Xi Jinping’s Pakistan visit: what’s left behind?

By Filippo Boni. The long-awaited visit has finally taken place. Xi Jinping’s first official visit abroad this year was to Islamabad, previously postponed due to the September 2014 dharna (sit-in) organised by Imran Khan’s PTI.  “I feel as if I am going to visit the home of my brother” said Xi Jinping ahead of his …

Water Security in Asia

In 2011 Anatol Lieven wrote that the ‘greatest source of long-term danger to Pakistan’ was dependence on the river Indus and climate change in general. Lieven was in no doubt that water security was a far greater than that of Islamic extremism. The politics of water, one of the major aspects of water security, are complex, far …

Ethnic Autonomy in South Asia – a road to secession?

As the debate over the Scottish referendum hots up this week, in my inaugural lecture this Thursday 20th Feb I consider the arguments made against granting autonomy to territorially concentrated groups (often termed ‘ethnofederalism’) because of the perceived dangers of increasing pressures for secession.  These arguments are prevalent in political discourse and were deployed against …

Rights, Wrongs and Drones

IAPS was delighted to welcome Dr Peter Lee, Principal Lecturer in Military Ethics and Assistant Director (Academic) for Portsmouth Business School at Royal Air Force College Cranwell on the 6th February 2014.  Dr Lee gave a lecture on Rights, Wrongs and Drones: The Moral Standing of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In …