Land-based missile defense system, Aegis Ashore, at the US Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii. File photo. Regional security in Northeast Asia underwent a jolt on Thursday with the announcement in Tokyo by Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono that Japan would cancel the purchase of a multi-billion dollar ballistic missile defense system made …
Modi only can reach a border settlement with China
Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) & Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) at informal summit, Mamallapuram, India, October 12, 2019 The controversy over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks at the All-Party Conference in New Delhi on June 18 regarding the border clashes with China will have limited shelf life only. All this brouhaha becomes quintessentially an …
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1962 India-China war redeux?
Indian & Chinese patrols challenge each other, typically, in Ladakh. File photo The Indian analysts have been comparing the military build-up in the India-China border in eastern Ladakh to the Doklam standoff in 2017. This was only to be expected since the leitmotif was once again a road construction in disputed border regions. In Doklam, …
EU, China draw closer in post-pandemic setting
China’s ‘New Silk Road’ freight train to Europe. (File photo) The 10th annual Strategic Dialogue between the European Union and China on June 9 can be regarded as marking the resumption of structured big-power diplomacy in the post-Covid-19 setting. It was both a symbolic and substantive event, preparing the ground for the forthcoming EU-Summit. At …
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Standoff in Ladakh needs political solution
Lone Indian soldier guarding northern border with China. File photo The good thing about the nihilistic Indian media narratives — relentlessly negative — over the military standoff in eastern Ladakh is that the government largely disregarded them. Hopefully, a de-escalation of tensions is on cards. Nihilists and cynics are best shunned. Especially when they also …
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G7 walks towards a long sunset
President Trump vs. the West: Iconic picture out of the G7 summit, Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu, Quebec, Canada, June 8-9, 2018. The US President Donald Trump will be completing his first term with foreign-policy legacies, which, even detractors must grudgingly admit, are game-changing for world politics. Debris of monumental proportions surrounds him — Paris Accord on …
India’s reality shows on world stage are wearing thin
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison (L) held a virtual summit today, June 4, 2020 (File photo) In a trove of declassified CIA documents some years ago, there was a list of Soviet jokes from the 1980s offering the glimpse of a secret American weapon to debunk and demoralise the US’ …
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Trump’s China policy at a cul-de-sac
US President Donald Trump (R) and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (L) after signing the US-China trade deal, Washington, Jan. 15, 2020 This past week has been a catastrophic seven days that shook America. Some of the debris may have inevitably fallen on President Donald Trump too. Most important, the Trump administration has lost …
Covid-19 impacts global alignments
Russia-China partnership challenges US global hegemony The sluice gates have opened, as it were, on world politics after the ‘timeout’ through the past 2-3 months due to Covid-19. The spectacle of America’s epic war with Covid-19 under President Donald Trump’s watch creates a range of emotions in the world community — ranging from sympathy and …
India and the politics of Covid pandemic
World Health Assembly, decision-making body of WHO, meets in Geneva every May. This year’s is a virtual meeting. File photo The World Health Assembly’s virtual meeting on May 18-19 has brought into focus the politics of the Covid-19 pandemic in the international arena. The WHA is the decision-making body of the 194-member World Health Organisation (WHO). …