Al-Qaeda Goes Local in India
For decades, India’s security agencies boasted that there was ‘zero’ local recruitment to al-Qaeda and its affiliates. This claim seemed to be corroborated by the fact that none of the terrorists...
View ArticleArab Spring to Wahabbi Winter
Ten years on, and two trillion dollars and counting, is the world a safer place for the NATO partners? The security of NATO members has been at the core of actions taken by its components – principally...
View ArticleRescuing NATO in Afghanistan
After Mikhail Gorbachev succeeded in bringing about the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, the bureaucracy that oversaw NATO faced an existential crisis. The alliance had been set up to counter the...
View ArticleThe ISI: U.S. backers run for cover
In September, the recently-retired U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, warned of the risks to international security because of the propensity of the Pakistan army to back – sometimes covertly,...
View ArticleNATO vs Shias: A geopolitical miscalculation
Saudi Arabia has celebrated its “diamond jubilee” and Pakistan the “golden jubilee” of a strategic partnership with the U.S. In both cases, it was the United Kingdom (UK) that was crucial to the birth...
View ArticleChina’s global proxy game
Across the world, from Iran to Sudan, Syria and Venezuela, China has been boosting the military and other capabilities of forces hostile to the NATO powers, led by the U.S. In doing this it is...
View ArticleA significant election in Kuwait
In 1962, when democracy was not even a dream in the Arab world, the Emir of Kuwait promulgated a constitution that introduced male suffrage, albeit with qualifiers. Since then, periodic elections have...
View ArticleWest and Wahabi vs. Shia
While there was a strong and overt congruence of interests between the NATO powers and Wahhabi extremists during the 1979-94 Afghan war, 9/11 reversed the situation, leading to a pullback from the...
View ArticleUN: a return to ‘mandated colonialism’
Even when compared to his emollient competitor for the job Shashi Tharoor who is beloved in Europe and North America in a way that few international diplomats are, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is...
View ArticleWestern models not panacea
Each human being is different from any other, having a mix of strengths and weaknesses that are unique. In the same way, societies differ from each other, having evolved out of different historical...
View ArticleAfghanistan beckons China, India
The post Afghanistan beckons China, India appeared first on Gateway House.
View ArticleWhy Morsi is wrong for his people
History is peppered with situations in which a small group of individuals took control of a broad movement and over time, subverted and distorted it in order to fit society within the straitjacket of...
View ArticleA new blueprint for China
The serial failure by two Democratic presidents of the U.S. – Bill Clinton and Barack Obama – to forge an alliance with India that is acceptable to both sides has given an opening for an India-China...
View ArticleTime to back the anti-Wahabbi tide
In 1933, German President Paul von Hindenburg was advised by Franz von Papen and others that the best way to deal with the unrest in Germany caused by economic catastrophe was to bring the NSDAP...
View ArticleThe case for India-Alignment
Non-alignment is regarded as a seminal achievement of Jawaharlal Nehru, whose letters and essays on the international situation are seen as the insights of a genius by Indian and other historians. To...
View ArticleThe new Indo-Pacific core
Emperor Akihito will be visiting India this month after a hiatus of 40 years. The significance of his trip cannot be overstated; the Emperor in Japan represents more than just the state – he embodies...
View ArticleUkraine division is now permanent
Old habits die hard, but when continued, are often injurious to health. Through the 20th century, the member-states of NATO had a dominant position in the international order, a situation which still...
View ArticleTaiwan’s centrality in Asian geopolitics
For decades, there has been talk of “Emerging Asia”. The reality is that from the 2008 crash in US-EU financial markets, Asia has emerged and is now once again the primary continent on the globe,...
View ArticleRajapaksa: down but not out
In the recent dramatic national elections in Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapakse secured about the same number of Sinhala votes as did his opponent Maithripala Sirisena, but trailed miserably in areas where...
View ArticleAn upsurge of Wahabbis confront the “Sabahis”
More than a decade ago, this writer pointed to Kuwait and its ruling house of Al Sabah as being the ideological challenger to Saudi Arabia and the Al Sauds, who from the start of their rule have...
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