Book excerpt: South Asia Conundrum offers fresh ideas and enlightening narratives about how geopolitical and geostrategic entanglements of extra-regional powers, notably the United States, Russia and China, in South Asia and its extended neighborhood have transformed the Af-Pak region into a theater of unending conflict and political instability. The book addresses and illuminates the impending challenges and evaluates policy options before the Trump administration and US allies in dealing with the Afghan imbroglio. The book argues how the emerging strategic alliance among Russia, Iran, China and Pakistan has not only constrained US options in the region but has also constricted the US role and influence in South Asia, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. South Asian Conundrum further illustrates how the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a part of Beijing’s mega Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), constitutes a direct challenge to economic and security interests of India and the United States in the region. The scope of the book is not exclusively limited to South Asia. Its geostrategic and geo-economic ramifications are much larger and deeper in global and regional contexts, involving the Greater Middle East Asia, the triangular Russian-Chinese and Iranian strategic partnership, and the long term fallout of CPEC and China’s BRI on global political and economic architecture.