CHINA and Japan are sliding towards war. In the waters and skies around disputed islands, China is escalating actions designed to challenge decades of Japanese control. It is accompanying its campaign with increasingly blood-curdling rhetoric. Japan, says the ChinaDaily, is the “real danger and threat to the world”. A military clash, says Global Times, is now “more […]
Israel’s January 22 elections will produce a new government. The extent to which it will differ from the outgoing government remains to be seen. But efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons might be affected. Could the composition of a new Israeli government indirectly impact the Israeli-U.S. discourse on Iran’s nuclear program? Assuming the […]
Four years ago world leaders, meeting in the G20 crisis session, agreed they would all work to move from recession to growth and prosperity. They agreed to a global growth compact to be delivered by combining national growth targets with coordinated global interventions. It didn’t happen. After the $1 trillion stimulus of 2009, fiscal consolidation became the established order […]
On Monday, as Barack Obama is sworn in again as President, his allies in the West will ask themselves the same nervous question they posed four years ago: how much does he care about us? The British, in particular, are worried. War looms in Mali, yet Washington seems happy to let the French take charge, […]
It’s no easy task navigating through heavy fog in the dead of night. But on one memorable occasion in New Delhi, my driver wasn’t going to be stopped. It was 3 a.m. as we careened out of Indira Gandhi International Airport and onto the highway leading to my downtown hotel. The fog was so thick […]
The US and Russia don’t agree on much – but they are both keen to develop a good relationship with India. How do we know? Look at the arms trade. Read Here – The European
Russia’s missiles may still be trained on the United States but it is the nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan that worries Russian experts more than American nukes. Scholars gathered at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (Imemo), a top-rated Russian think-tank advising the Kremlin, rang alarm bells about the threat of […]
America’s Middle East policy has been enthusiastically endorsed. Not at the UN or Arab League, however, but by the powerbrokers of Hollywood. At the Golden Globes, there were gongs for a heroically bearded CIA spook saving hostages and American face in Iran (Argo); a heroically struggling agent tracking down Bin Laden (Zero Dark Thirty) and […]
Here’s a bit of advice when considering Barack Obama second inaugural address on January 21: Don’t take anything he says very seriously. For all the hype they receive, inaugural addresses rarely foretell what a president will accomplish in office. In fact, the men who utter grand principles and make big promises every four years often contradict […]
If you believe the rhetoric, Britain is coming back as a security player in Asia. It may not be exactly a reversal of the 1971 East (from London’s perspective) of Suez withdrawal. But on January 18th British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond and Foreign Secretary William Hague are due to visit Perth, Western Australia, to talk […]
looking beyond borders 