Afghanistan is going to make a comeback in the international political arena. It shouldn’t be, going by what everyone seems to believe. The United States is pulling out of Afghanistan. The Taliban and Hamid Karzai will duke it out, but ultimately the rest of the world will just yawn. Afghans killing Afghans. The oldest story in Southwest Asia. Read more

The Hindustan Times is about halfway through a series on India and its neighbours. The links for the first three articles are below. Two more are on the way. For various reasons, mostly illogical, the series eventually chose Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Bhutan, the Maldives and Afghanistan were given a miss. China is much bigger an issue than just a neighbour. Read more

The new Obama administration’s defence strategy came out last week and caused a few ripples. But for the most part there wasn’t anything in it that didn’t strike one as being just common sense. Read more

The US budget deal was interesting in foreign policy terms at the willingness with which the US legislators and administration were willing to put the Pentagon’s budget to the axe. Read more

Indian refineries which import crude from Iran are running around in circles. With the third week of July over, Tehran has not intimated whether crude will be sent in August. Read more

Called to Mhow as one of the speakers at the Army War College’s high command training programme for the third year running, I did my “military service” earlier than normal. Read more

Why Holbrooke is a model for diplomats of an aspiring power.
What, I am occasionally asked, is so great about Richard Holbrooke? Read more

Is Obama going to own the Indian relationship

I don’t know, but I’ve been told that Barack Obama that the India relationship is one of the few foreign policy issues that he thinks his Oval Office predecessor got right. Read more

Obama should not shirk from saying that his upping the war in Afghanistan is, in fact, necessary for promoting peace

Protestors have already made a noise in Oslo as Barack Obama arrives to collect his Premature Nobel Peace Prize. Everyone has been having a field day with the seeming contradiction of his collecting the prize just days after ordering 30,000 additional US troops to go to Afghanistan. Read more

The deep scepticism within the Indian strategic leadership about Barack Obama’s interest or ability to further the Indo-US relationship is no secret. Many upenly say that it would be best for India if he was a one-term Oval Office resident. Read more