Papers presented at a seminar organized by the Centre for Policy Research, March 1986.

This book critically examines how US foreign policy has produced a regional regime of instability and insecurity in South Asia and the Middle East. It focuses on three interconnected zones of conflict—Afghanistan and Pakistan in South Asia, Iran and the Persian Gulf states, and Iraq and its neighbours. In a comprehensive historical survey, this work compares the governing behaviour of these states with that of the West, where the American foreign policy establishment has, in contrast, pushed for investing in collective security. The author studies various events throughout history such as the Taliban regime; the US-led war in Afghanistan; the Obama administration and Pakistan; the first and second Gulf wars; the Arab Spring, and the rise of ISIS to present a theoretical analysis of Washington’s consistent pursuit of multibalancing and regime change wars in the region. An important critical assessment of Western foreign policies, this book will be indispensable for students and researchers of US foreign policy, defense and security studies, strategic affairs, politics and international relations, political economy, nation-state building, identity studies, globalization studies, Middle East studies, and South Asian studies.

A perfect storm of economic, diplomatic, and cultural concerns have brought about the Asianization of Asia, uniting the continent's many countries under a dominant framework of interests and trends. Pushing Asia's domain even further is a new and abiding relationship between Asia's three most industrialized economies and the Persian Gulf's six monoarchies. What began as a basic, twentieth-century marriage of convenience, founded on the trading of hydrocarbon, has now evolved into a complex, long-term commitment guaranteeing continuous exchange of resources and need. This bond has also strengthened the non-hydrocarbon, bilateral trade that facilitates wealth investments on both sides, building lucrative opportunities for Pacific-Asian contruction and, in China's case, its vast forces of labor. Christopher Davidson, an acclaimed expert on the Middle East's rapidly changing economy, details the eastern and western factors that have brought Asia and the Gulf closer together. Athough this relationship has yet to include military arrangements, evidence suggests that the two regions have bolstered other noneconomic ties.Davidson unravels the confusing links between these emerging powers and shows how their unique economic, political, geographical, and cultural identities both strengthen and threaten their future partnership.

The work focuses on the Persian Gulf and South Asian States (PGSAS), including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and The Gulf Cooperation Council States. Recognized as the site for the rise of radical Islam, terrorism, inter-state wars, nuclear proliferation, and civil wars, the region has become a threat to global security. Yet, there still lacks an grand strategy to build a regional security community in the region, which should be treated as a political unit in need of stable and interdependent alliance. After discussing the concept of security community, the authors investigate the role of international institutions and U.S. policies in the (in)security of the region. It argues that the U.S. should invest in creating a security community in the region as it did in post War Europe, concluding that this would be a feasible and practical solution to current insecurity not only in the region but also in the world. Written by experts, this timely work will appeal to anyone studying issues of international security as well as the politics of South Asia and the Gulf States.

This study examines the increasing involvement, since the end of the Cold War, of the United States in the security of the Persian Gulf and South Asian states (PGSAS). By comparing policy objectives with outcomes, the project finds that U.S. policy requires strategic altruism rather than divide-and-conquer realism, because the unintended consequences of the U.S.'s approach have been the creation of a pervasive insecurity regime--not only for the region, but also for the United States. The authors examine the specific policy areas of military security, economics and development, and democracy and human rights, and suggest that the needs to U.S. reconceptualise its grand strategy for the region as a security community, with the region's specific characteristics carefully considered. Written by experts, this timely work will appeal to anyone studying international security and foreign policy, as well as the politics of South Asia and the Gulf States.

South Asians constitute the largest expatriate population in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Their contribution in the socio-economic, technological and educational development of GCC nations is immense. This book offers one of the first systematic analysis of South Asia–Gulf migration dynamics and its varied impact on countries such as India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It deals with public policy, socio-economic mobility, remittance policy, global financial crisis and labour issues. Bringing together essays from contributors from around the world, the volume reveals not only the multi-dimensionality of the migration process between the two regions, but also the diversity and the underlying unity of the South Asian countries. This book will be invaluable to scholars and students of migration studies, development studies and sociology as well as policy-makers, administrators, academics, and non-governmental organisations in the field.

An absorbing comparison of 'the Islams' of Arabia and South Asia and how they interact through the vectors of trade, politics and migration.