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The Limits of Influence: America’s Role in Kashmir
“This is a superb history of the many efforts … to settle the long-running and dangerous Kashmir conflict. Schaffer brings personal experience, new research, and well-informed insight to the task. A must read for anyone interested in South Asia and the continuing impact of differences over Kashmir.”
THOMAS R. PICKERING, former Under Secretary of State and Ambassador to India
The Limits of Influence, the 36th volume in the ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy Series, is the first systematic study of U.S. efforts to help forge a settlement between India and Pakistan on the sixty-year-old “Kashmir question.” Veteran diplomat Howard B. Schaffer, a former U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh, draws on interviews with senior American officials, historical research, and his decades of experience in South Asia to explain and evaluate three generations of U.S. activities and policies toward the volatile region. The study concludes with recommendations on the future role Washington might usefully play in dealing with the Kashmir dilemma as it seeks to promote increasingly important U.S. interests in the South Asia region.
During 36 years in the Foreign Service, Howard Schaffer specialized in U.S. relations with South Asia. He currently teaches at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where he is director of studies at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. He is the author of Chester Bowles: New Dealer in the Cold War (Harvard, 1993) and Ellsworth Bunker: Global Troubleshooter, Vietnam Hawk (University of North Carolina Press, 2003), his earlier book in the ADST-DACOR series.