Search

The inner circle ensconced inside Trump Tower is either in chaos, or making good on its promise to smash the entrenched system to pieces.

The G7’s future relevance will depend on its ability to stay united, share space, and shape the agenda with rising powers like India.

The South Caucasus region—comprising Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan—is a critical geopolitical hub due to its strategic location at the intersection of Asia and Europe, where India has emerged as a new player. This report explores the current India-Armenia partnership in the context of evolving geopolitical dynamics and regional power shifts. It focuses on understanding how Armenia’s strategic importance can serve India’s broader geopol

Closer home, the Great Power Game will be played in the unstable fields of Ayatollahs' Iran, a Talibanised Afghanistan, whose leaders have their own world view, and a Sunni radicalised nuclearised Pakistan. The main contestants will be China and the US and our strategic planners may have to start planning for an uncertain future.

The interesting thing is that almost all the current crop of leaders who enjoy connect with their people at the regional level are prime ministerial aspirants in 2014. Everyone is positioning himself or herself in subtle ways already.

Qatar is creating a large footprint for itself in the West Asian Qpolitical landscape. The Gulf state was previously known primarily for its oil and gas reserves, and compliance with US interests in the region. However, Qatar has in the recent past made significant efforts to assert regional pre-eminence through an aggressive foreign policy. Emir Shaikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who recently handed over the reins of power to his son, Tamim bin

It has become fashionable to forget the support that Hamas received from Israel during its formative years in the 1980s.

Tunisia, Eygpt, Syria?events may seem to be following a pattern but the changing dynamics in West Asia point to far more complex political and strategic games being played: The US role, Saudi phobia, Israeli and Iranian intrigues. Oil. And, to top it all, the Shia-Sunni face-off. Is Turkey being lured in as a possible Joker in the pack? Welcome to another Great Game.

United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to be complimented for her candour. Her press conference in Moscow with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov unavoidably focussed on Iran's nuclear plans and Mr. Lavrov said Iran had the right under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) to the nuclear fuel cycle. Dr. Rice said, "this is not a question of rights but whether or not the fuel cycle can be trusted in Iran."

Speaking at a meeting of the Foreign Correspondents' Association of Sri Lanka at Colombo on May 26,2005, Hagrup Haukland, the chief of the Norwegian-led military mission, which monitors the three-year-old ceasefire between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), confirmed the allegation of the Sri Lankan Government that the LTTE had constructed an airstrip near Iranamadu in the Wanni area under its control in

The narrative of the world being divided into power blocs like those during the Cold War era has been punctured

The Qatar crisis unfolded soon after the Riyadh summit of Muslim countries, attended by President Trump. Iran was the whipping boy at the Riyadh summit.

In his third term, He should take a proactive approach to peacemaking, like Norway & Switzerland. This will help India better mangae its external environment.

So far, Iran’s response to U.S. provocation has been rhetorical but President Rouhani has little room for manoeuvre

Two months back an observer had noted that "without India wanting to make it so, an impression is gaining ground that our American commitments seem to insist on intruding on India-Iran relations."

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

The US today is on the horns of a dilemma in the Middle East.

The drastic and sudden drop in Venezuelan and Iranian oil exports to India in 2019-2020, due to the looming threat of US secondary sanctions, is the latest supply chain disruption to India’s energy security. To avoid similar disruptions in the future, India must act decisively to increase its Strategic Petroleum Reserves to meet at least 90 days of emergency oil stocks, and combine lobbying efforts between India’s private and public oil compa

Sanctions, a mechanism to penalise international legal violations, usually prohibit nationals of the “sanctioning country” from engaging in specified activities with the “targeted country.” Secondary or extraterritorial sanctions, on the other hand, penalise third-country individuals and companies for dealing with sanctioned countries. Recent measures adopted by the US—the enactment of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanc

Most analysts agree that a dangerous mix of demand, supply and currency is responsible for Punjab’s drug menace. Punjab is both a transit point and a market for the drugs smuggled from the so-called Golden Crescent that is Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. While the heroin produced in Afghanistan is smuggled through the 553-km-long, porous India-Pakistan border, the opium, poppy husk, charas and hashish, among other drugs, come from the neighbour

The two powers have a common aim of undermining America’s hold on West Asian security but have also built their circles of influence

The issues in Afghanistan do not exhaust potential areas for India-US cooperation. For example, combating the drug trade, engaging China, Central Asian nations, Iran, and Russia. Successful coordination and collaboration will go a long way towards creating a post-2014 Afghan scenario amenable to both India and the US.

Trump’s stern warning to Israel played a key role in shoring up a fragile ceasefire with Iran

Though India has decided to cut down oil from Iran and thereby, for the time being, might have placated the US, it, however, cannot afford to ignore Iran either - for a myriad of reasons.

The last multilateral negotiations in the field of nuclear disarmament took place more than 20 years ago, resulting in the long awaited Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The treaty, however, has yet to enter into force. India is often held responsible for such uncertainty, in spite of having withdrawn from the negotiations before it was even concluded; at other times, it is the US which is blamed for failing to ratify the CTBT—giving reason

Narendra Modi’s West Asia policy remains the one area of achievement in an otherwise indifferent record of foreign policy.

The deepening crisis in the Korean Peninsula and the stalled nuclear talks with Iran together are a powerful reminder to the US that its non-proliferation policies are not working in Asia. Both Bush's muscular approaches and Obama's coercive diplomacy have failed.

Ever since the US declared Iran a member of the ¿Axis of Evil¿, and more so after the Iraq invasion, the question very often asked in many of the essays that appeared in the West was ¿Is Iran next?¿ And now, after a bruising experience in Iraq, the US administration cannot just retreat to the relative safety of the White House and glower at the rest of the world.

Though Dr. Hassan Rouhani is labelled as a 'pragmatist', 'moderate', or even a 'reformist' by analysts, all these terms have very restrictive meanings in the Iranian context.

The challenge for Iran's President-elect Dr. Hassan Rouhani lies in not only appeasing the highest echelons of country's clergy, but also securing results for an economy that is on the brink of collapse.

Regional security in West Asia stands at a precarious intersection.

भारत आणि इराण अफगाणिस्तानमध्ये स्वतःसाठी जागा तयार करण्यासाठी समान ओळख आणि हितसंबंध वापरून त्यांचे जागतिक दृष्टिकोन सुधारू शकतात.

अफगाणिस्तानतील घडमोडींवरून निर्माण झालेल्या सुरक्षाविषयक धोक्यांचा सामना करण्यासाठी इराण आणि भारत एकत्र येऊ शकतात का? हा खरा प्रश्न आहे.

अमेरिका आणि मध्यपूर्व या दोघांसोबतही मैत्री राखण्याची कसरत करणारा जपान सध्या एका वेगळ्या वळणावर उभा आहे.

भारतासाठी आखाती देश हे तेलासाठी आवश्यक असणारे देश होते, पण गेल्या वर्षीच अमेरिकेने लादलेल्या निर्बंधामुळे चित्र बदलते आहे.

अमेरिका-इराण संघर्षात भारतासह अनेक आशियाई अर्थव्यवस्थांचे मोठे नुकसान आहे. कारण हे देश मध्यपूर्वेतील तेलाचे सर्वात मोठे ग्राहक आहेत.

पाकिस्तान भारतासोबतचे संबंध सुधारण्यासाठी प्रयत्न करण्यास खरंच तयार असेल तर त्याने अफगाणिस्तान समस्येबाबत भारताचे मत देखील विचारात घेतले पाहिजे.

पश्चिम आशिया सतत अस्थिर राहणे हे अमेरिकेच्या हिताचे आहे. वेगाने वाढत जाणाऱ्या चीनवर कुरघोडी करण्यासाठी अमेरिकेला ते हवे आहे.

इराणचे अॅटर्नी जनरल मोहम्मद जाफर मोंटाझेरी यांनी एका परिषदेत सांगितले की, नैतिकता पोलिसांचा न्यायव्यवस्थेशी काहीही संबंध नाही आणि अशा प्रकारे जिथेजिथे अशा यंत्रणा आहे

इराण अणुभंग झालेला असताना पश्चिम आशिया आणि अमेरिकेतील बायडेन यांच्या बाजूने खरोखर आहे का?

इराण-इस्रायल यांच्यातील निराकरण न केलेले आणि संबोधित न केलेले गतिमान संबंध इतर कोणत्याही प्रादेशिक सामान्यीकरणास धोका असल्याचे जाणवत आहे.