The first presidential visit from Iran since 2003 comes at a complicated moment in Tehran. For the Islamic Republic of Iran, it is the best of times and the worst of times. Iran’s regional influence has never been as expansive as it is today. Yet, there is a huge push back against Tehran from some […]
The Balkans have recently seen a spike in Chinese investment activity similar to that being witnessed across Central Asia and Central and South America. While concerns about the geopolitical implications of this new trend are legitimate, all strategic calculations need to take into account the kind of influence an investment portfolio can buy, as well […]
India and Oman signed a key pact that extends dry docking and other facilities to Indian naval ships in the strategically located Gulf country. It can be seen as a move that bolsters India’s strategy to counter Beijing in the Indian Ocean region where it is increasingly making inroads. The two countries have also agreed […]
Washington is considering boosting infrastructure projects in the Indo-Pacific to counter Beijing’s growing global clout through its “Belt and Road Initiative”, observers say, after last month’s Congress hearing on a policy response to the plan. Read Here – South China Morning Post
Without a substantial increase in diplomatic capacity, expanding India’s engagements is nearly impossible. The MEA needs higher budgetary allotments, specifically for investing in capacity building in two areas. One, for increasing the number of Missions and Post abroad by enlarging the size of India’s diplomatic corps. Two, for investing in creating specialists who can present […]
Like President Donald Trump, the Pentagon’s new nuclear policy document sees a dark and threatening world. It argues that potential U.S. adversaries such as China, North Korea, and Russia are rapidly improving their nuclear capabilities and gaining an edge over the United States. But rather than laying out a plan to halt this slide into […]
The seeds of Japanese aggression and atrocities were sown in the emperor worship and glorification of the armed forces that were essential elements of the Meiji world. This is the unspoken problem with those who, like Mr Abe sometimes, refuse to face up to the wartime past. It risks pulling on a thread to the […]
China’s trillion-dollar signature foreign-policy project, the Belt and Road Initiative, is often lampooned as just a fuzzy concept with little to show for it on the ground. But in bustling ports from Singapore to the North Sea, state-owned Chinese firms are turning the idea into a reality with a series of aggressive acquisitions that are […]
From Washington, Moscow and Beijing to Tokyo, governments around the world will continue to squander money on espionage and counter-espionage. It is a great shame for taxpayers – most of these operations are so secretive that they are not accountable to the public nor subject to supervision. They are inherently wasteful and do not always […]
It has become abundantly clear that President Trump does not buy his own administration’s strategic shift toward great power competition. Compare the new strategic doctrine to three of President Trump’s recent speeches—one that launched the National Security Strategy, his address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, and yesterday’s State of the Union. In each, there was at most a […]
looking beyond borders 