Fareed Zakaria advises the US to keep pressing on Pakistan.
Fareed Zakaria hails the only foreign policy success of Obama administration, Pakistan. But ends his piece with a huge warning and a friendly advice.
There are some who believe that Pakistan has changed its basic strategy and now understands that it should cut its ties to these [...]
Only one reason — ensure the security and well-being of its citizens, thereby providing them with a better life.
Amidst all the hype over Indian involvement in Afghanistan and lamentations over declining India influence in that country, here is a quick check of the possible reasons that drive India’s continued interest in Afghanistan.
Let us start with [...]
Some gaps in the understanding are filled, but more questions emerge.
Too many trees have been felled and much ether used to debate the Indian offer to recommence peace talks with Pakistan. Most of the sensible debate — not the jingoistic bit of how we have been shamed by Pakistan cocking a snook at us — [...]
Why India’s offer of bilateral talks with Pakistan is a really bad idea?
The Acorn is known to choose his words carefully. So when he sets out to welcome the impending Indo-Pak talks, albeit cautiously and with a big caveat in tow, one has to sit up and take notice. His only rationale for welcoming the [...]
Can we start framing similar questions in India?
From the novel A Soldier’s Duty by Thomas E. Ricks:
We as a nation have not really come to grips with what should be the proper role of uniformed officers in debates about issues that affect the armed services. It is especially problematic in an era of deference to [...]
It is a process, not a state.
From a dated blogpost by Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings that explains the oft-used term — a broken army.
It’s not as though one day we will hear a loud snap and find the Army broken in two. We will not get up one morning, flip a switch, and discover that [...]
Pratap Bhanu Mehta makes a valid case for engaging Pakistan, but there have to be other prongs in the strategy.
In today’s Indian Express, India’s foremost columnist Pratap Bhanu Mehta makes a case against Indian military involvement in Afghanistan. He instead asks India to make bold attempts to engage larger Pakistani public opinion to meet Indian [...]
Differing outcomes to similar importance of Russia and India to US interests in Afghanistan.
Well, Holbrooke might not have been welcome in India for some months now but he and his team have been in Beijing and Moscow in buildup to the Obama announcement. Russia’s importance to the US efforts in Afghanistan is not limited to [...]
A must read monograph tracking India’s defence relations with the world.
From the brilliant monograph at the Strategic Studies Institute of US Army War College titled India’s Strategic Defense Transformation: Expanding Global Relationships by Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hedrick of US army:
India’s interests have changed over the past decade or more, taking it from a position of [...]
Tactically brilliant doesn’t always evolve into brilliant strategic military leadership.
From Abu Muqawama’s brilliant interview with author Greg Jaffe:
Petraeus is a very effective strategic leader. What bugs me is the narrative that he was somehow birthed atop Mount Olympus as the brilliant four star who saved the Army. In reality, his career is a bizarre departure [...]
[Guest blogger, BeeCee weighs in with his observations on the Indian options in Afghanistan.]
Till Obama’s Nobel Prize, Af-Pak strategy of US was definitely the flavour of the season. The theatrics over the Kerry-Lugar bill is merely part strategy and part consequence of the strategy. The trouble with strategic analysis and analysts is that it is [...]
Sending troops to Afghanistan is a valid strategic option for India.
There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot. ~Steven Wright
In two separate op-ed pieces today, former army chief General Shankar Roychowdhury and defence analyst Ajai Shukla try to find ways for India to influence the events in Afghanistan. Roychowdhury [...]
Both direct and indirect approaches will produce success.
Pure military skill is not enough. A full spectrum of military, para-military, and civil action must be blended to produce success. The enemy uses economic and political warfare, propaganda and naked military aggression in an endless combination to oppose a free choice of government, and suppress the rights [...]
Why US should stay the course in Afghanistan?
Steve Coll of the New Yorker, at his blog Think Tank, makes a fist of a very difficult job: to explain that besides exterminating al Qaeda, South Asia — and India in particular — is the reason for the US to stay committed in Afghanistan.
The United States has [...]
McChrystal’s report warns of Pakistani retaliation to Indian influence in Afghanistan.
From the much-reported COMISAF initial assessment of the war in Afghanistan submitted by General Stanley A. McChrystal to Obama administration:
Indian political and economic influence is increasing in Afghanistan, including significant development efforts and financial investment. In addition, the current Afghan government is perceived by Islamabad [...]
Venn diagrams to describe the model.
Tim Hsea, on the civil-military relations, in the At War blog:
At West Point one of the most spirited debates I witnessed as a cadet revolved around a discussion concerning civil-military relations. The class was divided into three camps, one group which argued that the military was a microcosm of American [...]
Yes, it can work.
Yesterday, Indian government handed over the fifth dossier containing evidence about the 26-11 Mumbai terror attacks to Pakistan. And today, the Indian Foreign Minister said that “It is an ongoing exercise between India and Pakistan. So, as and when, we collect more evidence we will keep sending it across to Pakistan.”
Most astute [...]
Even the reasoning of a celebrated game theorist is fallacious.
One of the world’s most prominent applied game theorists, Bueno de Mesquita, has been regularly consulted by CIA — more than a thousand predictions with better strike rate than CIA’s own analysts — and big international corporates to “predict the outcome of any situation in which [...]
Understanding how the US military reformed and reorganised during the Iraq war.
After initial successes, the US military suffered many painful years in Afghanistan and Iraq before undertaking the most significant retooling of any military while in active combat since the German Army in 1917. The change to a counter-insurgency posture was catalysed by a combination [...]
China is worried about the Pakistan connection of Uighurs.
As far as the trouble in Xinjiang province goes, here is what the Communist regime in China expects from its neighbours.
China expected cooperation from neighbouring countries to safeguard peace and stability in the region, Qin said replying to a question on whether Beijing has asked neighbours [...]
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