Abstract
The book titled “Avoiding Armageddon: America, India and Pakistan to the brink and Back” is written by Bruce Riedel who is a renowned American foreign policy expert on South Asia and Middle East. The author has previously served as a career officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and more recently as chairman of Strategic Review Committee on Afghanistan and Pakistan in President Obama’s first term. The author is currently serving as director of Brookings Intelligence Project.
This book aims to highlight two issues. One is the historical experience of the United States in its dealings with South Asia, particularly its two major powers India and Pakistan. The second issue is the impediments United States policy faces in dealing with its war in Afghanistan and stabilizing Indo – Pakistan relations, and what should be the US approach towards South Asia in future. This is also apparent from the title of this book.
In this book, Riedel takes the reader back into the history of the experience of successive US administrations starting from the days of the British Raj all the way to its partition and subsequently the era of Cold and Post Cold war.