August 26, 2025
Why Washington Can’t Ignore Bangladesh
This article was originally published in The Diplomat.
One year after its Gen Z-led revolution, Bangladesh finds itself at a fragile crossroads. While its interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus, has stabilized the country and initiated reforms, major challenges remain. Delayed elections, emboldened Islamist parties, difficulties in the implementation of reforms and ensuring accountability for past abuses, escalating lawlessness, a battered economy, and a prolonged refugee crisis all threaten to derail the country’s democratic renewal.
Washington’s longstanding partnership with Dhaka – built on democratic support, trade, development, humanitarian assistance, and security cooperation – has been strained at precisely the wrong time. Through aid cuts, tariffs, and an unpredictable strategic outlook since the start of 2025, U.S. influence in Bangladesh has been weakened just as China has sought to increase its footprint. To prevent backsliding and to counter Beijing’s growing role, the U.S. must renew its commitment to supporting Bangladesh in its transition period and beyond. Doing so will help ensure Bangladesh becomes a stable and independent democracy that is free from Islamist extremism and able to resist Chinese economic coercion, thereby reinforcing U.S. leadership in upholding stability and prosperity in South Asia.
While Bangladesh may seem peripheral to U.S. foreign policy interests, ignoring it would be a strategic error.
Although Bangladesh’s interim government has laid the groundwork for structural reforms, through the establishment of key reform commissions and the recent adoption of the July Charter, its political landscape remains fractured. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), marginalized under Sheikh Hasina’s regime, demands swift elections, while the student-led National Citizen Party (NCP) calls for deep constitutional change. Formerly banned Islamist factions like Jamaat-e-Islami are reemerging, sparking fears of radicalization and erosion of Bangladesh’s secular foundations.
A temporary ban on Hasina’s Awami League (AL), alongside Operation Devil Hunt – a sweeping crackdown targeting former Hasina loyalists, resulting in over 48,000 arrests – has raised concerns about a renewed iteration of retributive, exclusionary politics. At the same time, social tensions are surging, with over 2,400 attacks on minorities and women, weapons theft, assaults on and by police, and rising extremist propaganda by Hizb ut-Tahrir and al-Qaida-linked groups having been reported since last August.
Read the full article on The Diplomat.
More from CNAS
-
Japan’s New CIA Could Be Takaichi’s Trump Card
Commentary
Intelligence reform may generate fewer headlines than higher defense spending, new missiles, or arms deals, but it represents another consequential way Tokyo is assuming great...
By Derek Grossman
-
America’s Secret Weapon in the Nuclear Race
Commentary
The choice is between an integrated American system that combines public missions with private capital and a fragmented one facing off against China’s coordinated buildup....
By David Feith
-
Commentary
Indo-Pacific Security / Technology & National Security
Sharper: China's AI RiseArtificial intelligence has become a strategic priority for Beijing and Washington, yet both countries continue to pursue dramatically different strategies in their bid for gl...
By Charles Horn & Cadence Barker
-
Indo-Pacific Stability Depends on Eastern Africa’s Prosperity
Commentary
The Strait of Malacca, Taiwan, and the South China Sea dominate the Asian debate. However, chokepoints further from home could prove similarly devastating....
By Derek Grossman
