WORLD
How should New Delhi respond to China’s growing nuclear arsenal?
Even though China’s decision to grow its nuclear weapons stockpile isn’t primarily directed at India, it nonetheless has inexorable consequences.
TRENDS
Will India be joining the world’s most exclusive intelligence club?
The so-called ‘Five Eyes’ club led by the United States is the most sophisticated intelligence-gathering alliance in human history. Efforts are gathering to induct India into it.
TRENDS
Tapi pipe(line) dream rises again from the ashes of the Afghan war
Huge questions still hang over the project, though. Among them are the difficulty of pushing a pipeline through a war-torn country, and financing the Tapi pipeline which ADB says could cost USD 10 billion.
TRENDS
Can Imran Khan’s secret weapon defeat the Pakistan Army, and build an Islamic state?
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s efforts to cast himself at the vanguard of Islam are evident everywhere. Meanwhile, Pakistan Army chief General Bajwa is yet to show his hand.
TRENDS
Taiwan crisis is a critical test of American resolve in Asia
There’s little doubt that the recent PLA Air Force intrusions into Taiwan’s Air Defence Identification Zone are intended as threats. But they also seem designed not to provoke an actual crisis.
TRENDS
Drug busts won’t fix India’s growing drug problem
As news breaks of the drug haul from a raid on a cruise ship off Mumbai, Indians ought be reflecting on whether the punishment fits the crime. And whether it helps to solve the underlying problem.
TRENDS
Is the US set to break up with Pakistan?
The United States is already working to bypass Pakistan’s geographical advantage in the region, and it isn't as invested in maintaining the geopolitical order in the Middle East any more.
TRENDS
Iran is considering its next moves in the Afghan war-without-end
Tehran might have secured the eviction of its superpower adversary from Afghanistan—only to discover that in this case, victory holds out the dangers of defeat.
TRENDS
Is the new Australia-UK-US alliance a geopolitical revolution, or a PR gimmick?
For New Delhi, AUKUS isn’t uncomplicated good news.
TRENDS
The road to 9/11 was paved by the Islamist fantasies that America itself nurtured
From archival material, it is now clear that the United States watched the road to 9/11 being built—and chose not to act.
TRENDS
How will the world deal with the next 9/11?
We are, for better or worse, at a turning point in world history, where the Great Powers are stepping back from their traditional role as upholders of order.
WORLD
Tensions in Taliban: The anticlimactic birth of the Second Emirate could point to troubles ahead
The story of missing Emir, many experts believe, points to a fierce power struggle that has broken out since the Taliban seized Kabul on August 14, at the end of a dramatic, weeks-long campaign.
TRENDS
Amid blood-red sunset of US withdrawal, fears rise that Afghan State will implode
Economic engagement with the Taliban could empower a ruthless regime. A collapsed Afghanistan, though, could degenerate into narco-state which exports terrorism.
TRENDS
Triumph of Taliban power could pose an existential threat to the ‘Anti-Taliban’ states of Central Asia
Central Asia has significant ethnic and religious minorities, and populations of Russian-speaking Slavs. Islamism threatens to upset that delicate balance—and with it, the élites who rule the region.
WORLD
Assessing the fallout from the fall of Afghanistan: Four key takeaways
As the Taliban regime consolidates itself and becomes a regional player, the big question is what implications this will have for India, the region, and the wider world.
WORLD
What the Taliban victory in Afghanistan means for India and the world, explained
How did Kabul fall in the blink of an eye, what are the potential ramifications of the rebirth of an Islamic Emirate for India, what does this mean for the world order, and other vital questions answered.
TRENDS
A new narco-state is blossoming in Afghanistan under the Taliban
In 2020, the area under opium cultivation expanded to 224,000 hectares from 163,000 hectares - overwhelmingly in areas under Taliban control.
TRENDS
An adventurer’s bid to circumnavigate the Arctic illustrates China’s northern ambitions
India has set up laboratories focused on climate change in the Arctic Circle and is seeking to pursue hydrocarbon and trade opportunities, but catching up to China won't be easy.
TRENDS
American sanctions on Cuba will hurt the country’s people, not its regime
Even superpowers must learn to live with regimes they dislike.
WORLD
British-Pakistani based in London to be tried for attempt to assassinate anti-Pakistan Army blogger
The trial comes in the back of the deaths of two exiled Pakistani dissidents—Karima Baloch and Sajid Husain Baloch—in deaths that investigators claim were suicides, but activists suspect may have been murdered.
TRENDS
From Haiti’s coup, a warning on the sunrise of the globalised mercenary
In recent years, organised mercenary forces have appeared in theatres of conflict across the world: Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Syria, Ukraine. The United Nations estimates that private military contractors make upwards of $100 billion a year.
TRENDS
As the Taliban prepare for victory, Islamabad is being forced to face up to the cost of getting what it wanted
In reach of complete victory, the Taliban see no reason to listen to the Generals’ calls to end the fighting.
INDIA
Jammu Airport Attack | NIA probe suggests attackers used two drones
Finding electronic evidence of the route of a GPS-guided drone, an NIA officer familiar with the Jammy investigation said, was only possible if the navigation’s systems components could be recovered.
TRENDS
Iran’s Presidential election has set the stage for high-stakes talks with the US, but the path forward remains fraught
For Tehran and Washington to arrive at acceptable terms, they will have to come to a shared understanding on the influence and role of Iran in the region—one that states like Israel and Saudi Arabia can also live with.
