Asia-Pacific Archive

In his recent WPR piece on the IPI pipeline project, Siddarth Srivastava examined India’s shifting calculus on engaging Iran, now that its nuclear deal with the U.S. has been approved by the NSG and the U.S Congress. Interesting to see that the same difficulties plaguing the IPI are present in a rail project an Indian consortium was developing in Iran as well. Also worth noting is that the country waiting in the wings should India fail to back the project in both cases is China. It’s easy to overlook this little detail, but under normal circumstances, revolutionary communist regimes and […]

James Brazier has a piece worth reading in Diplomatic Courrier on the Saudi-Iranian “Cold War” and how any accomodation of the Taliban in Afghanistan will come at the expense of Tehran. In terms of order, though, it seems obvious that a prior breakthrough on Israeli-Palestinian and/or Israeli-Syrian negotiations seriously strengthens Obama’s hand to bargain with the Iranians. But a political breakthrough that secures a meaningful stability in Afghanistan might have the same impact. Again, it’s important to point out that the talks in Riyadh were exploratory, that the Taliban are an unsavory lot who will be difficult to sustain any […]

Robert Hutchings and Frederick Kempe make the case over at Foreign Policy for what they call a Global Grand Bargain, an across the board approach whereby instead of trying to tackle individual problems one by one, Barack Obama tries to reach a global consensus on broad reform measures designed to clear the decks: Former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower once advised, “If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.” Itis a way of bringing more politically relevant clout to bear andcreating opportunities for constructive trade-offs. Most of thechallenges we face are interconnected, and the only way for the newadministration to […]

Just last Friday, Douglas Duncan’s WPR piece on poor morale amongBritish armed forces mentioned the problem of troops deployed inAfghanistan and Iraq not being propoerly or adequately equipped. Thispast Monday, the Telegraph (via Defense Industry Daily) reported on anew equipment controversy, this one involving Britain’s lightly armoredSnatch Land Rovers, in which four British soldiers — including itsfirst female casualty of the war — were killed in June. The commanderof British SAS (special forces) troops in Afghanistan has now resignedas a result: In his resignationletter, Major Morley, the commander of D Squadron, 23 SAS, said”chronic underinvestment” in equipment by the Ministry […]

Rob at Arabic Media Shack makes a good point: If we made a list of the top 10 American global securitychallenges, probably 9 would be directly or indirectly related to theMiddle East. Therefore, wouldn’t it be logical to pick someone who isa specialist on the region? Someone who could go to a conference ofMiddle Eastern scholars and hold their own discussing regional,history, politics, and culture and not purely strategy from a narrowperspective of American interests? None of the last four NSA’s(Rice,Hadley, Berger, orLake) were experts on the Middle East. Has policy been especially stellar during this period (1993-2008)? I’d argue […]

NEW DELHI — The Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline — a proposed $7.5 billion, 2,700-kilometer pipeline linking Iran’s abundant natural gas reserves to energy-hungry Pakistan and India — has been under consideration for years. But despite both India’s and Pakistan’s desperate need for energy sources, progress on the project has been hampered so far by strategic calculations, mutual suspicions and disagreements on pricing and tariffs. Indications, however, are that the Iran-Pakistan stretch of the pipeline may take off soon. And with the U.S.-India nuclear agreement now concluded, India might be giving it more serious consideration, too. Officials in India’s foreign ministry […]

Funny how now that everyone agrees we ought to deploy more troops toAfghanistan, the number being tossed around suddenly jumped from 10,000to 20,000.

File under ‘P’ for potential game-changers. Or for panda diplomacy. Either way, the China-Taiwan split is really the last vestige of the Cold War, and just as the European front of that war ended through a peaceful integration, there’s no reason (in theory) that China and Taiwan won’t eventually find a mutually acceptable final status arrangement without resorting to the worst-case scenarios of regional conflagration. Especially once the actual ideological differences between the two governments are smoothed over to the point of being undetectable. That still leaves China with a lot of deferred maintenance in terms of ethno-nationalist separatism. But […]

The most interesting aspect to the Russian navy’s latest announced exercises isn’t so much that they’re taking place, but where they’re taking place: the Indian Ocean. The strategic sea lanes that link Asia to Africa are already the object of an Indian and Chinese naval buildup, and the region was identified last summer by France’s defense white paper as a principal strategic concern. As in other aspects of its conventional military capacity, Russia has a lot of ground to make up before it represents a credible naval power. But the fact that in reestablishing its global naval presence, they’ve chosen […]

BURMA LEADER MARKS 13 YEARS OF IMPRISONMENT — The first lady of Burmese politics, pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, marked 13 years under house arrest on Oct. 25, as supporters around the world continued their calls for her release. Australia’s The Age called the date a prominent illustration of the “bitter tyranny” existing in Burma, noting that “the Lady’s unjust imprisonment is a powerful reminder of a brief moment of freedom realized by Burma’s people and the dream that remains unfulfilled.” The anniversary happened to coincide this year with the seventh Asia-Europe summit meeting, a major gathering of government […]