The post-Cold War international system was once described as a rules-based order anchored in institutions, norms, and managed competition among great powers. Today, that description sounds increasingly anachronistic, more aptly “The rules-based world order no longer exists”, as said by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the opening of the annual Munich Security Conference. The kidnapping […]
Bondi Carnage
On 14 December 2025, once again, the world witnessed the horror of terrorism unleashed on innocents whose only crime was that they were living their lives the way they wanted to. The attack in Sydney near Bondi Beach during a Jewish religious gathering, apart from being a human tragedy, reflected a grotesque and despicable mindset. […]
Defining Strategic Reality in the Arabian Sea
The recent Indian media hype surrounding Pakistan Navy’s Hangor-class submarines, particularly the speculative piece by Zee News, betrays a mixture of technical naïveté and political desperation. To a professional eye, the commentary is not an objective assessment of maritime realities, but a thinly veiled attempt at psychological warfare, designed more for domestic consumption than serious […]
Gwadar port: required not tomorrow but yesterday
The May 2025 crisis started with the Pahalgam false flag incident that Modi’s government instantly blamed Pakistan for without a shred of evidence. India then escalated the situation dangerously through missile strikes and armed drones. In return, Pakistan replied decisively that it reestablished deterrence and sanity. The crisis was not just a rapid escalation in […]
When Power Clouds Reason: India’s Regional Brinkmanship
Despite the haba haba of globalization, shining liberal world order and slogans of cooperation over competition, the world today flirts dangerously with an uncertain possibility of peaceful coexistence not just because of rising powers, but because of those who, enamoured by their might, abandon reason. A quote attributed to German realist philosopher Immanuel Kant “The […]
When Resolve Meets Provocation
For once the sound of drones overhead, cracking sounds of anti-aircraft guns and bangs of explosives falling from the sky seem to have subsided, thanks to a much-needed intervention by US and other well-wishers. Pakistan and India have been at odds since independence but never before the escalation took such a ferocious and dangerous turn […]
To Every Yin There Is a Yang
A principal of wisdom in Taoism and Chinese philosophy says “To every yin there is a yang” theorizes the existence of an opposing force in all things that brings an essential balance to the universe. Applied to the contemporary geopolitics, it mirrors the perpetual contestation of great powers and the duality of regional powers, particularly […]
False Flags and Fatal Miscalculations
There we go again, same old directors and playwrights, same old scripts, and the same old dramatic stage set across the border. From Uri to Pathankot, from Pulwama to Pulgham, the Indian strategic playbook seems to be a repetitive script of choreographed tragedies and timed triumphs. The sudden emergence of a mysterious terror group, the […]
An Evolving or Regressing World
The acronym “VUCA” was coined at the US Army War College and later published in 1991 by Herbert Barber. The acronym described the world as being characterized by dynamic and chaotic developments and an absence of a clear and stable power structure being Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. Political scientists and military practitioners still use […]
Hindutva’s Encroachment On Indian Politics
The preamble to Constitution of India starts with “We the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a ‘sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic, republic’ and to secure to all its citizen”. Words like ‘Shining India’, ‘the largest democracy’ and ‘unity in diversity’ create image of an India with heterogeneous demography, social equality and […]