Since the morning of January 3, 1868, Japan has struggled to answer one question: What does it mean to be modern and Japanese? It was on that date that a group of mid-level samurai and imperial courtiers announced the formation of a new government to be ruled by the 16-year old Meiji emperor, thus ending […]
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming visit to India is encouraging for the future of the India-Israel partnership. The level of maturity we are witnessing in India-Israel relations is unique in many ways. The potential of this partnership looks brighter than ever before. During Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s historic visit to Israel, we saw that […]
The People’s Liberation Army Air Force of China and its sister branch, the PLA Naval Air Force, operate a huge fleet of around 1,700 combat aircraft—defined here as fighters, bombers and attack planes. This force is exceeded only by the 3,400 active combat aircraft of the U.S. military. Moreover, China operates a lot of different aircraft types that are […]
India’s rise is taking place in the shadow of China’s even more dramatic rise. China’s assertive, and often aggressive, behaviour has been viewed as a huge challenge for India because it opens up the likelihood of China dominating India’s immediate neighbourhood. By focusing a great deal of energy in the neighbourhood, the Modi government is […]
Barack Obama’s foreign policy was characterised as leading from behind. Trump’s doctrine may come to be understood as retreating from the front. Trump has severed American commitments that he considers risky, costly, or politically unappealing. In his first week in office, he tried to ban travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries, arguing that they pose a […]
China’s economy begins 2018 facing what its own leaders call three years of “critical battles.” Those fights to tackle domestic debt, poverty and pollution pose a hat-trick of risks to the world’s No. 2 economy even before higher interest rates and trade war threats from the U.S. are taken into account. While the nation is starting […]
When it comes to the Modi government’s foreign policy record, you can see it as a glass half full or a glass half empty. Full or empty, it was half. It did not meet its full potential and there were more misses than hits, especially in the neighbourhood, in 2017. But there was one significant […]
In Iran, the obstacles to success are daunting. Whereas most Middle Eastern countries are ruled by secular autocrats focused on repressing primarily Islamist opposition, Iran is an Islamist autocracy focused on repressing secular opposition. This dynamic—unarmed, unorganized, leaderless citizens seeking economic dignity and pluralism, versus a heavily armed, organized, rapacious ruling theocracy that espouses martyrdom—is […]
Helmut Kohl (b. 1930) oversaw the reunification of Germany…Kohl’s tenure as chancellor—second in length only to that of Otto von Bismarck—ended in 1998 when the Social Democratic Party defeated the CDU. When Kohl passed, he was given an “EU state funeral,” a testament to his commitment not just to a united Germany, but to a united Europe as well. Read […]
When President Trump took office on January 20, his supporters hoped he’d keep his campaign promises to get tough with China on trade and push it to deal more forcefully with North Korea; renegotiate or pull out of NAFTA; withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal; and dismantle the Iran nuclear deal. Meanwhile, critics in the US […]
