Time changes everything. In diplomacy change comes more faster and unexpected than in any other segment of statecraft. Saudi Arabia and Israel are getting good friends in recent time which is aimed at tackling rising Iran and its influence in the region which can be harmful to both the nations as they perceive Iran as a strong rival. Yet, Israel and Saudi Arabia are standing across the road due to their past differences on the… Read More »Geopolitical vision for MENA region

China has fallen back on an old blueprint to keep India unbalanced. It has revived the insurgencies in the North-east and extended the proxy war to India’s western sector, giving the Pakistan Army encouragement to exacerbate tensions by frequent violations of the ceasefire and deadly cross-LoC attacks. The statement during the Ufa summit in Russia that there is insufficient evidence to jail the persons indicted by India as being the masterminds of the Mumbai 26/11… Read More »Intrusion along Indian borders

Uighurs are waging a war of different kind to which many Chinese politicians and strategists are unknown but Beijing’s strategy to apply a carrot and stick policy may give instant result but it might lose out in the future once the steam is over. Chinese military and security thinkers are quite unfamiliar with the problem in Xinjiang in a manner that Uighurs have already started their preparations for a long haul and dipper engagement with… Read More »Uighur problem

Post-Peshawar terror attack, many Pakistani commentators have claimed that both civilian and army leadership are on the same page as the long-maintained distinction between the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban has been wiped out. Under the new counterterrorism National Action Plan, Pakistan has announced to ban around a dozen terror outfits, including notorious Haqqani network and the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. These terror outfits have long been referred to as ‘strategic assets’ of the Pakistan Army to be used… Read More »Indo-Pak relations

When the United States began regular drone surveillance flights from the Republic of Chad over the Lake Chad Basin, the aim was ostensibly in support of the goal of the BringBackOurGirls campaign. But the humanitarian goal of finding the Chibok girls has since proved a convenient smokescreen to pursue larger interests of a more strategic nature in Africa’s Sahel zone, such as beating the Chinese to the newly discovered oil and gas fields of the… Read More »Terrorism in Africa

The ISIS is now calculating a new game plan as how it can spread its presence in a credible manner to attract hundreds of thousands recruits for its battle from the Arabian Peninsula and African region, mainly in North and West Africa. The ISIS is keen to take advantage of lawless situation of Africa. With insecurity in Mali, Libya, Nigeria and beyond, the terrorism map of Africa is being redrawn. Various experts including Abdullah Mamadou… Read More »ISIS expansion

The exponential expansion of the computer and information network which has helped turn the world into a ‘global village’ has also brought in its wake the all pervasive and difficult to tackle threat of cyber attack. Even as cyber space has significantly and radically transformed the way the individuals and societies communicate and interact, its silent and subtle fall out in the form of cyber invasion continues to be a matter of concern for countries… Read More »Crippling effect: Strong evolution could dominate cyber warfare

Since early 2012, with the ouster of President Amandou Toumani Toure in a coup, Mali has been heading towards a crisis. The ethnic Tuaregs under NMLA (National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad) and the Islamic fundamentalist groups, who took advantage of the situation, are to be blamed for the total chaos that Mali is witnessing now. Due to utterly slow consolidation of a West African force-AFISMA (African-led International Support Mission to Mali), France stepped… Read More »Stabilizing efforts: The crisis in Mali and international intervention

While Afghanistan is moving towards some degree of uncertainty in view of no clear winner, the recent elections could in the long run bring a much needed change to infuse fresh blood into the system which has been paralyzed for some years. But as the fighting months are fast approaching, with the absence of a credible government at the moment will make the present situation further complicated going by recent surge of violence by the… Read More »Afghan elections

Recent gains by the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and the well-publicized executions of captured journalists and aid workers have once again drawn US military assets and personnel into a civil war. While Iraq remains familiar terrain for both the political elite, the American public and the thousands who served in the Global War on Terror, a great deal of misinformation about what the US can and should do in addressing the civil conflicts in… Read More »ISIS crisis