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The signing of the strategic partnership agreement by the United States President Barack Obama and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai becomes a historic landmark in the geopolitics of Central Asia...The sum total of Obama’s message is that the US is going to stay put in Afghanistan for at least another decade.
Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR | 09.05.2012 |
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It is increasingly apparent that the US will maintain a sizeable military presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014… Washington has also resuscitated the New Silk Road project, which is an important dimension to the post-2014 scenario…: Afghan-Pakistan trade and transit agreement…; Uzbek and Turkmen supply of electricity to Afghanistan; new rail connections being built between Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan; new rail line from the Uzbek border to Mazar-i-Sharif; progress in the negotiations over a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project; India’s iron ore project in Hajigak in Afghanistan; bids by American companies in the upcoming six mining tenders in Afghanistan (3 in copper, two in gold and one in lithium); creation of the Border Management Staff College in Dushanbe and the Customs Training Facility in Bishkek, and so on...
Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR | 03.05.2012 |
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In international diplomacy, when scheduling a major event on which issues of war and peace are pegged and that date is just a week away, and if you still don’t know the venue, you're indeed in some serious trouble. The US secretary of state Hillary Clinton announced while on a visit to Istanbul to attend the 'Friends of Syria' meet on April 1 that the long-awaited meeting of the so-called 'P5+1' to discuss the Iran nuclear issue would take place on April 13. She disclosed that Istanbul would be the venue. But Clinton’s Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi now says Istanbul is only one option. Although “personally speaking”, he likes Istanbul, he proposed Iraq and China as Tehran's preference...
Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR | 07.04.2012 |
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The sight of the BRICS has been an eyesore for the developed countries ever since its inception. The sense of irritability has now given way to disquiet bordering on hostility. There is a compelling urgency that BRICS is assuming habitation and a name. True, nothing of an earth-shaking nature has emerged from the New Delhi summit. Yet, there are new stirrings that herald the potential for a BRICS surge. And that causes disquiet to the developed world. Simply put, as the Delhi Declaration by the BRICS countries reminds is, it is a “platform for dialogue and cooperation amongst countries that represent 43% of the world’s population” in a multi-polar world. That is saying a lot...
Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR | 31.03.2012 |
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There has been a 180-degree turn in the Indian stance vis-à-vis the attempts by the international community to reset the Sri Lankan government’s handling of its alleged human rights violations in the final stages of the war against the Tamil extremist organization known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam [LTTE]. Ironically enough, India’s vote last week at Geneva supporting the resolution sponsored by the United States and its western allies at the 47-member United Nations Human Rights Commission literally helped the resolution scrape through with ‘majority support’ of 24 countries... Several major regional powers opposed the resolution – Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, etc. – as well as India’s neighbors Bangladesh and Nepal...
Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR | 30.03.2012 |
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The crisis in Syria shows that Russia and China are creatively adapting the tenets of ‘non-alignment’ to the prevailing world order. This has brought the two countries closer together than at anytime in modern history. They share a common aversion toward Cold-War era ‘bloc mentality’. Neither is prescriptive as to how others should order their national life... What happens in Syria is going to determine the fate and character of the multipolar world order in the coming decades... If India joins hands with Russia and China in an endeavor in search of peace and reconciliation, the prospects of success will remarkably improve. Other influential voices in the world community – the ‘silent majority’ – will also feel encouraged to express their deep disquiet about what is happening in Syria so soon after the West’s bloody war in Libya...
Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR | 06.03.2012 |
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Apropos the crisis in Syria, which is arguably, the “hottest” issue in international politics today, the BRICS showed up worrying signs of an identity crisis of its own. Russia and China vetoed the Arab League resolution on Syria in the United Nations Security Council, while India and Brazil voted for the resolution. The pattern repeated a week later in the UN General Assembly... Therefore, it comes as a pleasant surprise that the rumor regarding the BRICS’ premature death was an exaggeration. The tidings from Mexico City this week show that BRICS is not only up and about but, in a manner of speaking, raring to go as it approaches the annual summit in the Indian capital on March 28-29...
Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR | 29.02.2012 |
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The two-day trilateral summit of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, which concluded in Islamabad on Friday, has exposed the fault lines in the Afghan peace process... There is recognition today that the Barack Obama administration’s Afghan ‘surge’ at best produced patchy results that are not sustainable and the Afghan forces’ capacity to shoulder the responsibility for security is in doubt... To be sure, Taliban sense victory. And so does Pakistan...
Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR | 19.02.2012 |
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The “color revolution” will continue to be the preferred route for the United States in effecting regime change in Central Asia. But the limits to the United States’s capacity to intervene also cannot but be noted. As a perceptive observer recently noted, the US is a “renter rather than a bona-fide landlord of Eurasian property” – and a renter can always be evicted by the landlord. Second, the Central Asian countries cannot but find odious the violent regime changes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and wouldn’t want to go through similar experience. Most important, both Russia and China are following active regional policies with regard to the Central Asian countries, which give the latter much space to withstand US pressures...
Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR | 18.01.2012 |
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The United States’ defence strategy unveiled by President Barack Obama in Washington on January 5 has been occasioned by the need to slash the spending of the Pentagon by nearly half a trillion dollars over the next decade... So, is this the end of history? Is the US imperialism on retreat on the world arena? Are the Marines packing bags and returning home for family reunion and for a life happily ever after? Actually, the defence strategy document is deceptive. The more things seemed to change, the more they would remain the same. The heart of the matter is that the United States is making adjustments by way of preparing for another Cold War, and unlike Cold War I against the Soviet Union, this will be primarily fought in the Asia-Pacific...
Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR | 13.01.2012 |
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