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Stephen P. Cohen IDRC photos: www.tecklesphoto.com

Listen to a clip from Cohen’s talk

Listen to Cohen’s entire lecture

“Structurally, the India-Pakistan relationship is toxic…both sides see themselves as vulnerable, threatened, encircled, and at risk,” says Stephen Cohen, a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Washington, DC-based Brookings Institution.

During a public presentation at IDRC on April 9, 2009, Cohen – an expert on arms proliferation and the militaries of India and Pakistan – discussed factors that reinforce this “toxic” relationship and prospects for stabilizing relations between the two states.

“While India must concentrate upon its domestic reforms and restructuring, this process must be accompanied by fresh thinking about India’s regional relations and the role that outside powers can play in helping these to become more normal.”

Cohen is the author, co-author, or editor of more than 12 books, mostly on South Asian security issues: his most recent is Four Crises and a Peace Process: American Engagement in South Asia (2007). He is now working on a book on the Indian military’s future. Cohen has taught in India, Japan, and Singapore, and served on the Policy Planning Staff of the US State Department. In 2004, he was named by the World Affairs Councils of America as one of the country’s top 500 most influential people in foreign policy.

The event was the ninth instalment in IDRC’s year-long series, The India Lectures, which marks the 25^th anniversary of the opening of IDRC’s South Asia regional office in New Delhi. As part of the series, IDRC has also hosted journalist M.J. Akbar, distinguished sinologist Alka Acharya, and journalist Anand Giridharadas, among others.

IDRC has supported research for development in India since its founding, nearly 40 years ago.

The opinions expressed here reflect those of the speaker alone, and not necessarily those of the International Development Research Centre.  

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