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After clicking with left mouse button on book cover, an Amazon page (or publisher's) with book info appears in a new browser window.
Jennifer Hyndman, "Dual Disasters: Humanitarian Aid After the 2004 Tsunami", Kumarian Press, 2010
Nathalène Reynolds, "Le Cachemire dans le conflit indo-pakistanais (1947-2004)", Éditions L'Harmattan, 2005.
Simon Dalby, "Security and Environmental Change", Polity Press, 2009
The variety in opinions on what geopolitics is and how it works means that people have different views on what happens in the world. To present a timely and broad perspective on the possible meanings of geopolitics, the editor has asked the contributors to ExploringGeopolitics what they thought were the most remarkable trends, events and risks in 2010. In this article, geopolitical specialists from Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States cast light on developments in that year.
In the third part, Claude Rakisits and Nathalène Reynolds focus on developments in South Asia during 2010. Please have a look at the other parts for comments on the European Union and other regions/topics:
Various contributors: 2010 Geopolitical Review - trends, events and risks
Mamadouh / Rogers: 2010 Geopolitical Review - European Union
In political, economic, security and environmental terms, the past year was a very bad year for Pakistan. And given Pakistan’s intimate connection with developments in neighbouring Afghanistan, in geopolitical terms this was bad news for the region and beyond.
On the security front, the situation in the country continued to be precarious. While there were slightly fewer deaths from terrorist attacks in 2010 than in the previous year, the number of attacks in Karachi and Lahore, the country’s two largest cities, tripled last year. 2010 was also the first time that a female suicide bomber struck, killing almost 50 civilians. Still on the security front, the US conducted 117 un-manned drone strikes in the tribal areas of western Pakistan – over double the number in 2009, reportedly killing over 800 Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Nevertheless, even with that success, Coalition forces in Afghanistan still suffered an almost 40 per increase in fatalities in 2010 over the previous year.
Domestically, Pakistan suffered the worst floods since independence in 1947. About a fifth of the country was under water, affecting some 20 million people. This natural disaster set the country’s socio-economic development back years. It will cost Pakistan several billions of dollars to reconstruct the country - money it doesn’t have and money the international community will probably not give. This environmental and economic disaster is the last think the country needed, given its already very precarious budgetary situation. This increased economic vulnerability will undoubtedly be exploited by the ever growing Pakistani Taliban threat, thus further frightening domestic and foreign investors away from Pakistan. And the militants’ task will be made that much easier now that the armed forces will need to divert their energy to the reconstruction of the country instead of hunting down the terrorists in the tribal areas.
If the assassination of the Governor of the Punjab in January is anything to go by, it looks like 2011 will be another trying year for the people of Pakistan.
The fragile balance in the Kashmir Valley was once more tested on June 11th 2010.
On that date, a young medical student, Tufail Ahmad Mattoo, died after being accidently hit by a tear-gas grenade. Police personnel had been trying to contain demonstrators. To a population calling for justice to be done, New Delhi and Srinagar responded that they would prioritise the re-establishment of order. A commission of inquiry was tasked with determining responsibility. However this announcement provoked the sarcasm and even anger of many Kashmiris, by experience sceptical as to the likelihood of such a body determining the facts in an impartial manner.
Youth made up the vanguard of popular ire, reminding their elders that resistance was still called for. They thus reinvigorated a civil society that had seemed bereft of ideas. Meanwhile separatist leaders found themselves thrust into the position of speaking out on behalf of the people’s will: all agreed that azaadi (independence) was the order of the day. Youth were employing a strategy tested during the Amarnath movement (June-August 2008). The kani jang (war of stones) was inspired by the Palestinian intifada: using only stones, young men defied the Central Reserve Police Force personnel who were backed up by the Jammu and Kashmir Police.
The repression cost more than a hundred lives in the Valley, while a considerable number of young men were imprisoned. Would an appeasing gesture be forthcoming? New Delhi, incapable of resolving the Kashmiri imbroglio, simply named three distinguished personalities not belonging to any political party as official ‘interlocutors’ (this suitably vague term was employed by the authorities), but they were not granted any clear mandate.
Kashmiris are scarcely unaware of the harsh realities of realpolitik, but were any reminder required, the visit of President Obama to India at the beginning of November 2010 may have served the purpose. The movement thereafter began to lose its momentum.
