Time's Battleland: Future grand strategists speak: Why US withdrawal from Afghanistan would stabilize Pakistan
Tuesday, June 21, 2011 at 6:15AM
In my continuing role as Head Judge for the online strategy community Wikistrat's month-long International Grand Strategy Competition featuring roughly 30 teams from top-flight universities and think tanks around the world, I get to peruse all manner of provocative thought from some of tomorrow's best and brightest thinkers. And yeah, full disclosure, I get paid to judge as the firm's chief analyst.
Well, this last week, our participating teams drew up elaborate national trajectories and regional trajectories for their 13 countries (Brazil, China, EU, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Turkey and US), and the two entries that really jumped out at me in their immediate dueling were the two Pakistani teams populated with grad students from Claremont Graduate University (CA) and Yale (CT). Let me tell you why.
Read the entire post at Time's Battleland.
Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, US foreign policy, terrorism | in Time's Battleland, Wikistrat | Email Article | Permalink | Print Article 
Reader Comments (1)
I think there is a glaring omission from the list of participants. There does not seem to be adequate representation from Sub-Saharan Africa. South Africa is not typical of Sub-Saharan Africa and the mindset of the educated South African (white or black) is miles apart from other Sub-Saharan Africans.
I visited South African twice last year and I was struck by how "European" the intelligentsia was. I had to explain myself to them because they just "don't get" Sub-Saharan Africa. (Very few Sub-Saharan African countries have a constitution that guarantees equal rights to all irrespective of sexual orientation).
Secondly, there is a phenomena playing out in Sub-Saharan Africa that has been largely ignored by the media - the competition between Christianised ethnic groups and the Islamised ethnic groups. This is the genesis of the problem in Ivory Coast, North and South Sudan and the intermittent communal clashes in Nigeria. It was also reflected in the results of the last Nigerian presidential election. A team from either Nigeria, Ghana or Ivory Coast could have explained these problems better. They would have also explained better how battles for resource control affect local governance, conflict and international politics.
Thirdly, is there really no team from the Arab World or is this an omission?