Confrontation in Kashmir: India and Pakistan After the Line of Control Clashes

Speakers: Christopher Clary, University at Albany, State University of New York, Vipin Narang, Massachussetts Institute of Technology, Rajan Menon, City College of New York

1302 International Affairs

On September 29, 2016 the Indian military claimed it had conducted “surgical strikes” against alleged terrorist training camps on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control dividing Kashmir. The strikes, following a terrorist attack on a military base on the Indian side of the Lone of Control, have been a major source of contention between the two sides, with Pakistan denying the strikes even took place. This confrontation has brought Indo-Pakistani relations to its lowest point in years, with some analysts voicing concerns about the potential for further escalation. On October 11th the Saltzman Institute will convene a panel of three experts on the region to discuss the situation and the risks it poses.

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Panelists:

Christopher Clary is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the University at Albany, State University of New York. He was p His research focuses on the sources of cooperation in interstate rivalries, the causes and consequences of nuclear proliferation, U.S. defense policy, and the politics of South Asia. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, a predoctoral fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University (2014-2015), a Stanton Nuclear Security Predoctoral Fellow at the RAND Corporation (2013-2014), and a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow in India (2009). Clary also served as country director for South Asian affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (2006–2009), a research associate at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California (2003–2005), and a research assistant at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, D.C. (2001–2003). He received his PhD in Political Science from MIT, an MA in National Security Affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School, and a BA in History and International Studies from Wichita State University.

Vipin Narang is Mitsui Career Development Associate Professor of Political Science at MIT and a member of MIT’s Security Studies Program. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Government, Harvard University in May 2010, where he was awarded the Edward M. Chase Prize for the best dissertation in international relations. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in chemical engineering with distinction from Stanford University and an M. Phil with Distinction in international relations from Balliol College, Oxford University, where he studied on a Marshall Scholarship. He has been a fellow at Harvard University’s Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, a predoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and a Stanton junior faculty fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. His research interests include nuclear proliferation and strategy, South Asian security, and general security studies. His first book Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era (Princeton University Press, 2014) on the deterrence strategies of regional nuclear powers won the 2015 ISA International Security Studies Section Best Book Award.

Rajan Menon holds the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Chair in Political Science at the City College of New York/City University of New York and is a Senior Research Scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University and a Global Ethics Fellow at the Carnegie Council on Ethics in International Affairs. Previously he was the Monroe J. Rathbone Professor and Chairman in the Department of International Relations at Lehigh University. He has been a Fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC, an Academic Fellow and Senior Adviser at the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Director for Eurasia Policy Studies at the Seattle-based National Bureau for Asian Research (NBR). He has taught at Columbia University and Vanderbilt University and served as Special Assistant for Arms Control and National Security to Congressman Stephen J. Solarz (D-NY), while an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, of which he is a member. He was selected as a Carnegie Scholar (2002-2003) and has also received fellowships and grants from the Woodrow Wilson Center, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Rockefeller Foundation, the John D and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the US Institute of Peace. His current work concerns American foreign and national security policy, international security, globalization, and the international relations of Asia and Russia and the other post-Soviet states.

Austin Long, moderator, is an Associate Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs and a Member of the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies and the Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies at Columbia University. He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Dr. Long was previously an Associate Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation. He was an analyst and adviser to the U.S. military in Iraq (2007-2008) and Afghanistan (2011 and 2013). In 2014-2015, he was a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow in Nuclear Security, serving in the Joint Staff J5 (Strategic Plans and Policy) Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Policy Division. Dr. Long’s research has appeared in International Security, Security Studies, the Journal of Strategic Studies, the Journal of Cold War Studies, Orbis, and Survival. He is the author of The Soul of Armies: Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Military Culture in the United States and United Kingdom (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016). Dr. Long received his B.S. from the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.