Research Publications

Pakistani Foreign and Defense Policy

  • Insecurity and Ambition: Understanding Pakistan’s Strategic Debates, Georgetown University Press (with Christopher Clary), forthcoming.
  • A Threshold Alliance: The China-Pakistan Military Relationship, USIP Special Report no. 517, March 2023. LinkPDF
  • “Pakistan in 2019 Navigating Major Power Relations amid Economic Crisis,” Asian Survey, January/February 2020. LinkPDF
  • “Politics and Threat Perception: Explaining Pakistani Military Strategy on the North West Frontier,” (with Paul Staniland & Asfandyar Mir), Security Studies, published online Jul. 19, 2018. LinkPDF
  • “Pakistan’s Counterinsurgency Strategy,” Talibanistan: Negotiating the Borders Between Terror, Politics, and Religion, Ed. Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, New York: Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 202–228. LinkPDF
  • “The Pakistan Military’s Adaptation to Counterinsurgency in 2009,” CTC Sentinel, 3 (1), January, 2010, pp. 9–13. LinkPDF
  • “Pakistani Military Capabilities for a Counterinsurgency Campaign: A Net Assessment,” Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative Publication, Washington, DC: New America Foundation, 2009. PDF

Indian Foreign and Defense Policy

  • “Does Interstate Conflict Affect Attitudes Towards Domestic Minorities? Evidence from India,” Political Science Research and Methods, forthcoming (with Christopher Clary, Niloufer Siddiqui, and Neelanjan Sircar).
  • “Policy Drift as an Inevitability and an Occasional Success,” Asia Policy, 18 (4), October 2023, pp. 134-138. LinkPDF
  • India’s Kashmir Conundrum: Before and After the Abrogation of Article 370, USIP Special Report, No. 473, August 2020 (with Gillian Gayner). LinkPDF
  • “What the India-Russia Defence Partnership Means for US Policy,” Survival, 63 (4), August/September 2021 pp.149-182 (with Tyler Sagerstrom). LinkPDF
  • “The Influence of Arms: Explaining the Durability of India-Russia Alignment,” Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, January 2021 (with Frank O’Donnell, Tyler Sagerstrom, and Akriti Vasudeva). LinkPDF
  • “Great Expectations: Asking Too Much of the US-India Strategic Partnership,” (with Heather Byrne), The Washington Quarterly, Fall 2019. LinkPDF 
  • “The Quad: Alliance or Alignment?” Seminar, 715, March 2019, pp. 22-26 (with Heather Byrne). LinkPDF
  • “India’s Approach to Counterinsurgency and the Naxalite Problem,” CTC Sentinel, 4 (10), October 2011, pp. 5–9. LinkPDF

Strategic Stability

  • “Public Opinion and Crisis Behavior in a Nuclearized South Asia,” International Studies Quarterly, 65 (4), 2021, pp.1064-1076 (with Christopher Clary & Niloufer Siddiqui). LinkPDF
  • Investigating Crisis: South Asia’s Lessons, Evolving Dynamics, and Trajectories, Editor, Washington, DC: Stimson Center, 2018. LinkPDF
  • “Why Isn’t Turkey Balancing Iran? Explaining Balance-of-Power and Alliance Behavior in Response to Nuclear Proliferation,” A Collection of Papers from the Nuclear Scholars Initiative, Washington, DC: CSIS, 2010. LinkPDF

Counterinsurgency Strategy

  • “Size Still Matters: Explaining Sri Lanka’s Counterinsurgency Victory Over the Tamil Tigers,” Small Wars and Insurgencies, 28 (1), 2017, pp 119-165. LinkPDF
  • “Review of When Counterinsurgency Wins: Sri Lanka’s Defeat of the Tamil Tigers, by Ahmed S. Hashim,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 37 (3), 2014, pp. 468–471. LinkPDF
  • “Selective Leviathans: Explaining State Strategies of Counterinsurgency and Consolidation,” Précis, Spring 2014. PDF
  • Countering Others’ Insurgencies: Understanding U.S. Small-Footprint Interventions in Local Context, (with Stephen Watts, Jason H. Campbell, Patrick B. Johnston, and Sara Bana), Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2014. LinkPDF

Command of the Commons

  • “Command of the Commons,” (w/ Vinod Kannuthurai), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Political Behavior, Ed. Fathali Moghaddam, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2017, pp. 120-122. Link
  • “It’s A Commons Misunderstanding: The Limited Threat to American Command of the Commons,” (with Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson), A Dangerous World? Threat Perception and U.S. National Security, Ed. John Mueller and Christopher A. Preble, Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2014, pp. 223–244. LinkPDF
  • “Whither Command of the Commons? Choosing Security Over Control,” (with Joshua Shifrinson), Great Powers Initiative Policy Paper Series, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation, September 2011. PDF