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 Brahma Chellaney

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Brahma Chellaney
Brahma Chellaney, a longstanding contributor to The Japan Times, is a geostrategist and the author of "Asian Juggernaut" (Harper, 2010) and "Water: Asia’s New Battlefield" (Georgetown University Press, 2011), which won the 2012 Bernard Schwartz Award. He is professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research, New Delhi.
COMMENTARY
Apr 25, 2009
Pakistan's terrorist windfall
Pakistan has long proven adept at diplomatically levering its weakness into strength. Now it is using the threat of its possible implosion to rake in record-level bilateral and multilateral aid.
COMMENTARY
Apr 1, 2009
China versus the Dalai Lama
On the 60th anniversary of his escape to India, the exiled 14th Dalai Lama stands as a bigger challenge than ever for China, as underscored by Beijing's stepped-up vilification campaign against him and its admission that it is now locked in a "life and death struggle" over Tibet.
COMMENTARY
Mar 12, 2009
'Interesting' year for China
Large parts of the Tibetan plateau today have been turned into militarized zones and made off-limits to foreigners. De facto martial law prevails on much of the plateau after the largest troop deployment since the March 2008 Tibetan upheaval.
COMMENTARY
Mar 4, 2009
China fuels Sri Lankan war
Sri Lanka, the once self-trumpeted "island of paradise," turned into the island of bloodshed more than a quarter-century ago. But even by its long, gory record, the bloodletting since last year is unprecedented. The United Nations estimates that some 1,200 noncombatants are getting killed each month...
COMMENTARY
Feb 26, 2009
Barack Obama's Taliban itch
How gun-toting Islamists are expanding their hold on western Pakistan has been laid bare by Islamabad's U.S.-condoned peace agreement effectively ceding the once-pristine Swat Valley to the Taliban to set up a mini-state barely 160 km from the Pakistani capital. The deal came even as Pakistani President...
COMMENTARY
Feb 18, 2009
Face up to a common threat
Despite a spreading jihad culture, U.S. President Barack Obama has ended America's global "war on terror" as dramatically as his predecessor had initiated it. With the stroke of his pen, Obama has effectively terminated the war on terror that President George W. Bush had launched to defeat terrorists...
COMMENTARY
Jan 29, 2009
Pakistan key to Afghan war
U.S. President Barack Obama is right to talk about "the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan" and the need to evolve an integrated U.S. strategy toward these two closely tied countries. But even as he has embarked on some major steps, his evolving strategy does not suggest a meaningful...
COMMENTARY
Jan 22, 2009
China plays maritime chess
The start of Chinese patrols in the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden is intended to extend China's naval role and presence far from its shores while demonstrating, under United Nations rules of engagement, a capability to conduct complex operations in distant waters.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 1, 2009
Growing challenges to Asian stability
NEW DELHI — U.S. President-elect Barack Obama takes office at a time when a fundamental and qualitative reordering of power is under way in the Asia-Pacific, with tectonic shifts challenging strategic stability. The impact of such shifts on U.S. foreign policy is bound to be accentuated by America's...
COMMENTARY
Dec 29, 2008
New Afghan strategy will compound U.S. problem
Even before U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has been sworn in, the contours of his new strategy on Afghanistan have become known: A "surge" of U.S. forces, not to militarily rout the Taliban but to strike a political deal with the enemy from a position of strength.
COMMENTARY
Dec 17, 2008
U.S. must stop pampering Pakistan
U.S. policy on Pakistan isn't working, and unless Washington fundamentally reverses course, it risks losing the war in Afghanistan and making the West an increasing target of jihadists. That is the key message emerging from the recent terrorist assaults in Mumbai.
COMMENTARY
Dec 2, 2008
Tall order in a time of 'peace'
NEW DELHI — The U.S.-sparked global financial meltdown is just the latest sign that the world is at a defining moment in history. Given the global ace of political, economic and technological transformation witnessed the last two decades, the next 20 years are likely to bring equally dramatic change....
COMMENTARY
Nov 3, 2008
Different playbooks aimed at balancing Asia's powers
NEW DELHI — The Japan-India security agreement signed recently marks a significant milestone in building Asian power equilibrium. A constellation of Asian states linked by strategic cooperation and with shared common interests is becoming critical to instituting stability at a time when major shifts...
COMMENTARY
Oct 23, 2008
Remember the China lesson
Each visit to China is a reminder of the power of global liberalizing influences. China has come a long way since the Tiananmen Square massacre of prodemocracy activists nearly two decades ago. It has opened up to the extent that it hosted this month an Asia-Europe conference of nongovernmental organizations...
COMMENTARY
Oct 2, 2008
Averting Asian water wars
As the most pressing resource, water holds the strategic key to peace, public health and prosperity. The battles of yesterday were fought over land. Those of today are over energy. But the battles of tomorrow will be over water. And nowhere else does that prospect look more real than in Asia.
COMMENTARY
Sep 17, 2008
Hope overwhelms reality on U.S.-India nuclear deal
The controversy that has dogged the vaunted U.S.-Indian civil nuclear deal is unlikely to dissipate anytime soon despite the recent rule change by the Nuclear Suppliers' Group. Deep-seated partisan rancor in India over the deal and the still-needed U.S. congressional ratification will ensure that. But...
COMMENTARY
Aug 7, 2008
Say no to 'NPT' of climate change
Climate change has been correctly identified as a threat multiplier. Yet it has already become a divisive issue internationally before a plan for a low-carbon future has emerged.
COMMENTARY
Jul 10, 2008
Travails of a nuclear deal
In the twilight of George W. Bush's presidency, there is an unseemly rush in Washington and New Delhi to seal a contentious but far-from-complete civil nuclear deal, even as that issue has landed India in a political crisis.
COMMENTARY
Jun 18, 2008
Is the India and China hype true?
Today it has become commonplace to speak of India and China in the same breadth as two emerging great powers challenging the two-century-old Western domination of the world.
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2008
A first lady's diplomatic mission
A natural calamity is usually an occasion to set aside political differences and show compassion. But Burma, ruled by ultranationalistic but rapacious military elites distrustful of the sanctions-enforcing West, came under mounting international pressure to open up its cyclone-wracked areas to foreign...

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