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There seems to be a revival of American interest in Africa. What are the reasons for this? What are the past and current US policies towards the region? Are these interests and policies different from those it had during the Cold War? How do Africans perceive the US? What are the implications of a renewed US interest in Africa for India? These are some of the questions that this Issue Brief attempts to answer.

Pakistan will face severe consequences if they do not change their policies in dealing with terror networks, said Dr. Lisa Curtis during a talk on "US Policy Options in Pakistan" on October 13, 2011 at Observer Research Foundation.

In the face of China's growing assertiveness, the United States' policy toward potential flashpoints is certainly going to play an important role in determining America's role in the Asia-Pacific, according to experts.

As the election reaches its final stages, both candidates have experienced key moments of heightened voter engagement.

Donald Trump has become the most familiar face in the line-up of GOP Presidential hopefuls. Despite his lacklustre performance during the second Republican debate in California, he is leading the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal polls.

It is in India's interests to institute a code of conduct for guiding certain responsible behavior in order to ensure a cleaner, safer, and less congested outer space, and also bringing in certain restraint on China.

Despite the sanctions, Iran has continued to act as a regional power with huge influence over the internal affairs of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain and Yemen. That's what threatens Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf kingdoms, and America's rapproachment with Iran is the beginning of a tectonic shift in the regional balance of power.

The emphasis will be on engagement, competition and cooperation

The growing private space sector is beginning to create new energy and excitement about space.

When China set up the ‘Big Fund’ in 2014, its mandate to companies was chip-making rather than the development of a self-reliant industry based on R&D. This strategy has left gaps in China that the US is now intending to exploit through its new rules. It has introduced a sweeping set of export controls that will make it more difficult for Chinese companies to develop cutting-edge technologies, especially semiconductors.

The US has subjected Pakistan to a unilateral sanctions regime at several crucial junctures in the history of their bilateral ties. Though the reasons for cutting off economic and military aid to Pakistan have been contingent on strategic exigencies prevalent at different points in time and therefore not singular, countering Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions has been a recurring theme. It is widely believed that these sanctions have not been able to

The drastic and sudden drop in Venezuelan and Iranian oil exports to India in 2019-2020, due to the looming threat of US secondary sanctions, is the latest supply chain disruption to India’s energy security. To avoid similar disruptions in the future, India must act decisively to increase its Strategic Petroleum Reserves to meet at least 90 days of emergency oil stocks, and combine lobbying efforts between India’s private and public oil compa

Saying that the rise of China and the declining power of the US hint to a new vacuum, Dr. Arvind Subramanian argues that the US should empower the rise of China rather than contain it. By giving China the necessarily positions in existing multilateral institutions, it would force it to behave as a responsible stakeholder, he says.

The United States' pivot to Asia is real and enduring, according to Professor Jeffrey W Legro, Professor of Politics and Randolph P. Compton Professor in the Miller Center at the University of Virginia.

The India-US joint statement speaks of the convergence of interests of the two countries, with President Obama welcoming India's emergence as a major regional and global power and affirming his country's interest in India's rise.

The benefits that India enjoyed for many years under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) programme of the United States was withdrawn, effective 5 June 2018. India was the largest beneficiary of the programme, of which it has been part since its inception in 1974. This paper evaluates the impact of the withdrawal on specific sectors of Indian exports. For comparison, the paper uses the Harmonized System Code (HS Code) Commodity Classifica

US President Barak Obama's latest "surge" in Af-Pak policy is unlikely to succeed largely because of huge challenges imposed by geography and the seemingly intractable ethnic divisions in Afghanistan makes success

By not railing against Trump, by showing restraint during the VP debate, Harris came across as a woman in control.

In Saudi Arabia, the Biden administration is trying to walk a fine line between a robust interpretation of US interests and a softer definition of US values. For all his flaws, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has embarked on an ambitious and perilous mission to ‘normalise’ Saudi Arabia. The process isn’t democratic and there are times when reform & repression travel side by side.

US did not believe in the view that democracy could accomplish economic growth in Afghanistan. And their preference was authoritarian modernisation rather than through democratic means, according to Stanford University professor Dr. Robert Rakove.

Prominent Japanese scholars feel that the United States' position is changing vis-à-vis China. They also think that Tokyo was wary of the possibility where the US and China might cut a deal.

The strengthening of working relationships with emerging Asian powers like India and Indonesia would form the second element of the United States's rebalancing policy, according to Ms Meera Shankar, former Indian Ambassador to the United States.

The increased interdependence between the various players in the East Asia region is a potential area that needs to be harnessed more effectively to foster the relations and avoid the territorial conflicts and animosity, according to Hitoshi Tanaka of the Japan Research Institute.

The breakdown of high-level communications worrying

It is a reality today that the US-India relationship is on a somewhat arid plateau. It is unable to meet the expectations placed on it and the reason for that is the increasing lack of what can be called "strategic trust" between New Delhi and Washington.

At a conference on 'Building Pan Asian Connectivity' in Kolkata, US Ambassador to India Richard Verma has said the Asia policy of the United States and India's Act East policy can work in complementary ways to increase regional trade and growth.

India and the United States, as established space-faring nations, should work together to clearly and publicly define what behavior the international community should find both acceptable and unacceptable,

The jury is still out on the likely purchase of the much talked of ShinMaywa US 2i — the Japanese amphibious airplane by India for Navy

The US-Africa Leaders' Summit in Washington D.C from August 4 to 6 attracted considerable international media attention for various reasons. To begin with, for the US, it was a first of its kind.

Cyber security has taken a front seat in the U.S.-China relations, as seen in the last two high level bilateral meetings. The California summit in June 2013 and the recently held U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) V in July 2013 were dominated by cyber issues.

China may soon find it difficult to source semiconductors specific to the development of artificial intelligence, expanding on US export control measures announced in October 2022. The US is preparing to constrain access of Chinese companies to US cloud-computing services.

US-China relations have been rocky since 2018 when the two sides started a tariff war and the US began to restrict the export of semiconductors to China. And then came Covid-19 and as the situation in the US deteriorated, rhetoric against China began to rise. It has been opportunistic, driven by the hope that it would make the electorate overlook shoddy handling of the pandemic by the Trump administration.

The average tariff rate for WTO member countries was down to nine per cent in 2013.

A proposal by Nobel economists to resolve the trade war ignores the whole point of having a global trading system.

The US has done some serious weight-lifting to break down its own barriers to closer defence ties with India, and has taken away the plank that it isn't sincere. Can India do the same? Dr. Carter and his team have left a legacy which can be built upon. It is just the end of the beginning.

The United States-India relations reached a high point when the two countries signed the Civil Nuclear Agreement in 2005. But since then, relations between the two countries have drifted. Both the countries must move ahead to build trust and cooperation in other areas.

Washington needs to understand that India-US partnership is not about democracy or common values but about common interests. The real strategic glue in the relationship is the common concern in maintaining some sort of balance in the larger Asian region in the context of China's rise.