I did my first map before the debate was finished, so here’s an updated version to account for later discussion of Russia, China, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
If I may say so, the conceit in the American “national security” community that Afghanistan and Pakistan are more important to think, talk, and worry about than India seems increasingly bizarre to me as I’ve come to focus more and more on economic issues. India has over 1 billion residents and, unlike China, it has a growth-oriented demographic structure and democratic political institutions. Whether or not India succeeds in delivering steadily rising living standards to the broad mass of its population is probably the most important question hanging over the world. Obviously the United States has only a limited role to play in that question, but we’re not irrelevant to it.
