South East Asia

On June 14, 2021, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi spoke at the inaugural Pakistan-Afghanistan Bilateral Dialogue in Islamabad. His tone was mildly aggressive. Talking about USA’s pullout from Afghanistan, Qureshi said: “If the objective of going to Washington is starting a new blame game and holding Pakistan responsible for …

While Obama looked the other way, China militarized a string of atolls in seas around it as part of a long-term plan to forge an aggressive profile against its neighbor and the United States. The Chinese challenge can and must be met both in the global arena and inside the …

The actions of the Beijing government since the earliest days of concern about the disease have shown in stark relief how a closed, authoritarian society tries to deny and shift blame for its misdeeds. How it seeks to co-opt international health agencies. How it tries to bribe foreigners to do …

The setbacks come at a harrowing moment for Afghanistan, just as American and international troops are set to leave the country in coming weeks. The Taliban entered two provincial capitals in northern Afghanistan Sunday, local officials said, the culmination of an insurgent offensive that has overrun dozens of rural districts …

The Afghanistan government’s top peace negotiator has voiced concern that the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan could cause a “security vacuum, an increased level of fighting and perhaps a slower pace of negotiations,” saying the solution “has to be through negotiations, not through battle.” “The Taliban has unfortunately increased …

The US president has committed to granting Turkey’s requests for support to maintaining troops at Kabul International. US President Joe Biden agreed to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s requests to support Ankara’s forces as they retain control of Kabul International Airport after American and NATO troops withdraw from Afghanistan this …

The NATO brings to mind the classic paradigm of someone all dressed up and nowhere to go. It has to constantly reinvent a reason for its existence. The NATO is a lucrative hunting ground for the American arms industry. The bigger the NATO’s threat perceptions, the greater the scope for …

The administration of President Joe Biden is reducing US military presence in the Middle East as the country increases the focus of its military forces to confront China and Russia, according to a new report. The Pentagon is withdrawing at least eight Patriot antimissile batteries from countries including Iraq, Kuwait, …

What does President Joe Biden’s first foray into international summitry reveal to us about the quality of his vision for America’s place in the world? As might be expected, some of the priorities he pursued in meetings this week with the leaders of the G-7, NATO and the European Union …

China’s border actions against India have been described as a “salami tactic”. China seems to be seeking to dominate territory through incremental operations too small to attract international attention and not large enough to spark an actual war with India — but sufficient to accumulate real results over time in …