COMMENTARIES
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Japan: Assertive Step in Defence Policy
Dr. Subhash Kapila · 31 Oct, 2001 · #626 · Commentary
Japan
continues to be governed by the ?Peace Constitution? imposed by the
United States
in the aftermath of World War II. Article 9 of this Constitution stipulated
Japan
?s renunciation of war and the threat of using force t...
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Terrorism - A Messiah Needed in the Arab World
Lt. Gen. AM Vohra · 31 Oct, 2001 · #625 · Commentary
The 11 September attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon were heinous, fiendish and abhorrent. The reaction to punish the perpetrators who threaten to repeat their performance is natural. The demand that Osama bin Lade...
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Sri Lanka Forthcoming Parliamentary Elections and the Politics of LTTE
K Sarveswaran · 31 Oct, 2001 · #624 · Commentary
Prabakaran, the supreme commander of the LTTE, has expressed readiness to ‘talk with the United National Party (UNP) without a facilitator, if it comes to power’.
Reading
between the lines would reveal the political calculation...
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Chronicling the Afghanistan Tragedy – VIII The Great Game Returns: American Interests in Afghanistan
D Suba Chandran · 23 Oct, 2001 · #623 · Commentary
The
United States
until the second half of the 1970s did not consider
Afghanistan
of any significance to its security interests. It provided little economic aid and rejected
Afghanistan
’s request for military assistan...
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Chronicling the Afghanistan Tragedy – VII Sending troops to Afghanistan: The Soviet Dilemma
D Suba Chandran · 23 Oct, 2001 · #622 · Commentary
Soviet policy towards
Afghanistan
in the post World War period followed the old Tsarist principles. Its leaders were initially interested in settling the border dispute with
Afghanistan
. Lenin wrote to King Amanullah Khan in ...
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Chronicling the Afghanistan Tragedy – VI The Saur Revolution gone Sour
D Suba Chandran · 23 Oct, 2001 · #621 · Commentary
The Saur revolution, as was called by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), was really a coup against Daud Khan, in which he was killed. Though the precise Soviet role in the Saur revolution is debatable, the Soviet Union di...
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Fernandes, Political Accountability and National Security
Sonika Gupta · 23 Oct, 2001 · #620 · Commentary
George Fernandes is back in the Union Cabinet as Defence Minister. He had resigned in the wake of the Tehelka scandal to “uphold the morale of the armed forces”. Therefore the government’s arguments for bringing him back into the...
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A Supersonic Cruise for India
· 23 Oct, 2001 · #619 · Commentary
On 12 June 2001, the Indo-Russian joint venture, Brahmos Co, successfully test fired a supersonic cruise missile code-named PJ-10. It is a state-of-the-art weapon system and can strike warships at 300 kms in 300 seconds, can mount multiple war-h...
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The Spectre of Chem-Bio Terrorism - II
Arpit Rajain · 18 Oct, 2001 · #618 · Commentary
Biological weapons have been used in war since antiquity. The Persians, Romans and Greeks poisoned the drinking water wells of their adversaries by throwing corpses into them, while the British and French infected North American Indians by giving ...
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The Spectre of Chem-Bio Terrorism I
Arpit Rajain · 18 Oct, 2001 · #617 · Commentary
Following the events of 11 September there is an emerging concern of terrorist use of chemical and biological weapons. There is a large assortment of chem-bio weapons with diverse characteristics that are suitable for terrorist use. There are ma...