Policy Options in Pakistan and Bangladesh

In her chapter in ‘Strategic Asia 2008-9’, Polly Nayak outlines U.S. policy options in Pakistan and Bangladesh, the world’s second and fourth most populous Muslim countries respectively.  She does this by first determining how the two countries’ “grand strategies and domestic dynamics are affecting U.S. counterterrorism, stability, and democracy goals” in the region. At a time when U.S.-Pakistan relations are under immense strain, Nayak offers a useful roadmap to improving relations between the two allies.  She effectively argues that until the United States recognizes and addresses Pakistan’s underlying security concerns vis a vis her neighbours, it will fail to secure Pakistan’s full cooperation in the ‘war on terror’.  In Bangladesh, which she warns might follow Pakistan’s trajectory in the rise of Islamic extremism, U.S. policy options “differ little from those for Pakistan: more training of local security forces in counterterrorism and counter-insurgency, more cooperation with Bangladesh’s neighbors on counterterrorism and intelligence, and a more direct U.S. role in tracking or apprehending militants” Download Chapter [PDF]