U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis’s India visit: 5 Key Issues To Watch Out For

The Mattis visit to India comes almost exactly a month after President Trump unveiled a new South Asia and Afghan policy on 22 August, giving India a publicly key role in stabilizing Afghanistan while censuring Pakistan for perpetuating terror camps and sustaining terrorists on its soil—also in public. Coincidentally, Mattis is to travel to Afghanistan […]

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The Return Of The Madman Theory

Is Donald Trump reviving the “madman theory” of diplomacy, introduced by Richard Nixon to instill fear in America’s adversaries? North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s description of Trump as “mentally deranged” suggests that such a ploy might be working – or else Kim is more right than he, or the rest of us, would like. Read […]

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Facebook Marks The End Of Social Media’s Wild West

Increasingly, Facebook is finding itself in an impossible position as it tries to remain, in spirit at least, a content-agnostic platform that allows everyone to have a voice. Sometimes the company faces scrutiny when it allows certain content to remain, as in the case of fake news or neo-Nazi propaganda. Other times it faces scrutiny for […]

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The Cold, Calculated Logic Behind North Korea’s Missile Tests

While North Korea’s repeated ballistic missile tests may appear to be brazen provocations from an unstable and irascible leader, nothing could be further from the truth. Kim Jong-un’s actions, while provocative, are both rational and win him and his scientists important technical insights and improve the credibility of North Korea’s strategic deterrent. Read Here – […]

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Af-Pak, India And Beyond: The New Underpinnings Of Washington’s South Asia Policy

Often missed in the larger debate on America’s South Asia policy is how it is moving beyond the Af-Pak narrative and addressing other crucial issues besides terror. Numerous other initiatives include reaching out to Pakistan’s Mohajirs, big-ticket projects for Nepal’s development and the recent attempts to address issues of Maldives and Sri Lanka. Read Here […]

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Sixteen Years After 9/11, How Does Terrorism End?

But when extremist groups walk away from negotiations—as happens ten per cent of the time—they often get crushed. Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers pioneered the suicide vest. It was the only terrorist group to assassinate two world leaders—India’s Rajiv Gandhi, in 1991, and the Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa, in 1993. At its peak, it controlled […]

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Our New Culture Of Cruelty

The logic in these arguments, whether derived from Newtonian physics or the national interest, is always as impeccable as it is morally numb. This is why around the world we confront a bigger crisis than the one commonly linked to political and economic dysfunction. Demagogues are mere symptoms of an ethical breakdown. The more disturbing […]

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