There should be no surprise that the summit meeting of the leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) hosted by Russia at the Kremlin on May 16 fell short of articulating against the “collective West” over the Ukraine conflict. The same pattern as in the 2008 Russo-Georgian war is […]
Author: M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
In The Wake Of Russian Victory In Mariupol
Thank God, Russia eschews any triumphalism over the surrender of the so-called neo-Nazi Azov regiment in the Azovstal factory complex in Mariupol. The Defence Ministry in Moscow announced on Friday that a total of 2,439 “Azov Nazis” and Ukrainian servicemen had laid down their arms since May 16, and that […]
Biden Returns To Time Past In The Gulf
The extraordinary sight of the Biden administration’s entire foreign and security policy establishment representing Washington on the occasion of the passing away of the emir of Abu Dhabi and president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan conveys a powerful message. Decoding that message may seem deceptively […]
Sri Lankan Situation Is Fraught With Danger
India finds itself between the rock and a hard place in its approach to the Sri Lankan crisis. There is no question that the government attributes primacy to Sri Lanka remaining a practising democracy. But the developing situation in that country is going to be a cliff hanger right up […]
Why Ukraine War Has No Winners
The war in Ukraine is quintessentially Clausewitzean. And to understand it, we need to return to Carl von Clausewitz, the doyen of modern war, who recognised that war is practically limitless in variety, “complex and changeable,” and noting that every age has its particular kind of war with “its own […]
Indo-Pacific Strategy Adrift In An Illusion
The Chinese daily Global Times featured a political cartoon marking the US-ASEAN summit meeting in Washington on May 12-13. It showed the US President Joe Biden seeking help from a bus load of ASEAN officials to give a push to his battle tank hopelessly stuck on slush and mud and […]
EU Stumbles Over Russian Oil Slick
The European Union officials are insisting that oil sanctions against Russia are coming. On Sunday, France’s Ecological Transition Minister Barbara Pompili was certain that “we will reach (an agreement) by the end of the week.” But the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has warned EU that it would be […]
Assad Renews Syria’s Bonds With Iran
The unannounced arrival of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Tehran on Sunday makes yet another wrinkle to the geopolitics of West Asia. In a short trip of a few hours, Assad had meetings with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi and returned to Damascus. This is […]
Make Hay While Sun Shines — Indian, Chinese Ways
Europe and Russia are entering a fateful competition over energy trade. Europe is diversifying its sources of energy away from Russia. Russia is racing with Europe to reduce its own dependence on the European market and substitute with a “Look East” policy that taps into the vast potentials of the […]
India, Germany Сogitate On Ukraine
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s short visit to Germany pegged on the Indian-German Intergovernmental Commission meeting in Berlin on Monday inevitably came to focus on the Ukraine crisis. The western media would have loved to grill Modi on India’s reluctance to criticise Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine. But German hosts […]
Afghanistan Braces For New War
There is media buzz lately about an anti-Taliban insurgency struggling to be born in Afghanistan. A former Afghan army general, Sami Sadat, is returning home as the West’s favourite to don the mantle of leadership of a pan-Afghan “resistance” movement against repressive Taliban rule. There is a lot of infighting […]
Putin Warns The US To Back Off In Ukraine
The Western narrative of the two-month old war in Ukraine imbued with the rhetoric of “democracy versus autocracy,” has dramatically changed with the assertion by the US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin at a news conference in Poland Monday following his and Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Kiev, […]
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