A costly show of brightness The line-up of columnists at Yahoo! India have a special on 2010 Year in Review. In my view, the most important geopolitical development of the year was the shattering of the myth of China’s “peaceful rise”. Here’s my piece: Factional power struggles within the Politburo, bureaucratic turf fights among various ...
The missing ingredient in India’s soft power “We have allowed,” today’s Pax Indica contends “our misunderstanding of secularism to keep religion out of the foreign policy toolkit.” Excerpt: No one bats an eyelid when someone argues that we should use democracy, free-market capitalism, socialism or “South-South solidarity” to promote India’s interests abroad. But mention religion ...
Five neighbourhood paradoxes You might have noticed that, relatively speaking, India’s policy towards the United States or Japan is far more coherent than towards, say, Nepal. Over the last few years, New Delhi was able to challenge the age-old dogma of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), strike a favourable bargain with Washington and break into ...
A pessimistic prognosis regarding Pakistan’s transformation Imagine that General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani wakes up one fine morning and decides that the Talibanisation of his country now risked destroying the military establishment that nurtured it since 1947. The militant groups that the army had used to attack India and Afghanistan on the cheap were not only ...
Why India must promote democracy abroad & private enterprise at home An interesting conversation with Rajeev Mantri & Yogesh Mokashi last week led to the writing of this piece: how might India compete against China in the global quest for energy (and other) resources: Moreover, the “game” is not one-off. It is a continuous ongoing ...
If you can’t fix the institutions that are supposed to fix the world’s problems, use new ones In today’s Pax Indica column, I argue that “India must use the G-20 to present the UN, the World Bank and the IMF with a simple choice: reform or face irrelevance.” Like Groucho Marx who didn’t want to ...
The First Law of Middle Eastern Geopolitics In this fortnight’s Pax Indica column, I record Turkey’s breakout moment. (It) was only when Turkey floated the flotilla to Gaza that people took notice. The successor to the Ottoman empire had announced its arrival. The re-emergence of Turkey as a major power offers India the opportunity to ...
Strategy in a triangular predicament In today’s Pax Indica column, I argue “that despite an alignment of interests, (India) must not always side with the United States. It must swing.” To paraphrase Henry Kissinger, India’s options toward the United States and China must always be greater than their options toward each other. It serves “our ...
Of Vijay Chauhan, Voldemort and the Realist perspective Over at Yahoo! India columns I introduce Pax Indica, my fortnightly column. Excerpts: The underlying point is that countries operate in an anarchy, an environment where there is no overarching authority that can constrain their actions. Here, as the charismatic Vijay Dinanath Chauhan vividly explains to Commissioner ...
Pax Indica “Nitin Pai,” writes Amit Varma, “known for his sharp analysis of foreign affairs, will set out every alternate Tuesday to demystify international relations for you in a column named Pax Indica. Rather than just comment from on high about current affairs, he will explain the different schools of thought in the field, and ...