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At the Obama- Xi talks, there has been some movement forward on the so-far intractable issue of Hydroflurocarbon (HFCs) emissions. Washington and Beijing have agreed to work together to eliminate the use of HFCs and persuade countries like India to join this effort. This could mean trouble for the tenuous alliance of BASIC.
Disregarding opposition from the local population in Okinawa, Tokyo continues to state that it will go ahead with its current base relocation plan to Henoko. Tokyo and Washington should comprehend that when constructing a military base in a democratic country, the popular will and voices of local citizens should be carefully considered and heard.
More than Afghanistan and Iraq, it is Pakistan which reflects the failure of the American foreign policy. Or is it naïve on my part to say so since the possibility of Pakistan being sheltered and supported as a nation that spawns terror groups willingly by Washington could in fact be the reality? Why would Washington, or for that matter others, ignore two recent events in Pakistan which clearly point at the regrouping of terror groups under the
On April 3 this year, a one-day conference was organised in Washington by the South Asian Studies department of the John Hopkins University. One of the sessions was on Pakistan, specifically on the safety of its nuclear installations.
After Operation Sindoor, India has established new conditions for dialogue with Pakistan, focusing solely on terrorism and PoK. As a strategic partner, New Delhi expects Washington to acknowledge these conditions and avoid hyphenating India with Pakistan
Modi and Obama need to focus less on India's near-term carbon emissions and find ways to boost its use of renewable energy like solar and wind. Such an approach will address Delhi's need to grow its economy and Washington's desire to lessen the weight of coal in India?s energy mix.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit, his sixth bilateral summit with the U.S. leader in nine years in office, will not be of great significance because the circumstances of what go into a successful summit do not exist. That has to do with the paralysis of governance in New Delhi, but equally the distemper that afflicts Washington.
The US has placed India in the category of 'closest partners' for defence cooperation. The official spin was that New Delhi would now be on the same footing as the closest allies of the US such as Britain. That may be the endpoint that New Delhi and Washington have decided upon, but it is far from the current reality. Both sides would need to do an enormous amount of work to attain that goal.
The mantra in Washington is that no deal is better than a bad deal. Realisation will soon dawn that the current situation only permits North Korea’s stockpile to grow as there is zero likelihood for Chinese and Russian support for further tightening of sanctions.
If India is the glue that binds the Sino-Pak alliance, as many argue, Delhi should have the capacity to weaken that bond through its own policies. Delhi has managed to alter the triangular dynamic with Pakistan and America by expanding its partnership with Washington. There might be similar possibilities awaiting Modi in Beijing.
India now has an easier relationship with Kabul and Washington. An India-Pakistan-Afghanistan trialogue this year to try and dispel some of the suspicions Pakistan has over India's ambitions in Afghanistan may be the way forward.
Moscow’s relevance to Delhi’s strategic calculus irks Washington
This paper looks at debates from the days of the British Raj until now that have shaped India's strategic thought on Afghanistan. It highlights the impact of India's territorial construct on its strategic imagination and argues that India's Afghan policy is determined by its political geography. Afghanistan has proved to be a security lynchpin in South and A Central Asia over the last two decades. Home to a variety of militant networks with regi
A Pakistani nuclear deal would suggest that the US is determined to maintain good ties with both India and Pakistan. Those in India, who expected that Washington's unhappiness with Islamabad would result in undivided attention to New Delhi, will be disappointed. But, the US is following the logic of its geopolitical interests.
Lt Gen (retd.) David Barno, Director, Center for North-East and South Asia (NESA) at the National Defense University, Washington, D.C. along with Col (retd.) Jack Gill, also of the same center, visited ORF on 18 April 2008. LTG Barno made a presentation on "Situation in Afghanistan in the Context of Insurgency and Changing Nature of War".
As the liberal order yields to an age of uncertainty, a new initiative is needed if the nuclear taboo has to hold.
Dr. Ashley J. Tellis, Senior Associate Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC, spoke to Rahul Mukand, Junior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, in New Delhi recently. This interview was conducted before the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007.
India’s August 2021 presidency of the United Nations Security Council allowed New Delhi to exhibit clout, creativity, and diplomacy, as it pushed for its inclusion in the Council permanently. Such a push reignites the “responsible stakeholder” debate in Washington and other Western capitals, particularly to gauge India’s rise against the interests of the US and its allies. This brief argues that the West needs to reassess India in a renew
The good old days of media diplomacy launched by Washington and London to justify the Iraq invasion seem to be getting over.The American and the British administration had successfully hijacked media spaces across the world to build legitimacy for the offensive on Iraq.
As the new Donald Trump administration tries to get a grip on the multiple domestic and foreign policy challenges facing America, China’s rise will be front and centre as the most significant challenge facing Washington.
In an effort to financially hobble Iran, the United States mandated nations to halt their imports of crude from the country by early November, or else risk attracting sanctions themselves from Washington. Not long after, the US announced that eight nations will be exempted from these sanctions, supposedly in recognition of their effort to cut down on their imports of Iranian oil. This brief argues that while it is true that certain countries did
This paper highlights the likely impact that the Trump energy policy reset may have on Washington’s approach to energy transitions domestically and globally. It seeks to identify any recalibration that this changed approach may have triggered in the long-term agenda of US partners. The paper focuses on the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—a country that has substantiated its commitment to clean energy pathways with sizeable investments of political
As China rises, racing ahead in emerging technologies, there are implications for both Washington and Delhi.
On 14 February 2025, Kathmandu was informed of the freeze on all payments related to the US$500-million Nepal Compact of the US government's Millennium Challenge Corporation. This followed the executive order passed by the Trump 2.0 administration in January, putting a 90-day pause on all foreign assistance programmes of the United States. During the years prior, the MCC Nepal Compact had been mired in political controversy since its signing in S
MBS’ tour is an important one as it goes beyond the bilateral ties and at a time when anti-Saudi sentiment is at an all-time high in Washington, it has sent an important signal that Riyadh is intent on diversifying its partners.
Rekindling a romance is never easy. However, if the expansive agenda unveiled by Modi and Obama is matched by bureaucratic purposefulness in Delhi and Washington, India and America have a second chance at building a strategic partnership of considerable consequence.
Washington and New Delhi must overcome some key differences for the group to succeed.
The Quad’s conspicuous absence from America’s National Defense Strategy reflects Washington’s insistence that allies shoulder more of the defence burden. The US may not withdraw from the Indo-Pacific, but for India the signal is clear: boost defence spending and invest in naval power projection
India's Afghanistan policy has for long been hos tage to the vagaries of policy making in Washington and the enormous baggage of myths and wishful thinking which burden its strategic outlook.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's call for zero-tolerance to terrorism in Washington on July 18 has come at a time when there is an urgent need for a global consensus on this issue. The Ayodhya and London attacks have clearly proved the re-emergence of terrorism with a renewed vigour.
The Saudi monarchy is facing challenges on many fronts but will brazen it out, fully confident of the unstinted support of its powerful patrons in Washington. Some changes, however, may occur in the Saudi government as a sop to the growing clamour for accountability.
After the United States and its allies left Afghanistan in 2021, analysts expected Russia to fill the vacuum caused by the withdrawal. As far as Moscow itself is concerned, it would like to establish full diplomatic ties with the Taliban regime while it urges Western countries to take accountability and fulfil their responsibilities towards the Afghan people. Indeed, Russia’s desire for security and regional hegemony compels it to selectively e
Defence cooperation has acquired a stable momentum, but there are still major challenges that Washington and New Delhi need to address
United States (US) President Donald Trump’s two high-profile meetings with Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir in the White House in a short span of three months have attracted worldwide attention and raised many questions about the real motives behind this growing bonhomie. Indeed, the love-hate relationship between the US and Pakistan has been a characteristic feature of South Asian geopolitics. Although Washington’s latest engagement wit
‘Bizarre’ has become the new byword in Washington under Trump
After Maduro's extraction, Washington's next steps will reveal whether this was a one-off or a shift towards coercive power
The changing distribution of power and the Chinese challenge to US primacy demands that countries like India and Australia bear larger responsibility for security. The future of the Indo-Pacific can't be tied solely to the twists and turns of the dynamic between Washington and Beijing.
Láffaire Snowden, the Moscow CIA station chief's name being published by Russia; tit-for-tat lists of alleged human rights violators released by the two countries; Syria, Iran, Ballistic Missile Defence, nuclear arms reductions—these are the issues concerning US-Russia relations that have dominated the headlines in the last few weeks. It would appear that the Cold War is upon us again! However, seen from another perspective, there are some sig
Neither Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel nor John Kerry, the new Secretary of State, will find it easy to sketch a credible exit strategy from the Afghan war which according to Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz has already cost $700 billion. Surely this vast expenditure has to be explained in terms of some gains for Washington.
Even as Washington expects India to be a net security provider in the Indo-Pacific region, the country is offering itself as a key partner in managing the cyber oceans. The US must now reciprocate.
It is a reality today that the US-India relationship is on a somewhat arid plateau. It is unable to meet the expectations placed on it and the reason for that is the increasing lack of what can be called "strategic trust" between New Delhi and Washington.
The US-Africa Leaders' Summit in Washington D.C from August 4 to 6 attracted considerable international media attention for various reasons. To begin with, for the US, it was a first of its kind.
Washington needs to understand that India-US partnership is not about democracy or common values but about common interests. The real strategic glue in the relationship is the common concern in maintaining some sort of balance in the larger Asian region in the context of China's rise.
With the nuclear deal over, New Delhi and Washington need another big idea to power the bilateral relationship over the next several years. Space cooperation has the potential for being that next big idea.
Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang's recent visit to Washington crystallised cooperation on non-traditional security matters such as counter-terrorism, and enhancing maritime security, which will not raise red flags in Beijing. Significantly, the meeting avoided the more militaristic features of national security.
The debate about Iran's quest for nuclear energy is wholly enmeshed in the politics of US-Iran relationship. Iran is a signatory to the NPT and its additional protocol. It has obligations; it has rights. The focus of the west is on obligations, of Iran on rights. The North-South divide is reflected in the board of governors of the IAEA, with Russia and China supportive of the non-aligned who apprehend, as Washington Post put it,
