On Monday, December 13, the South Asia Center held a discussion relating to US policy in the South Asia region with Derek Leebaert, author of “Magic and Mayhem: The Delusions of American Foreign Policy from Korea to Afghanistan.”

Shuja Nawaz, South Asia Center Director, moderated the discussion. In the aftermath of the release of thousands of American diplomatic memoranda by Wikileaks, a variety of issues in US foreign policy are under scrutiny at home and abroad, including in South Asia, where there continues to be uncertainty about the success of US and NATO efforts to establish a secure and stable environment in Afghanistan, and the US still struggles to a strike a balance in its relationships with Pakistan and India. Problems also persist in neighboring Iran, where American officials remain wary of the country’s nuclear ambitions.

More on Derek Leebaert:

Derek Leebaert, who has taught foreign policy at Georgetown for fifteen years, is a partner in the Swiss management consulting firm, MAP AG. His previous books include The Fifty-Year Wound: How America’s Cold War Victory Shapes Our World (2002) and To Dare and to Conquer: Special Operations and the Destiny of Nations from Achilles to Al Qaeda (2006). He is also a coauthor of the MIT Press trilogy on the information technology revolution, and a founding editor of International Security and The International Economy, as well as editorial board member of European Security. He served in the US Marine Corps Reserve and is a director of the US Army Historical Foundation, Providence Hospital in Washington, DC, and of other public service institutions.