The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue has had its fits and starts, but nothing encourages such chats than threats, actual or perceived. In 2017, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono felt that it was time that a strategic dialogue between Japan, the United States, Australia and India should be revived. The Quad, as […]
Tag: Indo-Pacific
Colombo Port Deal Calms India’s Paranoia
The Sri Lankan government has announced that it is going ahead with a project to develop jointly with India and Japan a new container terminal from the scratch at Colombo Port called the West Container Terminal. According to the official notification of the Sri Lankan cabinet decision on March1 in […]
Encircling China And Praising India: The US Strategic Framework For The Indo-Pacific
The feeling from Rory Medcalf of the Australian National University was one of breathless wonder. “The US government,” he wrote in The Strategist, “has just classified one of its most secretive national security documents – its 2018 strategic framework for the Indo-Pacific, which was formally classified SECRET and not for […]
Europe Marks Distance From Indo-Pacific Strategy
The European Council special meeting in Brussels on 1st October had Turkey, Belarus, Russia and China on its agenda. The foreign-policy decisions of the summit — comprising the heads of state or government of all EU countries, the European Council President, and the European Commission President —show a moderate line, […]
Russia Blasts US’ Indo-Pacific Strategy
The meeting between the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Moscow on September 11 took place at a particularly delicate juncture in regional politics. Russia is carefully ploughing a neutral line in the India-China standoff while also drawing closer to China to push back […]
India Gains Nothing Out Of ‘Asian NATO’
If you are in two minds about the foreign policy orientations of Modi government, what do you do? My answer: Read the lips of the US state department officials. They will give you the authoritative account of what India’s secretive ‘Chanakyan’ foreign policy elites are up to. At any rate, […]
Opponents Of The Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty
It would seem a logical step, at least from an existential perspective: to ban something so utterly horrendous to life; to forbid its use in any circumstances, whatever rationale employed to justify its use. But the nuclear weapon has its admirers. There are those who continue to worship its sovereign […]
Australia, the US and the AUSMIN Talks
The Satrap Chronicles of the US imperium will have, near the top of their various ingratiating themes, such Australian politicians as Senators Linda Reynolds and Marise Payne. They resemble Siamese consuls, hard to tell apart (robust build, similar of voice and manner). For another, their views form the putty of […]
Defending Australia: The Deputy Sheriff Spending Spree
There are few sadder sights in international relations than a leadership in search of devils and hobgoblins. But such sights tend to make an appearance when specialists in threat inflation either get elected to office or bumped up the hierarchies of officialdom. The sagacious pondering types are edged out, leaving […]
The Recent Japanese Elections Might Slow Down The US’ “Indo-Pacific” Strategy
Last month’s Japanese elections saw Prime Minister Abe’s ruling bloc lose its two-thirds parliamentary supermajority needed to change the country’s pacifist constitution, which could seriously slow down the US’ “Indo-Pacific” strategy, especially regarding the formation of an anti-Iranian naval coalition in the Gulf and the possible military expansion of the […]
Russia And China Display Strategic Coordination In Asia-Pacific
For both Russia and China, the Far East will be of increased importance in the period ahead as forming a gateway to the Northern Sea Route, the shipping lane which the two countries are jointly developing to connect the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean along the Russian coast of Siberia and the Far East.
SCO Summit: Inflection Point For Indian Diplomacy
New possibilities are opening up for Indian diplomacy at the two-day summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) at Bishkek on June 13-14. But scepticism regarding the SCO’s potentials still lingers on.
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