COMMENTARIES
  • Tehran’s Influence in Afghanistan: Implications of the Iran-US Stand-Off
    Aryaman Bhatnagar    ·   21 Jun, 2012    ·    #3647    ·    Commentary    
    Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Iran has invested heavily in Afghanistan, particularly in western Afghanistan. Tehran has sought to develop the western provinces – particularly Herat, Nimruz and Farah - as its spheres of influence, ...
  • Putin in Beijing: Renewing Sino-Russian Collaboration
    Shreya Singh    ·   21 Jun, 2012    ·    #3646    ·    Commentary    
    The Russian President, Vladimir Putin visited Beijing for the first time since his reelection in June 2012. Besides attending the SCO convention he also met President Hu Jintao, Wu Bangguo, the Premier, the Vice-Premier and the Vice-President du...
  • Joining the US against China?: The Secret Chapter in Australia’s Defence White Paper
    Abhijit Iyer-Mitra    ·   21 Jun, 2012    ·    #3645    ·    Commentary    
    Will Australia join the US against China should hostilities eventuate? The Australian defence minister, Stephen Smith, apparently had to do some fire-fighting in Beijing this week on account of reports suggesting the existence of a secret chapte...
  • US-Myanmar Relations: A Print Media Analysis
    Tanika Chadha    ·   20 Jun, 2012    ·    #3644    ·    Commentary    
    Myanmar, after the 2011 general elections in which U Thein Sein emerged as the country’s president, has been on an apparent steady road to reforms. This new face of the country has led the US to resume measures to reinvigorate US-Myanmar r...
  • Pakistan: Declining Foreign Direct Investment
    D Suba Chandran    ·   20 Jun, 2012    ·    #3643    ·    Commentary    
    The latest quarterly report of the State Bank of Pakistan, published in June 2012, says that the foreign direct investment (FDI) in Pakistan witnessed a 36 per cent decline from US$840 million in 2011 to US$532 million in 2012. Why has there bee...
  • 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...
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