Whispering Thoughts No 48 Military History Part III: Modern Trends

06 May 2024                                                                                            From the mid-19th century, military history emphasised theoretical analysis of conflict at the expense of recording the events of a war. As mentioned in Whispering Thoughts No 47, Jomini and Clausewitz were pioneers in the field, moving the narrative away from the use of mathematical laws of war towards employing historical […]

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Whispering Thoughts No 47 Military History Part II: The Philosophy

25 April 2024                                                                                           The study of military history is encompassed in a broad philosophical and methodological perspective. However, its philosophical underpinnings produce several questions that must be answered to have a clear understanding of the depth of the subject. What is the philosophy of military history? What are the basic assumptions that military historians […]

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Whispering Thoughts No 44 Taiwan – The Flashpoint? Part III: Crystal Gazing

05 April 2024                                                                                           The 2024 elections in Taiwan exposed the emerging generational and socio-economic fault-lines in the country. There is growing demand for greater governmental accountability and more progressive economic reform to address the high-income trap leading to the unsustainable entitlements that accompany it. Solutions to these vexing challenges will need strong political will […]

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Whispering Thoughts No 43 Taiwan – The Flashpoint Part II: Emerging Challenges

03 April 2024                                                                                           On 13th January 2024, Taiwan elected William Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), to be its next President to be inaugurated in May, although the party lost its legislative majority. The 113-seat Legislative Yuan consists of an eclectic mix of 73 geographic constituency seats, three each low-land and high-land […]

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Whispering Thoughts No 42 Taiwan – The Flashpoint? Part I: Immediate Background

Canberra, 26th March 2024                                                                                         Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is an island separated from mainland China by the Taiwan Strait. It is a democracy of 23 million people, governed independently since 1949. Mainland China, officially the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) asserts that there is only ‘one China’, themselves, views Taiwan as […]

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Whispering Thoughts No 34 UN Security Council – A Time to Reform

Bengaluru, 10 January 2024                                                                                       The failure of the United Nation Security Council (UNSC) to act on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reignited a long-smouldering demand to reorganise the highest world body dealing with international peace and security. Its inability to play a meaningful role in the on-going Israel-Hamas conflict reemphasised the urgent need for reform. […]

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Whispering Thoughts No 22 The Tradition of Slavery Part I: Historic Background

14 October 2023                                                                                      Slavery has existed for millennia in all parts of the world and has affected all races. Yet it was only in 1948 that the UN General Assembly specified in the declaration of human rights that freedom from slavery was a universal human right. So, what is slavery? Even today there is no […]

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Whispering Thoughts No 19

September 2023                                                                                              ASEAN UNDER STRESS Part II: POSSIBLE FUTURE TRAJECTORY In the past decade, the ASEAN region has become the jostling ground for an on-going US–China rivalry, while the organisation is struggling to contain divisive issues that undermine its claims to being a uniting force attempting to keep away big power rivalry. The bloc’s silence […]

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Whispering Thoughts (No 13)

   August 2023                                                                                        No: 13 NATO–RUSSIAN RELATIONSHIP: COLD WAR REDUX? In 1949, when it was formed, the original NATO consisted of 12 members—it now has 31 members, which will swell to 32 if Sweden becomes a member. In the recently concluded 2023 NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, six challenges facing the organisation were identified: Ukraine’s […]

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Whispering Thoughts (No 7) June 2023

                                                                                            DIPLOMACY: A FAILED CONCEPT? Part I: HISTORIC ANTECEDENTS There are different definitions and explanations of diplomacy: from the straightforward, ‘the art and science of maintaining peaceful relationships between nations, groups or individuals’; to the more nuanced, ‘the established method of influencing the decisions and behaviour of foreign governments and peoples through dialogue, negotiation, and […]

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