FOCUS | THEMATIC | US & SOUTH ASIA
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Special Commentary
The War in West Asia: A Stress Test for India’s Multi-alignment?
Muneer Ahmed. · 12 Jun, 2026 · #5909 · Commentary
The ongoing US-Israel war on Iran has created one of the most stressful diplomatic scenarios India has dealt with in West Asia. Among others, it complicates India’s two most vital yet parallel relationships with the US and Russia. India is simultan ...
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Strategic Space
Testing Times: Likely Responses and Implications
Manpreet Sethi. · 18 Nov, 2025 · #5896 · Commentary
This Halloween, President Trump spooked the world by instructing his Department of War to restart nuclear testing. The US stopped underground explosive testing in 1992 after having conducted 1,030 nuclear tests. But Trump wants to restart it because ...
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Strategic Space
Nuclear Brinkmanship at a New Brink
Manpreet Sethi. · 22 Aug, 2025 · #5893 · Commentary
The world commemorated 80 years of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki this August. Across the world, editorials, opinion pieces, activist marches, discussions and other events marked the occasion. On 9 August 2025, as people remembered the ...
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The Foreign Policy Repercussions of South Korea’s Domestic Politics
Dr. Pranamita Baruah Talukdar. · 16 Apr, 2025 · #5888 · Commentary
South Korea plunged into a major political crisis following its now removed president Yoon Suk Yeol’s anachronistic declaration of martial law on 3 December 2024. Although the law was quickly reversed, it caused damage to South Korea’s image as a ...
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US, China, EU, and the Geopolitics of the Energy Transition
Tapan Bharadwaj.. · 30 Aug, 2024 · #5880 · Commentary
The US and the EU have both recently announced punitive tariffs on electric vehicles (EVs) and other clean energy equipment imports from China. Canada is set to follow suit. The West is clearly determined to challenge China's domination in clean ener ...
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The Strategist
The Nord Stream Affair: A Coup de Grâce to Perpetuate Proxy War?
Vice Admiral Vijay Shankar. · 27 Apr, 2023 · #5846 · Commentary
On 26 September 2022, a Norwegian
Navy Long Range Maritime Patrol (LRMP) aircraft, on routine surveillance
mission, laid a sonar buoy field south of the Danish Island of Bornholm. This
was seemingly to surveil the underwater space in the region of ...
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The Strategist
Saudi Arabia’s Quest for the Ultimate Political Play-Off
Vice Admiral Vijay Shankar. · 28 Feb, 2023 · #5843 · Commentary
The Saudi strategic gambit
continues to face challenges. There are obstacles in the withdrawal of American
interests from the region and ramifications from the USS Quincy Memorandum, the resultant power vacuum, and
power play between states like C ...
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Strategic Space
A Cautious and Conservative US Nuclear Posture Review
Manpreet Sethi. · 10 Jan, 2023 · #5841 · Commentary
The much-awaited fifth
US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) was announced on 27 October
2022. It was published along with two
other documents: the National Defence Strategy and Missile
Defence Review. These three strategic reviews were released togeth ...
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What the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework Is and Isn’t
Riya Shah. · 15 Sep, 2022 · #5830 · Commentary
In May 2022, US President Joe Biden
unveiled the much-awaited Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for
Prosperity (IPEF). Launched on the sidelines of the Quad Summit in Tokyo, Biden
was joined in-person by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japan ...
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Special Commentary
How to Read al-Zawahiri’s Killing
Rajeshwari Krishnamurthy.. · 31 Aug, 2022 · #5828 · Commentary
On 1 August 2022, the
US announced
that it had killed al Qaeda Chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in “a precise, tailored airstrike” on a safe house in Kabul. In his remarks, US
President Joe Biden said al-Zawahiri had moved to downtown Kabul to “reuni ...
