How do you say “some faecal matter has hit an air circulation device” in French?
From Paris come reports of an allegation that the real motive for the terrorist attack on French submarine engineers in Karachi in 2002 was non-payment of kickbacks to Pakistani officials.
At the time (1994), such commissions would have been legal: Before France [...]
Where India yields, China will step in.
Quite often, the alarm and indignation comes from a sense of entitlement. Surely, the argument goes, India’s size and geographical location entitles it to a pre-eminent maritime status in the Indian Ocean, so how dare China intrude and construct a “string of pearls” around India?
To be sure, the emergence [...]
So an Indian submarine was caught snooping around the two ships that China sent on an anti-piracy mission to the Gulf of Aden. The South China Morning Post (subscription only | available here) reports that the two ships and the Indian submarine were "locked in a tense standoff for at least half and hour" on [...]
Buying arms from big trading partners is a good idea
From the geopolitical perspective, the Boeing P8I “Poseidons” that India has contracted to purchase are very good deal. India should ideally purchase military equipment from countries with whom it has broad and deep trading relationships. The current situation is quite the opposite: India has next to [...]
Tackling piracy off Somalia might not be in US interests
One of the points that came up in recent off-blog discussions with a fellow INI blogger was the rather curious surge in piracy off Somalia’s coast during a period when the US Navy had a significant deployment in the region. Yesterday’s post suggested that “the US [...]
The problem of piracy off Somalia can be contained by purely military means
The US defence department spokesman has contended that “you could have all the navies in the world having all their ships out there, you know, it’s not going to ever solve this problem…It requires a holistic approach from the international community at sea, [...]
Remaining sensitive to the maritime balance of power
How success changes things. It was only a couple of months ago that Defence Minister A K Antony said that “as a policy, the government would not carry out hot pursuit of pirates, as it had wider implications.” Today, on the back of INS Tabar’s stellar performance, the [...]
The need for a policy framework for unilateral action
In today’s Mint, Sushant & I call for a policy review on overseas military deployments:
…the emerging security environment and India’s increasingly global interests are likely to make the need for such deployments more frequent. Yet the current policy is dogmatic: Foreign deployments are contingent on being part [...]
India needs to rethink its defence decisionmaking system
It is usual to conduct navel gazing after failures and fiascos. But it is good to do so after little successes. Even as the Indian Navy demonstrated the utility of its deployment in anti-piracy operations far from Indian shores, it is opportune to examine a debate that has [...]
Double Hurray!
Yesterday’s operation by the Indian Navy in the Gulf of Aden saved two ships: the Saudi Arabia-registered MV NCC Tihama, in addition to MV Jag Arnav. According to TOI’s Rajat Pandit:
INS Tabar, a Talwar-class guided-missile stealth frigate, was cruising in the Gulf of Aden at about 10 am when it got a frantic distress [...]
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