Policy Lessons from Angela Merkel, The Iron Chancellor on November 26, 2021When it comes to recent political heavyweights, none come closer to matching Angela Merkel’s record! The 67-year-old has been in power since 2005 and is the third longest-serving chancellor in German history, bested only by “Chancellor of Unity” Helmut Kohl in the 20th century and Otto Von Bismarck in the 19th century. To top it […]
COP26: Pledges don’t Equal Policy on November 19, 20211st November 2021: Demonstrators gather by the River Clyde holding placards with the phrase “No More Blah Blah” and indigenous leaders march the centre of Glasgow in traditional garb. 6th November 2021: Activists on the King George V bridge block the main route connecting Glasgow city centre to the south side of the city. Using […]
Avoiding a state of surrender on November 1, 2021Baton wielding protesters, emotionally charged crowds, struggling law enforcement agencies, scared and inconvenienced normal-day individuals, impending signs of causalities, welcome to another saga of the surrender of the state to the group it had recently declared a terrorist outfit! Lest we forget, this is not the first time. Numerous governments in the past have faced […]
The Afghanistan Debacle: Marco Rubio vs Reality on October 8, 2021To say that America’s Afghanistan debacle has put the cat amongst the pigeons would be a grave understatement! For now, the area has become a hotbed of more uncertainty and instability. An abrupt and poorly planned end to more than 20 years of occupation will do that to a region. On cue, recriminations have started […]
AUKUS: Foretelling of a New Global Order? on September 21, 2021AUKUS seems like a name of a secret organisation from a Robert Ludlum or an Ian Fleming novel. Cold War parallels notwithstanding, it does seem to hark back to an era of intrigue and espionage. This is of course the new working group recently announced by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, UK Prime Minister Boris […]
Policy of Intervention: COVID-19, Central Banks and Asset Bubbles on July 31, 2021Using the US and UK as reference points, consider the numbers after the financial crisis 2007 – 2008. US: a loss of $8 trillion, borne by the stock market and a 10 per cent peak of unemployment in 2009. $9.8 trillion were lost by Americans because of plummeting house values and a decrease in the […]
Policy of Intervention: COVID-19, Central Banks and Asset Bubbles on July 29, 2021No one could imagine the past four weeks to have happened in Afghanistan. The revival of the Taliban; the US and NATO scrambling for an exit; the Kabul Government in mental paralysis; the Afghan National Army in total disarray and the poor common Afghan in utter shock; unable to grasp what is to unfold. This […]
Security Briefings That Could Have Been on July 8, 2021Briefings by the military high command to parliamentarians have become a regular feature in Pakistan. So, the recently-concluded national security meeting on July 1, 2021, shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone. If media reports are to be believed, the topics under discussion were Kashmir, Afghanistan and internal security. Going by the recent chain […]
Who will protect our children? on June 29, 2021Even by Pakistan’s highly desensitised standards, the recent case of underage sexual abuse takes the sorry tale of sordid events to a new low. The impact may not be profound – even though it ought to be — when you hear or read about such incidents. However, the existence of a sickening video makes it […]
Doctrine, policy and strategy on May 25, 2021The aftermath of the 200-08 financial crisis saw the word “leverage” become a popular addition to commonly-used English words. Referring to the use of debt or borrowed funds to amplify returns on investment, leverage, simply put, makes a sweet deal sweeter. Soon, it became one of the prime catalysts of the impending turmoil that engulfed […]