Practical Strategy

The agony and ecstasy of being a member of the exclusive Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was brought home to India on Friday afternoon when China and other notable countries of Europe raised their concerns on India’s application to get the membership of nuclear elite group “Nuclear Supplier Group”. A huge diplomatic campaign was run by Delhi to get into NSG butt could made so. Delhi was very hopeful for that matter but it cannot materialized its hopes. In the plenary meeting of NSG in South Korean capital Seoul no consensus was built about the Indian application for NSG membership. The announcement was that no decision is made about the inclusion of an non NPT state in NSG but talks will carry on. What an irony is that NSG was built as a reaction to Indian nuclear explosions in 1974 to limit the nuclear trade and transfer of nuclear technology up to some particular countries. After those Indian explosions Canada itself ended its nuclear collaborations with India and now India ...

South Asia is a region locked up in several conflicts and disputes that have resulted in many wars between India and Pakistan. The last full scale war between India and Pakistan was fought in 1971. Soon after 1971, India displayed its nuclear capability (in 1974) that forced Pakistan to step up its nuclear program in order to counter the Indian threat. Pakistan worked on its nuclear program very secretly and quickly. In 1983, it conducted its cold tests and latter interviews of A Q Khan and Zia-ul-Haq showed that Pakistan had developed nuclear weapons capability by that time. This was the point where balance of terror vis a vis India was roughly established. In late 1980s, relations between India and Pakistan once again became tense. Indian military exercise, Brasstacks made Pakistan cautious that these exercises were a pretext for full-fledged attack on Pakistan and Pakistan concentrated its forces on Eastern border. How India was stopped from attacking Pakistan? Jayantanuja Bandyo...

                                               Israel - Palestine Conflict Introduction  The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians that began in the mid-20th century. This conflict is one of the most highly publicized and bitter struggles of modern times. Although the two groups have different regions, religious differences were not the cause of the strife. The conflict began as a struggle over land. For the Palestinians the last 100 years have brought colonization, expulsion and military occupation, followed by a long and difficult search for self- determination and for coexistence with the nation they hold responsible for their suffering and loss. Background   By the end of 1800s, a political movement, Zionism was established to address the increasing persecution and anti-Semitism in Europe. The...

Introduction                                          The Syrian Civil War is an ongoing multi-sided armed conflict with international interventions taking place in Syria. More than 250,000 Syrians have lost their lives in four-and-a-half years of armed conflict, which began with anti-government protests before escalating into a full-scale civil war. More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and those opposed to his rule battle each other - as well as jihadist militants from so-called Islamic State. History of Syria  Archaeologists believe the original civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth. Seeing as its part of the Fertile Crescent, where some of the first people on earth practiced cattle breeding and agriculture, the land is chock-full of Neolithic remains. Syria was finally recog...

The seeds of hostility between the United States and the USSR began near the end of World War I. The Bolsheviks (later Communists) overthrew the existing Russian government. In December 1922 began the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) under Communist control. The United States refused to recognize the Soviet state until 1933. The profound ideological differences between the USSR and the United States were problematic and made worse by Joseph Stalin, who ruled the USSR from 1929 to 1953 as a ruthless dictator. In July 16, 1945, the creation of the first atomic bomb came to fruition in the United States and was tested at Alamogordo, New Mexico at a site called "Trinity". The atomic bomb had two objectives: a quick end of World War II and possession by the US (and not USSR), would allow control of foreign policy. In 1947 president Harry S. Truman authorized U.S. aid (The Truman Doctrine) to anti-Communist forces in Greece and Tu...

Overlooking China’s past objections, India, Japan and the United States are conducting joint naval war games this month in the Pacific Ocean, adjacent to the East China Sea. India’s decision to proceed with the trilateral exercise after five years of keeping Japan out, so as not to provoke China, indicates a new brand of maritime assertiveness. At the same time, both Indian and Chinese navies are actively building ‘blue water’ capabilities – an ability to carry out operations much farther than their territorial boundaries, across the deep oceans. As India juggles the dual imperative to simultaneously befriend and hedge against an economically and militarily rising China, the outcome of its blue water quest will influence the balance of power in Asia for years to come. Why Develop ‘Blue Water’ Capabilities? Almost unnoticed by the rest of the world, India has built one of the largest and most powerful navies in the world. However, there exist a number of drivers for further e...

The connectivity initiatives that China and other Asian countries are pursuing across Asia and the Indian Ocean region—building new infrastructure, institutions, and interlinkages—is arguably redrawing the continent’s map. That has not just economic implications, but geopolitical ones. India has been relatively silent on perhaps the most talked-about of the initiatives, China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR). But, at the inaugural Raisina Dialogue, hosted in New Delhi in early March by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and the think tank Observer Research Foundation, the Indian government signaled Delhi’s concern about Beijing’s approach toward connectivity and the region more broadly. In three speeches over three days, Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Minister of State for External Affairs (or deputy foreign minister) V.K. Singh, and Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar provided the clearest exposition yet of India’s official perspective on and approach toward conn...

When Sen. Marco ­Rubio stands before Miami’s historic Freedom Tower on Monday and announces that he is the second Cuban American to join the 2016 race for president of the United States, Gabriel Perez, Emilio Izquierdo and Mike Valdes will share a powerful sense of pride. This is the big sign that Cuban Americans have finally made it, they all say — accepted not only as refugees from communism or as successful businesspeople but as serious contenders for the most American job in the land. But let the wave of pride surrounding the candidacies of Florida’s Rubio and fellow Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas subside, and Perez, Izquierdo, Valdes and many of their fellow Cuban Americans find themselves in surprising discord. The idea of the Cuban American monolith, the notion that the estimated 2 million immigrants and their offspring constitute a single-issue ramrod that for a half-century has forced Washington into a hard line against the Castro brothers’ regime, is crumbling ...