered the field of South Asian security studies in the United States and counseled successive American administrations on their engagement with the region." --Walter Ladwig III, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, King's College, London "Ganguly and Mistry's Festschrift to Stephen P. Cohen bears the hallmarks of the characteristic sympathy and penetrating analysis that distinguished his own work during his lifetime. The essays in this volume illuminate the diverse security predicaments that bedevil the various South Asian states in ways that are deeply insightful for both scholars and policy practitioners alike--a perfect reflection of Cohen's own oeuvre and his enduring intellectual legacy to South Asian security studies." --Ashley J. Tellis, Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace "In this valuable collection of essays, a group of leading scholars, all of whom were students or colleagues of the late Professor Stephen Cohen, analyze some of the central security challenges facing South Asia. They address long-standing issues such as conventional and nuclear forces, and Sino-Indian and India- Pakistan relations, as well as problems related to political culture, democracy, and internal security, which have previously been underexplored. The volume is a fitting tribute to the legacy of Professor Cohen and his pioneering work in the field of South Asian security studies." --S. Paul Kapur, Professor, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School