CFR’s New Multimedia Crisis Guide Explores Pakistan’s Problems, Future

Beset by devastating floods, increased terror attacks, and political instability, Pakistan’s precarious state is a matter of global concern. “Crisis Guide: Pakistan,” the Council on Foreign Relations’ (CFR) new interactive multimedia feature, examines the roots of the country’s challenges: an increasing number of terrorist groups; a growing nuclear arsenal that could become vulnerable to these groups; a long-standing rivalry with India and troubled border with conflict-ridden Afghanistan; and the ongoing power struggle between a strong military and a weak civilian government. The guide draws on expert analysis to demonstrate what these problems mean for the region and the world, and to explore potential directions for the country.

The interactive presentation includes video interviews with more than twenty-five leading analysts, government officials, and journalists from Pakistan, India, and the United States. They include:

—General David H. Petraeus, commander, U.S. Forces, Afghanistan

—Shahid Javed Burki, former finance minister of Pakistan

—Pervez Hoodbhoy, an Islamabad-based nuclear physicist and political analyst

—Radha Kumar, a peace and conflict resolution specialist in New Delhi

—Daniel Markey, CFR senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia

The guide’s six chapters include:

—a cinematic overview of Pakistan’s challenges;

—interactive timelines exploring the country’s history, its contentious civil-military relations, and its tumultuous ties with the United States;

—an  interactive map surveying Pakistan’s troubled relations with its neighbors; and

—an expert review of the five most-discussed scenarios for Pakistan’s future—state collapse, the rise of radical Islamist ideologies, a return to authoritarian rule, a moderate state, or a scenario in which Pakistan muddles along without major institutional reforms.

This guide was made possible by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. It is the latest installment in CFR.org’s Emmy Award-winning Crisis Guide series, which seek to bring context and historical perspective to the world’s most complex issues. Other features in the series include: “Crisis Guide: The Global Economy,” “Crisis Guide: Climate Change,” “Crisis Guide: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” “Crisis Guide: The Korean Peninsula,” and “Crisis Guide: Darfur.”

“Crisis Guide: Pakistan” is available at: www.cfr.org/pakistanguide

The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher dedicated to being a resource for its members, government officials, business executives, journalists, educators and students, civic and religious leaders, and other interested citizens in order to help them better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries. CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.