Comment & Briefs

Peacekeeping is India’s forte, not only because of its military’s professionalism but also due to its political acceptability globally. India’s image as a benign rising power can be exploited and enhanced in raising its peacekeeping profile.

Hatoyama’s downfall was primarily brought about by his failure to fulfil the pre-election promise to relocate the US Marine Corps Air Station in Futenma outside of Okinawa prefecture.

The Cheonan assault has revealed to South Korea that the threat from North Korea is still ominous and capable of delivering unexpected damage.

India has long striven for a three carrier fleet comprised of one carrier battle group stationed on each seaboard, and a third carrier held in reserve.

Cold Start is a good doctrine from India’s point of view, but one that could adversely impact strategic stability given since Pakistan’s nuclear strategy is premised on countering Indian conventional military superiority with a nuclear shield.

The fundamental ideological difference between the KMT and DPP supporters makes the debate on ECFA more complicated than it needs to be actually, with a peculiar intermix of politics and economics.

The one country that has not condemned North Korea’s role in the sinking of the Cheonan is China, which has its own strategic and economic compulsions to back North Korea.

Issues pertaining to coal mafias, coal unions and its politics ought to be addressed if any meaningful reforms or cuts in coal consumption are to be made.

Since safeguarding the public space such as mass transportation networks, financial and industrial hubs from sporadic acts of terror is increasingly becoming difficult, socialising citizenry in democratic societies to the needs of counterterrorism assumes salience.

Unlike ‘hard’ measures, ‘soft’ ones can succeed in softening the hearts and minds of even hard-core terrorists, especially when they are disillusioned, longing for a normal life, and want to exit from terrorism.