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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.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 17, 2022
The Afghan abyss: One year after the U.S. pullout
The Taliban regime is behaving as expected, turning the country into a breeding ground for international terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and mass migration.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2022
The fall of the house of Rajapaksa
Through a combination of authoritarianism, nepotism, cronyism, and hubris, the Rajapaksa family weighed down Sri Lanka's economy with more debt than it could possibly bear.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 1, 2022
Hydropower is a bad bargain
There is no question that the world must cut its reliance on fossil fuels. but building more hydroelectric dams is not the way due to the environmental impact they have.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 20, 2022
A clash of titans: The forgotten India-China border row
Chinese President Xi Jinping has picked a border fight that he cannot win, and transformed a previously conciliatory India into a long-term foe.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 27, 2022
The 'Quad' at a crossroads
The Indo-Pacific's four leading democracies can hold as many leaders' summits as they want, but without a clear strategic vision or agenda, the 'Quad' will have little impact.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 25, 2022
Putin’s war and the mirage of the rules-based order
Rules-based order and economic interdependence has not stopped countries like Russia and China from engaging in relentless expansionism at the expense of their neighbors.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2022
The new global Cold War clouds India’s tightrope walk
India's solo struggle to rein in an expansionist China in the icy Himalayan region has helped influence its measured response to the Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2022
Will the U.S. finally make the pivot to Asia?
Biden's Indo-Pacific strategy is essentially an exercise in public diplomacy, while Trump's strategic framework was formulated to advance a policy of a “free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 17, 2022
America is focusing on the wrong enemy
U.S. President Joe Biden is treating a “rogue” Russia as a peer competitor, when he should be focused on the challenge from America's actual peer, China.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2022
The great COVID-19 coverup
COVID-19 deaths make all the headlines, but what flies under the radar are the increased rates of obesity, unemployment, depression, alcoholism and suicides.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 15, 2021
Beijing turns to hybrid 'lawfare' to expand its borders
China has become quite adept at waging “lawfare” — the misuse and abuse of law for political and strategic ends.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 24, 2021
Taliban turning Afghanistan into narco-terrorist state
Afghanistan accounts for 85% of the global acreage under opium cultivation, making the Taliban the world's largest drug cartel.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 13, 2021
Defending Taiwan means ensuring world peace
Beyond compromising freedom of navigation in a crucial region, a Chinese takeover of Taiwan would upend the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 5, 2021
Biden shifts to a more conciliatory approach toward China
Biden's actions appear out of step with reality given that an ambitious China is actively working to supplant the U.S. as the world's preeminent power while waging a cold war against it.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 10, 2021
A crippling blow to the global 'war on terror'
The U.S. has come full circle by ceding control of Afghanistan to the same organization that gave Osama bin Laden the base from which to plot the 9/11 attacks.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 17, 2021
Biden has only himself to blame for the Taliban's victory
There was no strategic imperative for U.S. President Joe Biden to order a hasty pullout of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, yet he did.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 9, 2021
The great COVID-19 stonewall of China
Beijing has been doing everything in its power to prevent an independent forensic investigation into the origins of the coronavirus.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 2, 2021
Xi opens a Pandora's box with antagonism of India
Chinese aggression and the breaching of border agreements has made the rise of a more antagonistic and militarily stronger India a certainty.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2021
Biden’s Afghan blunder
Joe Biden's approach entails effectively admitting that a terrorist militia has defeated the world's most powerful military, and then handing Afghanistan back to that militia.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 22, 2021
With massive dams, China finds a weapon in water
Giant dams damage ecosystems, drive freshwater species to extinction, cause deltas to retreat and often emit more greenhouse gases than fossil-fuel power plants.

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