Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election, and its suspected hacking of French President Emmanuel Macron’s campaign servers, should surprise no one, given President Vladimir Putin’s (mis)understanding of soft power. Before his re-election in 2012, Putin told a Moscow newspaper that “soft power is a complex of tools and methods to achieve foreign policy goals without the use of …

The election victories of Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party (the Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP) and its allies in India are in some respects the greatest moral and intellectual blow that Western liberalism has suffered in Eurasia since the end of the Cold War. That this fact has been so widely ignored by the Western media and commentariat is yet …

The world order is going through profound changes in transitioning from the Western-controlled unipolar system to the non-Western model of multipolarity, and the ongoing multifaceted friction between the opposing forces sums up the nature of the New Cold War. The US and its allies are struggling to retain their erstwhile dominance over global affairs, while Russia, China and their respective …

President Xi Jinping’s “Belt & Road Forum”, the highest profile Chinese diplomatic event of 2017, concluded on May 15 in Beijing. It attracted 29 foreign heads of state and government and representatives from more than 130 countries and 70 international organizations. What did we learn? Firstly, though Xi is taking personal credit for the initiative, it is, in fact, a …

During the recent years, the world has been increasingly getting swept by a resurgent wave of nationalism. Election of BJP’s Narendra Modi as Indian Prime Minister, Brexit in Europe, the rise of Donald Trump in the United States, the return of populist, xenophobic and racist movements to the Netherlands, and other such happenings in Europe signify the resurgence of neo-nationalism …

“One of the most pathetic aspects of human history is that every civilization expresses itself most pretentiously, compounds its partial and universal values most convincingly, and claims immortality for its finite existence at the very moment when the decay which leads to death has already begun.” — Reinhold Niebuhr If the allegations about Russia holding a “sex tape” on President …

Two of the drivers of world affairs that manifest in the daily decisions that affect our lives are ideology and religion. Ideology is the term widely used to describe the underlying set of values, myths, ideas, attitudes, beliefs and doctrine that shape the behavioural approach to political, economic, social, cultural and/or ecological activities of an individual or an organisation. This …

Donald Trump’s inauguration speech on January 20 repeated the disruptive message of his election as US president. It was a call of defiance against the political and media mainstream in the USA, which also rattled the political and business elites in many European countries. The Trump administration wants good relations with other powers, but it will pursue US political and …

Globalisation has brought with it not only unprecedented opportunities and progress in human development but also greater risks. Events in one economy can quickly spiral to others and the same can be said of social, cultural and political events. One theme that is relatively unexplored yet is how terrorism has evolved in the era of globalisation. Rather like the way …

Pakistan’s relations with the United States have deteriorated significantly in the final months of the Barack Obama presidency. Obama feels that foot-dragging by Pakistan has not helped him to deliver on his ambition to withdraw from the wars initiated by his predecessor George W. Bush. Islamabad, in Washington’s view, could have done more to eliminate the sanctuaries in Pakistan’s tribal …