A Pakistani policeman keeps watch near a Pakistan-China friendship billboard in Islamabad February 3, 2002. (Claro Cortes IV / Courtesy Reuters)

 I’ve written a think piece for Foreign Affairs on two subjects:

(1) China’s calculus in Pakistan, or, as the editors asked me, “Could China’s calculus ever change and, if so, what would change it?” and

(2) China’s approach to risk management, which, I argue, increasingly includes an effort to balance three baskets of risk: geopolitical risk, political risk, and investment risk.

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Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev and India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inspect the guard of honor during their meeting in Astana April 16, 2011. Courtesy Reuters/Mukhtar Kholdorbekov.

As the U.S. moves toward military withdrawal from Afghanistan, will its commitment to continental Asia slide too?

My latest “DC Diary” column in India’s leading financial daily, the Business Standard, argues that the question is important to both the United States and India. It matters to Washington because Americans have other interests in Central Asia, quite apart from prosecuting the war. It matters to India because Central Asian governments will have fewer strategic options if the U.S. simply fades away.

Here’s the central reality: U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will mean a reduced footprint in Central Asia. But the United States certainly doesn’t have to disappear. And the U.S. and India, too, have some shared strategic interests, not least in facilitating the reconnection of Central Asia to the world economy.

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The author chats with Chinese traders in the Kara-Suu Bazaar, near Osh, Kyrgyzstan, October 2006. (Photo from the author)

I have a new article out in The Washington Quarterly, with a slightly provocative title, “Why America No Longer Gets Asia.”

It’s a think piece. And so it probably won’t be 100 percent persuasive to 100 percent of its readers in 100 percent of its aspects. But the article pulls together the strands of a lot of themes I’ve harped on in recent years, from speeches I was giving while at the State Department to a few years’ worth of articles and blogs. I also worked on an array of projects directly related to these themes while serving in the U.S. government, especially during the period from 2003 to 2007.

Here’s the headline: Asia is reintegrating, but the United States simply isn’t adapting quickly enough. And it is essential to adapt U.S. policy to the contours of change in Asia if the United States wishes to remain vital and relevant there.

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Photo courtesy of REUTERS/B Mathur

Although their leaders and foreign secretaries did meet in 2009, the February 25 talks between India and Pakistan were the first since the November 2008 Mumbai attacks aimed at normalizing dialogue. And they had raised hopes in some quarters that New Delhi and Islamabad might reenter into a peace process.

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