Getting Saudi Arabia to take responsibility for Pakistan’s actions is in India’s interests
At a recent conference in Abu Dhabi on emerging powers and the Middle East, one of the arguments I made was that a stable Afghanistan requires a balance of two distinct sets of powers—India-Iran-Russia on the one hand, and China-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia on the [...]
A closer strategic India-Australia relationship—the “how”
The Lowy Institute has released an excellent policy brief, authored by Rory Medcalf, coinciding with Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd’s first visit to India. You should read it in full—but the cogent executive summary is worth reproducing on this blog.
What is the problem
Strategic ties between Australia and India keep falling [...]
The controversy over a new book by Chinese intellectuals arguing for China to adopt a strong nationalist-realist posture in its foreign policy has gone largely unnoticed in India. Yet the issue is important: not merely for what the authors argue but also for the response the book has received from other thinkers and opinion makers [...]
It’s a bad idea to interlock India’s energy supplies with Pakistan. Period.
It was a stupid idea right from the start. Of course, it looks a lot more stupid now. Swaminathan Aiyar points out why the IPI gas pipeline project should now be officially declared dead. But you don’t have to read Mr Aiyar’s article at [...]
Even if it can be done, forcing foreign oil firms to not sell gasoline to Iran will hurt the US economy
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Orde F Kittrie argues that the incoming Obama administration must exploit Iran’s “economic Achilles’ heel”—the fact that it has to import refined gasoline—to persuade it to negotiate over its [...]
Civilian motivations, geopolitical implications
The debate over the India-US nuclear deal in the Indian parliament was interesting, controversial and had its dramatic moments. And though it was lost on the members of parliament, there was deep irony too. For the parliament was debating the virtues of a deal that could add to India’s power generation capacity [...]
The fastest growing democracy is indeed transforming America and the world.
Mira Kamdar is right about one thing: not “all opponents of the deal (or even those who dare question some of its provisions)” should be smeared as “nonproliferation ayatollahs” and “enemies of India”. Some are merely confused. Like Ms Kamdar herself, for instance.
In her [...]
After the “clean waiver” in Vienna
According the the Nuclear Suppliers Group, its guidelines “are implemented by each NSG participant in accordance with its national laws and practices. Decisions on export applications are taken at the national level in accordance with national export licensing requirements. This is the prerogative and right of all States for all [...]
It is easy to take a moral position when there is little cost to it
Before China publicly signaled its opposition to clearing the decks for India at the Nuclear Suppliers Group, six small states were instrumental in throwing a spanner in the works. They opposed the first draft of the proposal to unconditionally lift the [...]
And the dubious wisdom of provoking a stronger, aggressive adversary
A military misadventure under the cover of the Olympics did happen. But in South Ossetia (where?), a Russian majority region in Georgia.
Georgia, more than any other former Soviet republic has been the site of a geopolitical tussle between Russia and the West. In the military [...]
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