Sunday Posts

America finds India an unreliable ally, to its surprise.  George W Bush will be remembered for his many misadventures in Foreign Policy, but he claimed a legacy in this one important aspect - attempting to usher in a new American engagement in Asia through a deepening friendship with India. This hope was perhaps reciprocated at the time: India's outgoing Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, cites India's Nuclear Power cooperation with America as the biggest achievement of his ten years in power. At the time, the American engagement with India was hailed with an expectation to be as momentous as Nixon's engagement with China. However, this shift was contentious in America as in India. For Americans, it was some sort of a balancing act after decades of Pro-Pakistan stance after the inevitable seeding of democracy and street politics in that country. It is rather ironic that it was democracy that was cited as the reason for favouring India ever so suddenly: For Indians...

In the context of my recent comment regarding the East Asian Community, I decided to post Yukio Hatoyama's article from International Herald Tribune, where it appeared in English. This article, understandably, created so much anxiety in the Washington Policy circles. However, it is said that there is less to worry about Hatoyama's intent than is currently thought. His comments about the failure of American style capitalism is all but common these days, and his idea of an East Asian community is not a new one. Besides, it was pointed out that the English article omits important sections that appeared in the original, longer, Japanese one, sections which would have made this sound much less belligerent. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yukio Hatoyama heads the Democratic Party of Japan, and has since become the prime minister of Japan. A longer version of this article appears in the September issue of the month...

This article in Foreign Affairs was worth reproducing here, in the context of what I wrote about Obama's Nobel Speech and the requirements of pragmatism as John Gibb pointed out to me. This is written by ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI, who was the U.S. National Security Adviser from 1977 to 1981. His most recent book is Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower. From Hope to Audacity | Foreign Affairs One can read the article by clicking on the link, but a registration will be required, which is free of cost. I shall encourage you to register. However, I have also reproduced the text here for convenience, and to be used in the context of the ongoing conversation. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The foreign policy of U.S. President Barack Obama can be assessed most usefully in two parts: first, his goals and decision-making system and, second, his policies and their implementation. Although one can spea...

A must watch - Sashi Tharoor talking about India's story.

The Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to President Obama, was a distraction. The world's attention was focused on whether this is a just reward, given that the President, who assumed office on the 20 th of January, had just 12 days work to show for it [when the nominations closed on the 1st of February]. The stated reason from the Nobel committee pointed to various initiatives and policy pronouncements by the President, including a clear commitment to nuclear disarmament and an intent to engage in Arab-Israeli conflict. The President himself was far more practical in his reaction and said that he was 'humbled' by the Prize and views this as a 'call to action'. It indeed seemed that President Obama had got the prize just for the act of winning the Presidency itself, which marked the pinnacle of achievement of Afro-American rights movement, which intensified in the last 40 years and became the Civil Rights movement in general. So, this prize is somewhat for the Barack Obama...