President Vladimir Putin addressing the expanded meeting of the Russian Foreign Ministry Board, Moscow, November 18, 2021 Wouldn’t that be a delicious irony — the British defence secretary Ben Wallace rushing to Warsaw on Thursday to work up detailed plans to strengthen Poland’s border fence with Belarus? Britain had partnered the US in the invasion of …
Biden gets predictability in Russia ties
US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin (L) and Georgian Defense Minister Juansher Burchuladze signed a pact on Georgia Defense and Deterrence Enhancement Initiative, Tbilisi, Oct. 18, 2021 Moscow has butted the grand old transatlantic alliance in the chest on Monday with the foreign ministry announcing that it will suspend the NATO military liaison mission with …
Takeaways for Russia, India from Merkel’s US visit
German Chancellor Angela Merkel to visit White House on July 15, will be the first European leader to do so during Biden presidency A caveat must be added to the famous line by Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, NATO’s first Secretary General and Winston Churchill’s chief military assistant during the Second World War, that the purpose …
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Biden avoids diplomacy with Russia
The guided-missile destroyer USS Ross enters the Black Sea to participate in Sea Breeze 2021 exercises, June 26, 2021 The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov exhorted today in an extraordinary statement that the state authorities and the society at large must mobilise their resources amid the West’s pressure. Addressing an audience in Vladivostok, Lavrov said, …
A hybrid war to replace Afghan ‘forever war’?
Bagram after US military left the base, Kabul, July 5, 2021 The British newspaper Daily Telegraph did some kite-flying in the weekend that London is considering open-ended deployment of a contingent of elite special forces to Afghanistan “ to provide training to Afghan units and deploy with them on the ground as advisers.” At the …
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Fizz is gone from Biden-Putin summit
The morning after a Russian-American summit is most critical to know whether the previous day’s bonhomie was real, surreal or unreal. Surveying the Geneva Summit (June 16) between presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, I cautiously assessed the next day, “Does Biden have the political capital to press ahead with a project to create “stability and …
US reclaims Turkey for the western alliance
The first components of Turkey’s S-400 air defence missiles arrived from Russia in Ankara in July, 2019. (File Photo) Less than forty-eight hours separate the US President Joe Biden’s meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Erdogan in Brussels from his summit with Vladimir Putin at Geneva on June 16. In between falls the shadow of the …
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What to expect when Biden, Erdogan meet
Expectations are soaring in Ankara over the forthcoming meeting between US President Joe Biden and his Turkish counterpart Recep Erdogan on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Brussels on June 14. Erdogan said recently, “I believe that our meeting with Mr. Biden at the NATO summit will be the harbinger of a new era.” …
Afghan nationalism faces existential challenge — Part 1
A Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle being loaded on to a flatbed trailer, Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan. (File photo) Afghan conundrum is mutating The commencement of the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has got off to a flying start. So far there has been no hiccup. …
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Biden chips away at ties with Turkey
People lineup at the monument to Ottoman Turks, Yerevan, Armenia, April 24, 2021. Armenia is praising US’ recognition of deaths of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as “genocide”. If there is a Nobel Prize for the US president who first recognised the 1915 ‘Armenian Genocide’, that could have gone to Ronald Reagan. But he didn’t make …