Abstract
This volume titled “Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America and the Future of Global Jihad” is written by Bruce Riedel. The author has previously served in important positions in the United States government such as service in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Advisor to four US Presidents, on Middle East and South Asia, and chairman of President Obama’s interagency review board of policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan during his first term in 2008. Bruce Riedel is currently a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East policy of Brookings institute.
This book is an American perspective on the evolution and conduct of forces battling United States today in the Islamic World particularly in Afghanistan, and it also examines how US-Pakistan relations have unfolded over the years. The target audience of the book is academic researchers, practitioners of policy and strategy in the fields of security, foreign policy and importantly the observers of US-Pakistan relations. The book is divided into seven chapters, and the sequence is set in a coherent manner that fits the narrative built by the author on the subject.
US-Pakistan relations continue to be an important theme of discussion both as an academic pursuit and as foreign policy discourse within Pakistan and United States. This is particularly true for Pakistan because many in this country believe that US is part of the problem rather than the solution and an unreliable “friend”. Reidel aptly brings out this fact through describing multiple international surveys conducted by credible sources that in Pakistan, US outpolls India as the bad guy.