Comment & Briefs

Rebuilding Japan’s foreign policy will be another challenge for the Abe Administration, especially in view of the rising tension between Japan and its neighbouring states - China and South Korea – over territorial disputes.

Both the government as well and the strategic community are convinced that India must not join the Australia Group without a road map for the MTCR and the NSG.

To counter the consequences flowing from growing ballistic missile proliferation in its neighbourhood, India must expand its BMD programme to include boost phase and mid-course phase intercept capability.

With China increasingly wary of the developments taking place on its Pacific seaboard, it would perhaps be in a much better frame of mind to listen to Indian concerns.

The security deficit can be filled to a large extent by Afghanistan’s neighbours if they can be persuaded to accept the responsibility, including by contributing troops to a UN-mandated peacekeeping force.

What makes the South China Sea compelling is its global strategic significance both in terms of trade and energy, which has given rise to the strategic presence of a dangerous number of actors cast in multiple roles.

The issuance of these ordinances will not only add to the growing tensions in the disputed areas, specifically the South China Sea, but also add to the growing suspicions about Chinese intent.

Egypt is realizing that democracy is not an easily procured fruit, especially in a nation where political movements have been suppressed for decades and peoples’ sentiments can be easily swayed either way.

Unity of purpose and synergy between state institutions required to deal with sectarian violence is largely missing and, as a result, the Pakistani state is responding to the growing Taliban threat in Karachi in a knee-jerk manner.

The events of the last ten days have once again focussed international attention on the DRC and lent support to voices clamouring for a review of the existing mandate of MONUSCO and the larger process by which these mandates are concretized.