Sabah Aslam l
From the coasts of Caspian Sea to the rouged lands touching Afghanistan, there lies a belt of resource rich countries – the Central Asian States. Comprising five states, the region is fast becoming the new hub for social and economic development. As it lies at the heart of the ancient Silk Route, Central Asia also holds key...
Andrew Korybko |
Russia’s CSTO mutual defense ally and fellow Eurasian Union member Kyrgyzstan has been suddenly thrown into yet another crisis earlier this week after a long-simmering power struggle between the current and former presidents finally turned violent. Former President Atambayev was stripped of immunity earlier this summer and charged with corruption by incumbent President Jeenbekov, his former protege, but he...
At the heart of constitutional changes to Article 370 is Presidential Order C.O. 272, which constitutes the basis for everything that follows. The second is a Statutory Resolution introduced in the Rajya Sabha, which – invoking the authority that flows from the effects of Presidential Order C.O. 272 – recommends that the President abrogate (much of) Article 370. The third is the Reorganisation Bill, that...
M K Bhadrakumar l
The Arab sheikhs who instigated the US-Iran standoff have heard the African proverb, ‘When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers’. But they chose to ignore it. The assumption in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi was that President Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ strategy would frighten Tehran and life would be back to normal very soon with a...
Andrew Korybko |
India just did everything that “Israel” wished it could do in Palestine by abrogating Kashmir’s relative “autonomy”, imposing a draconian curfew in the disputed region, and “legally” facilitating the large-scale influx of “Weapons of Mass Migration” there to disrupt the demographic balance, and the only country that has the political will to realistically force this rogue state to reconsider these highly counter-producive...
Asif Haroon Raja l
Sudan had remained a colony of the British for 56 years after which it gained independence on January 1, 1956. Located in northeastern Africa, it shares border with Egypt to the north, Libya to the northwest, Eritrea and Chad to the east, Central African Union to the southwest, and Chad to the west. Red Sea is...
TIC ANALYSIS l
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) rejected India’s request to ‘acquit, release and return’ its convicted spy, Kulbhushan Yadav, however it directed Pakistan to ensure an effective review and reconsideration of his sentence. It also ordered Pakistan to allow India consular access to Kulbhushan Yadav. The ICJ, in rejecting India's demand that Pakistan's conviction of Yadav be...
TIC ANALYSIS l
The threat of war between Iran and US has escalated in the wake of US unilateral sanctions on Iran, Iran’s partial withdrawal from the Nuclear deal and US military deployment in wake of unproven threats by Iranian proxies. The reality of the threat of war is hard to interpret especially in face of the US President’s personal...
Andrew Korybko |
India’s revocation of Kashmir’s relative “autonomy” embodies everything that its new “Israeli” ally wishes it could do to Palestine such as eliminating its separate political status and giving non-residents of the UNSC-recognized disputed territory the right to buy property there as part of its long-term plan to wage demographic warfare against the locals, yet few around the...
Asif Haroon Raja l
Sectarian and tribal divides in Yemen had sharpened during the long rule of President Gen Ali Abdullah Saleh. Separatist movement in South Yemen sought independent country. Saleh unified the country for the first time as an independent state in 1990. The Houthi movement in North Yemen, which champions Yemen's Zaidi Shia Muslim minority, and backed by...
TIC ANALYSIS l
The recently concluded visit of Prime Minister Imran Khan has emerged as a game-changer in the political landscape of South Asia. All the highlights of the trips such as the austerity showcased by the PM and entourage travelling by commercial flight, the massive Pakistani American rally in Washington, the meeting with US President Donald Trump and the...
M K Bhadrakumar |
There could be several ways of interpreting the US State Department’s decision on Tuesday to designate the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, which imposes economic sanctions on the group and anyone affiliated with it. What is absolutely certain is that this is by no means an altruistic decision by Washington.
The BLA is based...
Asif Haroon Raja |
Donald Trump has been maintaining a highly belligerent posture against Pakistan as was evident from his policy on Afghanistan and on South Asia and his random statements accusing Pakistan of harboring Haqqani network and Afghan Taliban, and holding it responsible for the instability in Afghanistan.
On one hand Pakistan is accused of sheltering and supporting Afghan...
M K Bhadrakumar |
The Four-Party Meeting on the Afghan Peace Process, held in Beijing last Thursday and Friday, comprising China, the US, Russia and Pakistan, is a dramatic development auguring a peace settlement in Afghanistan. In a regional setting, it also signifies that Pakistan has inflicted a heavy defeat on India in the decade-old proxy war in Afghanistan.
The special...
TIC Analysis |
The entrance of the nuclear weapons changed the paradigm of overt conflict throughout the world. Not only did nuclear weapons stopped aggression against nuclear armed states but also a global taboo against the use of nuclear weapons deterred nuclear states from using their strategic weapons as leverage against other nations. This change caused modern conflict to largely...
Dr. Zafar Nawaz Jaspal |
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program is primarily predicated upon its ability to act as a deterrent, to prevent nuclear blackmail by, or a nuclear conflict with, India. Therefore its nuclear posture is governed by the quantitative and qualitative reforms in India’s conventional and nuclear forces.
Nuclear-armed diesel-propelled submarines aim to discourage Indian aggression through the concept of...
Andrew Korybko |
As astounding as it may sound to most observers, the global pivot state of the 21st century isn’t China, the US, nor Russia, but Pakistan. The South Asian state regrettably has a terrible international reputation as a result of the joint Indo-American infowar that’s been waged against it over the past few decades, but an objective look at...
Farid A Malik |
Pakistan started off well; common good was on everyone’s agenda. However, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the first governor-general, died on September 11, 1948, and the first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was assassinated on October 16, 1951. Khwaja Nazimuddin, a prominent politician from the eastern wing replaced Jinnah, and served as governor-general until 1951, and as prime...
M K Bhadrakumar |
The US President Donald Trump’s reported decision abruptly to call off military strike against Iran which he’d previously ordered, highlights the growing complexity of the US-Iranian entanglement.
Indeed, it takes political courage to rationalise amidst such a dangerous situation that discretion is the better part of valour. Trump has been smart enough. But, having said that, there’s going to...
Researchers at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) have concluded that military spending is skyrocketing around the world. According to a report published by the institute in April, the world spent $1.8 trillion on military expenditure in 2018 (2.1 per cent of global GDP), which is 2.6 per cent higher than in 2017 and 76 per cent higher than in...
Andrew Korybko |
Russian Special Representative for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov traveled to Islamabad on an unannounced visit to discuss the future of the war-torn state following the US’ possibly impending “phased withdrawal” from the country. It should be reminded that this very plausible scenario was brought about by the US’ Special Envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad’s shuttle diplomacy over the past month...
Farid A Malik |
Political cleansing has finally started. The dirt is being removed from the arena. It is better late than never. Finally, the process of generating inept and corrupt leadership started in October 1958 by the first usurper is coming to an end after six decades. There is a long list from the Chaudhry’s of Gujrat, Sharif’s of...
Nabiya Imran |
With the advent of the information age, it was obvious that technology will creep into the international political system. It has and it is here to stay. States with well-developed information technology sectors are very successful. One of the creations of this technology is techniques to penetrate into another state virtually in the cyber space. Cyber warfare...
Jawad Falak |
16 December 2018 marked the 47th year since the fall of Dhaka to the Indian Army in the war of 1971. The war which started with the backing of terrorist elements known as the Mukti Bahini culminated in an illegal Indian invasion of Pakistan’s vulnerable eastern portion then called East Pakistan. The tactic of terror used by...
M K Bhadrakumar |
What a coincidence that a leaked document from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) just exposed that the chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria in April, 2018 was most likely staged. In security parlance, it was a false flag operation — stage-managed cunningly to create the alibi for a ‘humanitarian intervention’ by the West in...
