Why Pakistan Matters: Dr Michael O'Hanlon on US-Pakistan Ties, India & Middle-Power Diplomacy | PGAN

In this episode of the PGAN Podcast, we are joined by Dr Michael O'Hanlon — Senior Fellow and Director of Research in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, holder of the Phil Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy, and one of America's most respected voices on US defence policy, military strategy, and international security.

The conversation centres on his latest book, To Dare Mighty Things: American Power in the 21st Century — a sweeping reassessment of how the United States should think about its military, its alliances, and its role in a rapidly shifting global order.

Dr O'Hanlon walks us through the strategic logic behind America's evolving way of war, the hard-earned lessons of Iraq, and whether Washington still has a coherent grand strategy in an increasingly multipolar world. The discussion then shifts to South Asia through a Pakistani lens — the evolving US-Pakistan relationship, Pakistan's call for an independent international investigation, the dangerous trajectory of India's rising defence spending, and Islamabad's clear position that there is no space for nuclear war in the region. We close on Pakistan's recent diplomatic wins and what they reveal about the growing role of middle powers in shaping 21st-century global diplomacy.

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