April 2017

No sane person would deny that there is an inherent need to tackle global environmental challenges such as climate change and pollution. Over the past 30 years, the world has seen huge social improvements and technological progress. It has seen unprecedented economic growth that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. In this era of momentous changes …

The United States, on March 6, deployed the first elements of the THAAD system in South Korea. This deployment, apparently, is a response to recent North Korean nuclear weapons tests and ballistic missile launches, yet one should not forget that deploying THAAD on the Korean Peninsula has always been part of Washington’s plan to expand and enhance its anti-missile network …

The world is going through a period of chaos and rapid changes. The international security environment is graver than ever since the end of the Cold War. Global challenges including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, refugees, climate change and pandemics, are coming simultaneously, not to mention a host of regional tensions. Most importantly, the rules-based international order …

Although there have been widespread protests against the election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the United States, many countries, especially those in Asia, have attached a great deal of expectation to the Trump presidency. India, Pakistan, China, the security normalizing and economically recovering Japan and the ASEAN Economic Community are all looking forward to working with …

The breakdown in relationship between the United States and Russia is not new and it cannot be fixed quickly, or easily. This unending discord is a product of long-standing disagreements on the fundamentals of each country’s national security interests and policies. Although improved personal ties between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin may be useful, yet they are not enough. Better …

Former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower described the Middle East as “the most strategically important area in the world” as oil from this part of the world was, in the eyes of the US policymakers, “the richest economic prize in the world in the field of foreign investment” and “a stupendous source of strategic power”. The US State Department also …

In the ending part of the year 2016, it was forecast that the looming European banking crisis, with the anxiety centering on two banks in particular—Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG (DB) and Italy’s Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena—will give rise to a confrontation between Italy and Germany and the European Union in 2017. And, it seems that the groundwork for …

When the economic history of our times is eventually written, 2016 will be remembered as the year in which the two countries that had laid the foundation for globalisation, free markets and prosperity in the early 1980s, switched course and chose to hit the stop button. It was the leadership of Ronald Reagan in the United States (US) and Margaret …

In the post-Cold War world, especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was expected that the situation regarding the universal human rights would improve. However, very sadly, this has not happened. At present, the world is weeping, not celebrating. More and more people are suddenly realising we can no longer afford …

At the end of the Cold War, Samuel P. Huntington presented a hypothesis that people’s cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. This hypothesis, commonly known as the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ (CoC), remains one of the most controversial theoretical models in international relations. Nearly twenty-four years have lapsed since its publication …