Ramesh Thakur

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In 1990 British politician Norman Tebbit proclaimed his cricket loyalty test: In a match between England and their country of origin, whom did immigrants support? Alas, like most Indians in Australia and England, I would comprehensively fail the Tebbit test. (more…)

Americans seem to be afflicted by a curious historical amnesia. The facts are indisputable. The number of non-nuclear countries to have been attacked and invaded by the United States since 1945 is legion. Conversely, not one country with the bomb has been attacked. This equation, more than any other, drives the decision-making calculus of countries fearful of U.S. aggression. Kim may be paranoid about U.S. military strikes. The cause of his paranoia lies not in any internal psychoses, but in the history of belligerent U.S. militarism. (more…)

It will be recalled that on 1 December, Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huwaei Technologies, was arrested at Vancouver airport by Canadian authorities at the request of US prosecutors seeking her extradition to face charges of breaching sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump on Iran.I argued earlier that the mantra of ‘the rule of law must prevail’ had been instrumentalised as part of US lawfare against China and Ottawa had ignored the need for a carefully considered policy that located the best settling point for Canada between legal processes, geopolitical interests and bilateral relations with the US and China.

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On 1 December, Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huwaei Technologies and daughter of its founder, was arrested at Vancouver airport by Canadian authorities. In October, Cuba’s ambassador to Japan and a colleague were refused rooms by the Hilton hotel in Fukuoaka in western Japan. As a US-based firm, a company official explained, Hilton is obliged to comply with worldwide US sanctions on Cuban officials. City authorities retaliated that Hilton’s actions were in violation of Japanese law. Of course, no foreign owned hotel operating in the US would go unpunished if it violated US laws.

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Last January, the Doomsday Clock was moved to two minutes to midnight — the closest it has ever been, matching the acute sense of crisis of 1953. The primary explanation for the heightened threat alert was disturbing developments in the nuclear realm.

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Robert A. Lovett, Secretary of Defense (1951–53) in the Truman administration, advised that faced with political crises that carried great risks for small gains: ‘Forget the cheese; let’s get out of the trap’. Since the end of the Cold War and the resulting upsurge of triumphalism and exceptionalism among US policymakers and public intellectuals, America has been serially mousetrapped by the cheesy allure of Pax Americana across North Africa and the Middle East. The era of grand delusions may be drawing to a close.   (more…)

India’s recent elections in five states (Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh (MP), Mizoram, Rajasthan, Telengana) were largely a contest between the Congress as the country’s grand old party led by Rahul Gandhi, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by PM Narendra Modi. Congress did not just lose office in 2014, it was routed, winning just 44 of the 543 seats in Parliament. Now it is back as a serious contender once again. (more…)

CHINA – In the Trump administration’s most substantial foreign policy speech thus far, delivered at the Hudson Institute on Oct. 4, Vice President Mike Pence accused China of a “whole-of-government” attack on U.S. interests and vowed the United States will respond with robust countermeasures. (more…)

Tyranny is not restricted to any particular religion, culture, civilisation or gender. Political rule based in terror rather than citizen’s welfare, safety and security is a universal moral failing. The Westphalian system of sovereign states spread from Europe to cover the whole world after decolonisation. Because it was seen to have sanctified the ability of tyrants to rule by terror – free from external restraints and counter-measures – the need arose for a matching universal norm to ban and stop atrocities. (more…)

The United States has affirmed strategic competition with both Russia and China as the central organizing principle of its national security policy. The announcement on October 20 by President Donald Trump that the U.S. would withdraw from the 30-year-old Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty because of alleged Russian violations might be a key plank of that policy. (more…)

On 2 September, ahead of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit, the Pentagon announced the cancellation of US$300 million in aid to Pakistan for its alleged failure to take effective action against terrorist networks operating from its soil, including the Haqqani network and the Afghan Taliban. This was part of a broader cut announced on 4 January. Meanwhile, the history of unsettled borders, periodic wars and continual armed clashes, combined with growing nuclear arsenals in both countries, makes India–Pakistan relations a highly critical question for Asia and world security. (more…)

The most acute contemporary manifestation of the demand on China to demonstrate responsible leadership is the challenge of North Korea’s nuclear weapons. Le Hong Hiep speculated on the prospect of a grand bargain between Trump and Xi when they met at Mar-a-Lago to accommodate US concerns on its massive bilateral trade deficit and on North Korea’s nuclear program in return for meeting China’s concerns on US anti-missile deployments in South Korea. Such a deal was correctly assessed as unlikely. (more…)

China recognizes that it has been a major beneficiary of the existing international order and it has proven to be a fast learner in operating as a responsible power within that order. Its primary goal therefore will not be to perturb the order, but to gain greater influence in writing the rules and running the institutions to develop and police the global order. China is not intent on exporting its authoritarian model and has never been enthusiastic about the so-called China model of an authoritarian state, political stability and state-directed development. Rather, its main focus has been on promoting political stability and economic growth at home and securing access to resources and markets abroad. However if denied its rightful place at the top tables of global governance institutions, China has proven it has the will and the resources to set up parallel, but not alternative, institutions, for example the AIIB. (more…)

Westerners may believe that the growing integration and interdependence of China with the regional and international economy makes armed conflict too costly to contemplate and that the Pacific military balance is so heavily in US favour that China would not be foolish enough to challenge Washington. But what if Beijing believes that the costs to Washington would be so high that the US would back down? Along many such misperceptions and miscalculations do the bloody rivers of human history flow into the ocean of oblivion for once-great powers. (more…)

There have been two big geopolitical storylines thus far in this century: the US has suffered a relative decline from its dominant position at the end of the Cold War; and China has acquired impressive power in both relative and absolute terms. How China develops economically and evolves politically, and how it behaves domestically, regionally and globally, are among the most critical questions confronting the world going forward. (more…)

With the conclusion of the third inter-Korean summit last week, the next challenge will be to find common understanding. (more…)

Donald Trump’s national security advisor, John Bolton, has acted on his long-stated distaste for the International Criminal Court by declaring it dead to the US Though a few of Bolton’s protestations have merit, the US is setting a dangerous precedent in condemning the court. (more…)

Last week, the Madras high court ordered the National Highways Authority of India to separate ordinary citizens from VIPs at toll gates, with a dedicated lane for the latter. Of course, high court judges are included in the list of VIPs. The court held it to be ‘disheartening’ and ‘very unfortunate’ that judges are ‘compelled to wait in the toll plaza for 10 to 15 minutes’. (more…)

Great chief executives need a guiding vision for the exercise of authority, and all the more so when that authority is international civil authority. As United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan had such a vision – and the skills needed to realize it. (more…)