Int’l Affairs

South Asia, being the region of critical importance, has a greater role to play in the world politics. But, its prospects to exert its influence are marred by the high level of mistrust between the states in the region. Inter-regional trade is just paltry when seen in the trade relations of other world regions. It is also a heavily-guarded region …

India’s new Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, due to his nationalist tendencies, has been compared to Deng Xiaoping, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Shinzo Abe, Tayyip Erdogan and Mahinda Rajapaksa. Commentators have variously described him as assertive, dynamic and authoritarian. Many believe he is a genuine economic reformer. Others worry about his ‘and his BJP’s hard-line and pro-Hindutva credentials, and wonder whether …

The highlight of President Putin’s visit to Shanghai in May 2014 was the signing of a 30-year accord to supply China with natural gas through a new pipeline from the Russian Far East. It was no spur-of-the-moment agreement in response to Western threats over the Ukrainian crisis, but rather the product of a decade-long negotiation. From the start, the logic …

Modi completes a quartet of combative leaders in the most powerful nations of the region Finally, India has a new prime minister; and each of Asia’s four most powerful nations is now led by a combative nationalist. The multilateralist assumptions of the postwar order are giving way to a return to great power competition. Nationalism is on the march, and …

Public opinion reports on Americans’ attitudes toward foreign policy sketch a picture of retrenchment, war-weariness, and scepticism toward global engagement, even as there is also a growing concern that the world is increasingly becoming unstable and dangerous. Nothing about this picture is new or controversial. Some may worry about it more than others, but it is now commonly accepted that …

‘This is how wars end in the 21st century; not through signing ceremonies, but through decisive blows against our adversaries, transitions to elected governments, security forces who are trained to take the lead and, ultimately, full responsibility.’ Barack Obama President Obama, recently, announced that all US forces will be withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of 2016, just before he …

The BJP-led coalition, as expected, got a landslide victory mainly because of the anti-incumbency vote but the size of the victory that Narendra Modi has scored is startling, 282 seats for the BJP and 336 for the NDA ‘ the BJP-led coalition. For the first time since 1984, a single political party has secured a majority enabling it to govern without …

The UN brings together 193 countries in allegedly shared aims: ‘to maintain international security, to develop friendly relations between nations, to co-operate in solving problems and promote human rights’. In June 1945 representatives of 50 countries met to draw up a United Nations charter. The UN officially came into existence on 24 October 1945, with 51 member states. The major …

Former UK Prime Minister and current Middle East Peace Envoy, Tony Blair, recently took time out of his busy schedule as a consultant and advisor to oil corporations, financial institutions, and various governments to give a speech in London. The setting for this speech was the European headquarters of Bloomberg ‘the US business and financial news information conglomerate’ and the …

The biggest geopolitical risk of our times is not a conflict between Israel and Iran over nuclear proliferation. Nor is it the risk of chronic disorder in an arc of instability that now runs from the Maghreb all the way to the Hindu Kush. It is not even the risk of Cold War II between Russia and the West over …