The Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS Springfield in Busan for a port visit, South Korea, July 22, 2023 The psychology of forgetting and why memory fails is a tantalising topic in the life of individuals or nations. Cognitive psychology spawned many theories about it. The main theory, the motivated forgetting theory, is the most charming …
Russia, China have a shared vision for North Korea
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (R) and Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu at a pavilion displaying North Korea’s newest 3-stage solid-fuelled ICBM Hwasong-18, Pyongyang, July 26, 2023 The three-day state visit on July 25-27 by Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu, accompanied by a military delegation, to Pyongyang is the first-ever such high-level visit from Moscow …
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Glimpses of an endgame in Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) met Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, St. Petersburg, July 23, 2023 The problem with the war in Ukraine is that it has been all smoke and mirrors. The Russian objectives of “demilitarisation” and “de-Nazification” of Ukraine wore a surreal look. The western narrative that the war is between Russia and Ukraine, …
Storm clouds gathering in the Black Sea
Turkish President Recep Erdogan (L) and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (R) with President Biden & NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg (C), NATO Summit, Vilnius,July 11, 2023 The NATO Summit in Vilnius (July 11-12) signalled that there is absolutely no possibility of talks to settle the Ukraine war in a foreseeable future. The war will only intensify, …
Politics of hedging in the Indo-Pacific
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi (C) with Director of Foreign Affairs Commission of Communist Party of China Central Committee Wang Yi (L) and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (R) at trilateral meeting, Jakarta, July 12, 2023 On Monday, while delivering the keynote address at the annual China Business Summit held in Auckland, New Zealand Prime …
Ukraine war takes its toll on UK politics
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Rishi Sunak and Joe Biden at the Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 12 July, 2023 The NATO Summit in Vilnius on June 11-12 turned out to be an anti-climax with the fractured relationship between the regime in Kiev and the Western powers surging. What is happening is more of an implosion than …
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Germany creates equity in Western Ukraine
The hypothesis that the Anglo-Saxon axis is pivotal to the proxy war in Ukraine against Russia is only partly true. Germany is actually Ukraine’s second largest arms supplier, after the United States. Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged a new arms package worth 700 million euros, including additional tanks, munitions and Patriot air defence systems at the …
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What to expect from NATO Summit 2023
Britain’s King Charles (L) welcomed US President Joe Biden to Windsor Castle with pomp and pageantry, UK, July 10, 2023 The trajectory of the Ukraine war hangs in the balance. All eyes are on the US President Joe Biden’s arrival in Vilnius for the NATO summit meeting (June 11-12.) Biden got a big boost already …
Russia, US exchange glances as Prigozhin heads for Moscow
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin leaves the Hqs. of Russia’s Southern Military District, Rostov-on-Don, June 24, 2023. Sometimes one wishes Winston Churchill had left behind an evergreen quote in regard of Russian diplomacy as well, similar to his epic one on Russian politics, which still remains unbeatable — “Kremlin political intrigues are comparable to a bulldog …
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India’s discontent with the SCO
The virtual summit meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on July 4 welcomed Iran as its tenth member To be out of sync with the contemporary life anywhere at anytime becomes indeed a despairing situation. That was the tragic predicament of the Austrian writer of the inter-war period, Stefan Zweig, who once wrote, “One must be …