The present political dynamics in the Middle East are unsettled and kaleidoscopic. But in the interests of brevity, leaving aside smaller players, and before we think about the role of the United States and Russia, the basic configurations of power in the region since the 2011 Arab Spring can be simplified in terms of five […]
Following the recent Sikkim standoff and the finger-pointing between China and India, the Chinese public and media outlets have once again taken notice of their long-neglected neighbour, with many experts calling for a better understanding of India’s current power. “India’s [power] should be assessed dialectically. It would be wrong to prettify or look down on […]
Qatar made a series of secret agreements with its Gulf neighbours in 2013 and 2014 barring support for opposition and hostile groups in those nations, as well as in Egypt and Yemen. The existence of the agreements has been known, but both the content and the documents themselves were kept secret due to the sensitivity of […]
Infograph courtesy: Global Times
Not just West Asia, there are several other instances where hyphenation has handicapped our ability to forge ties that help our national interests. De-hyphenation has helped us in formulating a more pragmatic foreign policy. Hyphenation, in most cases, is based on romantic ideological reasons. But foreign policy should be guided by pragmatic national and global […]
Even as the stand-off between Indian and Chinese soldiers continued in one part of the Himalayas, Lobsang Sangay, head of the Tibetan government-in-exile, unfurled the Tibetan national flag on the shores of Pang Gong lake in Ladakh. The lake, located at over 14,000 feet, sits astride India and China, with the Line of Actual Control passing through it. Read […]
Bhutan, one of the world’s smallest nations, has protested that the Asian colossus, China, is chipping away at its territory by building a strategic highway near the Tibet-India-Bhutan trijunction in the Himalayas. Bhutan has security arrangements with India, and the construction has triggered a tense standoff between Chinese and Indian troops at the trijunction, with […]
North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile flew right past President Donald Trump’s boast of “It won’t happen!” Guess what, boss? It’s happening. It’s bad and it’s going to get worse. And Trump has no plan for how to stop it… If Kim is not stopped it is likely that he will have missiles capable of hitting Los Angeles, New […]
U.S. President Donald Trump just sought to redefine the West. In a speech to cheering crowds in Warsaw on Thursday, Trump described the West’s values in terms of religion and culture and called for the defense of its civilization against radical Islam. It amounted to a manifesto for his foreign-policy vision. The address included repeated invocations of […]
Narendra Modi’s arrival in Israel marks not only an epochal moment in India-Israel relations, but also the final rejection of the psychological Raj that has hampered Indian diplomacy for so long – since independence in 1947. While Jawarhalal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, fought for freedom from Britain, he and the wider political establishment that surrounded him […]
looking beyond borders 