The Post Covid-19 World Order: Not Business as Usual

Canberra, 16 April 2020 Even before the Corona virus devastated many of the countries of the world, political thinkers had started to debate whether or not the world order that had held fast for the past five or six decades was changing. Further, there was also discussion regarding the inevitability of such a change taking […]

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Russia’s Return to the World Stage: The Primakov Doctrine

Canberra, 6 November 2019 International power balance is primarily based on claiming ascendancy on the world stage, which in turn is driven by political imperatives, the prime mover in all initiatives towards claiming power. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russia assumed the mantle of Soviet power, but struggled to prove itself as a […]

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The South China Sea Arbitration: The Court Rules – But Who Will Enforce the Writ?

Canberra, 1 August 2016 On 12 July 2016, the Tribunal constituted under Annex VII to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) located at The Hague in the Netherlands passed judgement on the case of the Republic of the Philippines V. the People’s Republic of China. The Award, concerning the historic […]

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Patience and Denial: China’s Dual Strategies

  Canberra, 1 March 2106 While the world has been busy and preoccupied with the conflict in the Middle-East, the refugee problem that it has spawned, finding a solution to the intransigent Syrian issue and coming to terms with the rise and rise of militant Islam, the South China Sea has percolated to becoming an […]

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TURKEY – AT A CRITICAL JUNCTURE

Canberra, 16 November 2015 The 2002 electoral victory of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi or AKP) was a turning point in modern Turkey’s political narrative. The relatively young leadership of the party, while subscribing to the secular basis of the Turkish Republic, was openly demonstrative of their devout Muslim identity and […]

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RUSSIA IN THE MIDDLE-EAST: ALTERING THE GEO-STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT

Canberra, 22 October 2015 In the second half of September, Russia moved military forces predominated by air assets, into Bassel al-Assad international airport in the Latakia province of Syria. This deployment made it impossible for the anti-Assad forces to capture the province and also provided a logistics lifeline to the military forces of the Syrian […]

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THE ISLAMIC STATE—UNDERSTANDING AND COUNTERING ITS STRATEGY

Canberra, 22 September 2015 The Islamic State (IS) has been fighting the combined military might of the US-led coalition for over a year without having been contained or defeated as was promised by world leaders at the start of the war. The term ‘war’ is being used after due consideration, for what is going on […]

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AFGHANISTAN: FRAGILE AND FORGOTTEN

Canberra, 8 September 2015 Deliberate and repeated insurgent attacks, endemic corruption within the governing polity, a shrinking ‘formal’ economy, the end of a development boom as a more than decade long international war draws to a close that in turn has created unemployment levels of 35 to 40 per cent and a deteriorating security situation […]

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PAKISTAN: STUCK IN A CUL-DE-SAC

Canberra, 22 June 2014 Pakistan, a state created in the name of Islam, is today divided along linguistic, ethnic, tribal and sectarian lines. It also claims to be the ‘heart of Asia’, making any observer want to ask, ‘a wounded, bleeding heart?’ While it is beset with domestic issues that directly threaten the well-being of […]

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PAKISTAN: ON A TREADMILL TO NOWHERE

Canberra, 05 December 2014 The real target and intention of the terrorist attack at the Wagah border crossing point with India on 2 November 2014 that killed 60 people and injured more than 100 will perhaps remain unclear for ever. Who were the perpetrators? Was the target selected to send a message to the Pakistan […]

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