German Chancellor Angela Merkel to visit White House on July 15, will be the first European leader to do so during Biden presidency A caveat must be added to the famous line by Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, NATO’s first Secretary General and Winston Churchill’s chief military assistant during the Second World War, that the purpose …
Continue reading “Takeaways for Russia, India from Merkel’s US visit”
The guided-missile destroyer USS Ross enters the Black Sea to participate in Sea Breeze 2021 exercises, June 26, 2021 The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov exhorted today in an extraordinary statement that the state authorities and the society at large must mobilise their resources amid the West’s pressure. Addressing an audience in Vladivostok, Lavrov said, …
Bagram after US military left the base, Kabul, July 5, 2021 The British newspaper Daily Telegraph did some kite-flying in the weekend that London is considering open-ended deployment of a contingent of elite special forces to Afghanistan “ to provide training to Afghan units and deploy with them on the ground as advisers.” At the …
Continue reading “A hybrid war to replace Afghan ‘forever war’?”
The morning after a Russian-American summit is most critical to know whether the previous day’s bonhomie was real, surreal or unreal. Surveying the Geneva Summit (June 16) between presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, I cautiously assessed the next day, “Does Biden have the political capital to press ahead with a project to create “stability and …
The first components of Turkey’s S-400 air defence missiles arrived from Russia in Ankara in July, 2019. (File Photo) Less than forty-eight hours separate the US President Joe Biden’s meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Erdogan in Brussels from his summit with Vladimir Putin at Geneva on June 16. In between falls the shadow of the …
Continue reading “US reclaims Turkey for the western alliance”
Expectations are soaring in Ankara over the forthcoming meeting between US President Joe Biden and his Turkish counterpart Recep Erdogan on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Brussels on June 14. Erdogan said recently, “I believe that our meeting with Mr. Biden at the NATO summit will be the harbinger of a new era.” …
A Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle being loaded on to a flatbed trailer, Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan. (File photo) Afghan conundrum is mutating The commencement of the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has got off to a flying start. So far there has been no hiccup. …
Continue reading “Afghan nationalism faces existential challenge — Part 1”
People lineup at the monument to Ottoman Turks, Yerevan, Armenia, April 24, 2021. Armenia is praising US’ recognition of deaths of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as “genocide”. If there is a Nobel Prize for the US president who first recognised the 1915 ‘Armenian Genocide’, that could have gone to Ronald Reagan. But he didn’t make …
Russian military’s armoured vehicles roll into landing vessels after drill in Crimea, Black Sea, April 23, 2021 The Colossus in modern European history with whom Russian President Vladimir Putin would draw comparison might be Otto von Bismarck, the first Chancellor of the German Empire who unified his country out of the scattered pieces. Putin is …
Continue reading “Putin recites the distribution of power in central Europe”
US President Joe Biden departs after delivering remarks on Russia in the East Room at White House, Washington, DC, April 15, 2021 In his landmark foreign policy speech delivered from the US state department on February 4, President Joe Biden had proclaimed that “America is back. Diplomacy is back at the centre of our foreign …
