Analysis

Countering Ignatius’ deceitful notions about the Lashkar-e-Taiba. In his latest Washington Post column, David Ignatius casually mentions that the Lashkar-e-Taiba(LeT) is “a Kashmiri group”. Like this blogger, many other readers would have noticed the absence of the word terror while mentioning the “group”. A learned columnist like Mr Ignatius is...

The men in uniform can play a useful role in foreign policy Excerpts from today’s Business Standard column: India does not engage in military diplomacy in any meaningful form. This is part of the reason why India finds itself in a bind with respect to Pakistan, where it needs to...

Business as usual, with some relative advantage and why we need Reforms 2.0 Excerpts from today’s Business Standard column: It is extremely unlikely, but let’s say the fragrance of Jasmine flowers wafts across the Great Wall and perfumes China’s Han heartlands. A post-revolution China could take many forms, but let’s...

The inaugural piece of my new fortnightly monthly column in DNA Yesterday, I wrote about how to spot the next revolution. Demographics was one indicator. Specifically the existence of a youth bulge (young people constituting a large fraction of the total population) has been found to be correlated with high...

A curtain-raiser to this year’s geopolitical drama in five acts Excerpts from Business Standard column today: The first act began a few days ago when some online military buffs posted images of a new stealth aircraft, tested on the very day Robert Gates, US defence secretary, was in Beijing to...

Doing more maritime chowkidari Excerpts from my column in Business Standard: What can we do in the short term? Now, while the Indian Navy has discharged itself admirably in escorting convoys and fighting pirates, it is primarily a war-fighting force. New Delhi’s priority must remain equipping it to become a...

My new monthly column in Business Standard is called The Asian Balance. It “will devote itself to chronicling and interpreting the unfolding geopolitics of East Asia. It will be a unabashed advocate of Looking East far beyond the Straits of Malacca. Rebuilding the economic, cultural and political relationships that India...

Five neighbourhood paradoxes You might have noticed that, relatively speaking, India’s policy towards the United States or Japan is far more coherent than towards, say, Nepal. Over the last few years, New Delhi was able to challenge the age-old dogma of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), strike a favourable bargain...

Strategy in a triangular predicament In today’s Pax Indica column, I argue “that despite an alignment of interests, (India) must not always side with the United States. It must swing.” To paraphrase Henry Kissinger, India’s options toward the United States and China must always be greater than their options toward...

Of Vijay Chauhan, Voldemort and the Realist perspective Over at Yahoo! India columns I introduce Pax Indica, my fortnightly column. Excerpts: The underlying point is that countries operate in an anarchy, an environment where there is no overarching authority that can constrain their actions. Here, as the charismatic Vijay Dinanath...