Category Archives: Internal Security

Buying peace with Trump by buying arms

Posted on February 20, 2020 by Bharat Karnad

[Modi and Trump at the “Howdy, Modi” event] While the national interests of India and the United States overlap a little, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald J. Trump are personally in sync. This last is, perhaps, because they … Continue reading →

Posted in Afghanistan, arms exports, asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, Australia, China, China military, Culture, Decision-making, Defence Industry, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Navy, Indian Ocean, Intelligence, Internal Security, Japan, MEA/foreign policy, Military Acquisitions, Military/military advice, Northeast Asia, Pakistan, Pakistan military, SAARC, society, South Asia, South East Asia, Strategic Relations with South East Asia & Far East, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Technology transfer, Terrorism, United States, US., Vietnam, Weapons | 8 Comments

FATF decision — MEA surprised (!!), India embarrassed

Posted on January 24, 2020 by Bharat Karnad

[Imran and Trump at World Economic Forum, Davos] This is what someone high-up in the S Jaishankar-led Ministry of External Affairs admitted to a newspaper after the unpreventable debacle at the Paris meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) … Continue reading →

Posted in Afghanistan, asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, China, China military, corruption, Culture, Decision-making, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, guerilla warfare, India's China Policy, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Internal Security, Japan, MEA/foreign policy, Pakistan, Pakistan military, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Terrorism, United States, US., Western militaries | 2 Comments

The Insiders cabal preventing India’s rise as a telecom power

Posted on January 8, 2020 by Bharat Karnad

[Aruna Sundararajan, ex-IAS, former Telecom Secretary: Being feted for what, exactly?] It is no exaggeration to say that almost the entire senior echelon of managers — technical and generalist — manning the state apparatus — ranging from the technocratic elite … Continue reading →

Posted in arms exports, asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, China, China military, civil-military relations, corruption, Culture, Cyber & Space, Decision-making, Defence Industry, domestic politics, DRDO, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Navy, Intelligence, Internal Security, MEA/foreign policy, Military Acquisitions, Military/military advice, SAARC, society, South Asia, space & cyber, Strategic Forces Command, Strategic Relations with the US & West, United States, US., Weapons | 23 Comments

BJP’s in-house strategist’s “strategically decisive India”

Posted on December 5, 2019 by Bharat Karnad

[Ram Madhav] T’is winter-time and all the established media houses and media wannabees schedule their elite outreach programmes to try and make themselves relevant to policymaking and policymakers, to wit the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, etc. Just got back from … Continue reading →

Posted in asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, Bangladesh, Central Asia, China, China military, Culture, Decision-making, domestic politics, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian democracy, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Ocean, indian policy -- Israel, Iran and West Asia, Indian Politics, Internal Security, Iran and West Asia, Japan, Maldives, MEA/foreign policy, Myanmar, nonproliferation, NRIs, Pakistan, SAARC, society, South Asia, South East Asia, Strategic Relations with South East Asia & Far East, Strategic Relations with the US & West, United States, US., Weapons | 2 Comments

Time for Modi govt to turn the screws on China re: treatment of Uyghurs

Posted on November 26, 2019 by Bharat Karnad

[A Chinese Uyghur concentration camp in Xinjiang] Narendra Modi practices realpolitik at home but gets cold feet and displays a flagging will against an overweaning adversary such as China to a point where it is not unreasonable to conclude he … Continue reading →

Posted in asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, Central Asia, China, China military, Culture, Decision-making, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian democracy, Internal Security, MEA/foreign policy, Nuclear Weapons, Pakistan, society, South Asia, Terrorism, Tibet, UN | 18 Comments

This spells trouble

Posted on September 25, 2019 by Bharat Karnad

A lot of things were wrong, or went wrong, with the Houston-do starring Narendra Modi and Donald Trump. Not that anyone here noticed them, everybody being too busy singing hosannas for the budding Trump-Modi camaraderie on display. Let’s start with … Continue reading →

Posted in Afghanistan, arms exports, asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, Culture, Cyber & Space, Decision-making, Defence Industry, domestic politics, DRDO, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, guerilla warfare, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Politics, Internal Security, Iran and West Asia, MEA/foreign policy, Military Acquisitions, Military/military advice, Pakistan, Pakistan military, Pakistan nuclear forces, SAARC, society, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Technology transfer, Terrorism, UN, United States, US., Weapons | 14 Comments

How Bad is the bargain in the offing? Modi & Trump

Posted on September 18, 2019 by Bharat Karnad

[Around 1999, Modi outside the White House fence on a US State Dept-hosted trip] A public interview of Narendra Modi at 1800 hrs last evening on ‘India’ TV channel featured the host, Rajat Sharma, lobbing fluff-ball questions but, on occasion, … Continue reading →

Posted in Afghanistan, arms exports, asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, Central Asia, China, civil-military relations, Culture, Cyber & Space, Decision-making, Defence Industry, domestic politics, DRDO, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, guerilla warfare, India's China Policy, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Navy, indian policy -- Israel, Iran and West Asia, Indian Politics, Internal Security, Iran and West Asia, MEA/foreign policy, Military Acquisitions, Military/military advice, NRIs, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons, Pakistan, Pakistan military, Pakistan nuclear forces, Relations with Russia, Russia, SAARC, society, South Asia, Strategic Forces Command, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Technology transfer, Terrorism, UN, United States, US., Weapons, West Asia | 6 Comments

India’s missing kootayudha (covert warfare)

Posted on September 14, 2019 by Bharat Karnad

[The PM, Doval and Jaishankar] There may be some interest in hearing a videographed talk by me on covert warfare in traditional Indian statecraft and in the country’s external policies for the Srijan Talks forum. It is available on Youtube … Continue reading →

Posted in Afghanistan, Asian geopolitics, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Culture, Cyber & Space, Decision-making, domestic politics, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, guerilla warfare, India's China Policy, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Intelligence, Internal Security, MEA/foreign policy, Military/military advice, SAARC, society, South Asia, Special Forces, Terrorism, Tibet, Weapons | 11 Comments

Bolton out and India’s standing with the US becomes trickier

Posted on September 11, 2019 by Bharat Karnad

[Bolton looks on disapprovingly (?)] The bureaucratic winner of John Bolton’s ouster as National Security Adviser to President Donald J Trump is Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State. It was well known in Washington that Bolton and Pompeo got along like … Continue reading →

Posted in Afghanistan, asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, Culture, Decision-making, domestic politics, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Politics, Internal Security, Iran and West Asia, Israel, MEA/foreign policy, North Korea, Northeast Asia, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons, Pakistan, Russia, russian military, SAARC, society, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Terrorism, UN, United States, US., Weapons, West Asia, Western militaries | 6 Comments

When Pakistan now ups its game in Kashmir, respond with Special Forces (slightly augmented)

Posted on August 30, 2019 by Bharat Karnad

( US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad with Pakistan COAS Gen. QJ Bajwa) In the aftermath of the 9th Round of talks in Doha with the US the chief Taliban negotiator Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar announced that a deal for the … Continue reading →

Posted in Afghanistan, asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, Central Asia, civil-military relations, Culture, Decision-making, domestic politics, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, guerilla warfare, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Army, Indian para-military forces, Intelligence, Internal Security, MEA/foreign policy, Military/military advice, Pakistan, Pakistan military, Pakistan nuclear forces, Russia, russian military, society, South Asia, Special Forces, Terrorism, UN, United States, US., West Asia | 2 Comments