Int’l Affairs

It’s Not Just Dictators Anymore It may not be surprising that power in Russia rests with Vladimir Putin or in China with Xi Jinping, the personalization of politics is alarmingly accelerating to Bangladesh, Hungary, the Philippines, Poland, Turkey and elsewhere, potentially including the United States itself.  No sane person would deny that in today’s Russia President Vladimir Putin is omnipotent. …

Are we at the End of Human Morality? Certain forms of modern life lead directly to degeneration … [i]n the poor as well the rich, leisure engenders degeneration. Cinemas, concerts, radios, automobiles and athletics are no substitute for intelligent work. We are far from having solved this momentous problem of idleness created by prosperity, modern machinery or unemployment. By imposing …

Preparing for the diplomatic détente with Washington On Tuesday, March 27, a mysterious armoured train made a round trip from North Korea to Beijing without revealing its key secret: Was Kim Jong-un on board? Speculations were rife after some media reports said that the train transported a number of high-level North Korean officials, including North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, to …

Reaching a deal on the Korean Peninsula Soon after the 2018 Winter Olympics, South Korea is once again in the international spotlight. On 27 April, it hosted a long-anticipated inter-Korean summit on its territory for the first time in history. The highly choreographed meeting was held between the two lead actors almost exactly as scripted. Nonetheless, many impromptu moments of …

The fading hopes for peace in the Middle East  Israel frequently claims its ‘right’ to exist. In fact, states do not exist by right and neither do they have a right to exist. They continue to exist because they have a strong army, capable of taking land and imposing their rule on the native population. They exist because they have …

Days before the May 12 deadline, President Donald Trump has withdrawn the United States from the multilateral Iran Nuclear Deal, also referred to as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with an objective to find a different method of dealing with the so-called Iranian threat to the Middle East. The Trump administration has announced that “the highest level of economic …

Emergence of a new norm that justifies the use of force When Donald Trump ordered air strikes against Syria in April 2017, it was the first – and to date only – action of his administration that attracted widespread support, garnering positive responses even from critics. But, this praise and support for Trump was all the more surprising especially because …

Why the relations between Cold War rivals are deteriorating? The relationship between the two Cold War rivals – the United States and Russia – has plunged to a new low, following the imposition of sanctions on Russia, and expulsion of its nearly 60 diplomats from the United States, and over 30 of those from across Europe, as well as closure …

By: Rami G Khouri  Russia, Iran and Turkey will determine the future of Syria As the dust settles from the Franco-Anglo-American missile attacks against Syrian targets, we find once again that narrow military action in one corner of that ravaged country may have little impact on the wider political and security picture. The current geopolitics of the Syrian conflict is …

Through its various military strategies, India has always tried to coerce Pakistan and sometimes even to inflict some backbreaking damage to the latter’s territorial integrity. Historically, Indian policymakers have treaded the path of aggression and subversion preached by their political forefather Kautilya. Making Kautilya’s thoughts their baseline, Indians kept on trying and employing different ways and means for dominance and …