India’s external and strategic environment is looking like a train-wreck and it isn’t just to do with the American humiliation of “postponing” the vaunted “two-plus-two” dialogue for the third time. The picture today has no resemblance to what we saw until about a year earlier. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was then hopping from one […]
Given the tense state of U.S.-Russian relations and the paucity of high-level contacts, there are strong arguments for Trump to hold a summit with Putin. However fractured the relationship, it makes sense for the world’s two nuclear superpowers to sit down together and re-establish some of the channels of communication that were cut off after […]
When it comes to political orientation, worldview, life experience, and temperament, the past three presidents of the United States could hardly be more different. Yet each ended up devoting much of his tenure to the same goal: countering terrorism. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
In the past, Europeans often diminished the value of geography, which would have demanded a closer relationship with Russia, in favour of the geography of values, which justified a transatlantic orientation. When the US is led by an administration that is betraying those values, however, that argument no longer applies. Read Here – Project Syndicate
As Beijing lays down the fibres and sinews that are setting Chinese standards on infrastructure from the south Pacific to eastern Europe, Australia is grappling with two huge questions: How does it buy into this global construction boom itself in a way that doesn’t play into China’s clear strategic ambitions? Read Here – The Sydney […]
It is fair to give the president credit for delivering, or working to deliver, on many of his electoral promises, something that is reportedly a source of pride for Trump. As a candidate, Donald Trump said that he would take a tougher stance on illegal immigration, demand more beneficial trade arrangements from other nations, downplay […]
As a liberal democracy, built on the freedom of citizens, who are ruled by the leadership of their own choosing, it is in India’s interest that the US prevails in this ‘clash’ of civilisations. A sustained but uneasy peace with China still only means living in the shadow of powerful, undemocratic autocrats. That is a […]
The Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI), a pet project of China’s leader Xi Jinping, aims to build trillions of dollars of infrastructure from Asia to Africa to Europe, and along sea routes too. Involving roughly 70 countries so far, it entails massive spending (and lending) by China on railroads, ports and energy projects, highways—and, increasingly, satellite launches. Read Here – Quartz
The Trump administration moved the U.S. to the edge of a trade war with China by announcing tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese imports and pledging additional investment restrictions, which Beijing immediately vowed to retaliate against. The response from China signaled a rapid escalation of the dispute. China will impose tariffs with “equal scale, equal intensity” on […]
After watching the G7 train wreck aghast, senior officials at NATO headquarters are quaking in their boots at the prospect of hosting a summit of the Western defense alliance featuring a raging Donald Trump in Brussels. Far from showcasing transatlantic unity and resolve, they fear the 24-hour gathering of leaders of the 29-nation alliance, scheduled for about […]
looking beyond borders 