With each passing day, Pakistan becomes an even more crucial player in world affairs. On December 5, Foreign Policy at Brookings hosted the launch of The Future of Pakistan (Brookings Institution Press, 2011), which evaluates several scenarios for how the country will develop and evolve in the near future. Stephen P. Cohen and several of the authors joined other Pakistan experts on two panels to examine the issues, relevant actors and their motivations, different outcomes they might produce, and what it all means for Pakistanis, Indians, the United States and the world.