COMMENTARIES
  • Myanmarese Refugees in Thailand: Implications of Suu Kyi’s Visit
    Panchali Saikia    ·   20 Jun, 2012    ·    #3642    ·    Commentary    
    A major highlight of Myanmar’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s trip to Thailand was her visit to the Mae Sot refugee camp in June 2012. The Mae Sot camp is the largest among the nine refugee camps in Thailand, with nearly 50,000...
  • Shangri La Dialogue: Southeast Asian Dynamics
    Amruta Karambelkar    ·   25 Jun, 2012    ·    #3641    ·    Commentary    
    Southeast Asian states of Indonesia, Singapore, Cambodia, Myanmar and Malaysia addressed the Shangri-La Dialogue 2012 with differing perspectives (SLD). This commentary analyses relevant speeches and media reports to understand Southeast Asian s...
  • Shangri-La Dialogue: Reflections on Leon Panetta’s Address
       ·   15 Jun, 2012    ·    #3640    ·    Commentary    
    At the 11th IISS Asian Security Summit: The Shangri-la Dialogue (SLD), the US Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, spoke on ‘The US rebalance towards the Asia-Pacific’. The speech was filled with powerful rhetoric and dramatic punch-l...
  • Shangri La Dialogue: Indian Perspectives
    Abhijit Iyer-Mitra    ·   15 Jun, 2012    ·    #3639    ·    Commentary    
    For India, there was much to be happy about in what came out of the Shangri-La Dialogue. Given its rhetorical obsession with laughable concepts like ‘strategic autonomy’ and ‘non-alignment’, this conference saw the formul...
  • Civil-Military Relations: Questioning the VK Singh Thesis
    Ali Ahmed    ·   13 Jun, 2012    ·    #3638    ·    Commentary    
    General VK Singh’s perspective on civil-military relations needs interrogation for it can be expected to carry at least some subscription within the services. The general, now retired, outlined the perspective that in case civilian suprema...
  • Global Zero: The Road Ahead
    Shubhra Chaturvedi    ·   13 Jun, 2012    ·    #3637    ·    Commentary    
    While the Global Zero movement started off with high expectations and global enthusiasm for nuclear disarmament, two years later, there seems to be slow progress. Why has it slowed down? What has been achieved so far and what are the grey areas?...
  • Kargil: Implications of a Full-Fledged Air Base for India
    Zainab Akhter    ·   12 Jun, 2012    ·    #3636    ·    Commentary    
    In a move that may rattle India’s neighbours, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has decided to convert the Kargil airstrip into a full-fledged air force base by 2016. The strip lies close to the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan. The IAF is pla...
  • Conflict Alert: Impact of Communal Clashes on Myanmar's Reform Project
    Bibhu Prasad Routray    ·   12 Jun, 2012    ·    #3635    ·    Commentary    
    Addressing the World Economic Forum meeting in Bangkok on 1 June, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi underlined the need to be cautious about embracing Myanmar as the new investment destination of the world. She asked the investors to retain a &...
  • Antony and Panetta: A Shakespearean Drama?
    PR Chari    ·   12 Jun, 2012    ·    #3634    ·    Commentary    
    Why did US Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, hurry to New Delhi immediately after he met Antony in the 11th Shangri-la dialogue in Singapore that ended on 3 June? A parallel can be found in Shakespeare’s drama Antony and Cleopatra. Romance ...
  • The Non-Traditional Nuclear Threat in South Asia: Managing the Focus
    Martin de Lavernée    ·   09 Jun, 2012    ·    #3633    ·    Commentary    
    In South Asia, the rise of non-state actor networks with radical views and the fear of nuclear terrorism have changed the scope of non-proliferation from a state-to-state channel to include the non-state (therefore not politically responsible) a...
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