Nitin Pai

    Pax Indica

    Demystifying the anarchy of international relations

  • All at sea

    Other than the fact that six of its 22 sailors were Indian nationals, the MV Suez, an Egyptian-owned, Panamanian-flagged ship, was more about Pakistan. It was captained by a Pakistani national and was on a voyage from Karachi to the Eritrean port … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2011/06/28/all-at-sea/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • The sun doesn’t set on the Indian Republic

    It all started because the Indian government, reeling from the Great Fiscal Crisis of 2014, decided to tax the  foreign income of Indian nationals. All Indian citizens--from the rich taxi driver in Sydney to the poor investment banker on Wall … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2011/06/13/the-sun-doesnt-set-on-the-indian-republic/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • Double trouble

    Last month I described how a distinct military-jihadi complex has captured the Pakistani state and how it uses its nuclear arsenal as a shield to pursue its interests through the use of militancy and terrorism. While Pakistan's use of Islamist … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2011/05/16/double-trouble/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • Why They Killed Osama bin Laden Now

    You might remember a Shekhar Suman gag on Zee TV's Movers and Shakers several years ago: An angry George W Bush announces that the United States will bomb the place where Osama bin Laden is found to be hiding. Hearing this, … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2011/05/02/why-they-killed-osama-bin-laden-now/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • Understanding Pakistan’s military-jihadi complex

    Until we are clear what is source of the problems Pakistan poses to the world, we are unlikely to get anywhere near solving it. The source, I would submit, is an multi-faceted entity that I call the military-jihadi complex---a dynamic network of military, militant, radical Islamist and political-economic structures that pursues a set of domestic and foreign policies to ensure its own survival and relative dominance. <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2011/04/18/understanding-pakistans-military-jihadi-complex/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • So why should India project power abroad?

    The dominant view among the members of India's strategic community is that India lacks a strategic culture. Given the cacophony, rancour and partisanship in public debate, with policy discussions taking place within the high walls of the government apparatus, with … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2011/04/04/so-why-should-india-project-power-abroad/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • Will the Ayatollah step behind the line?

    A few days ago, the Ayatollah crossed a line. In an open call to action, Ayatollah Syed Ali Hoseyni Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, declared that "no virtue is better than rescuing nations from the demonic clutches of hegemonic … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/11/23/will-the-ayatollah-step-behind-the-line/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • Obama and the “K” word

    Two years ago, in the final stage of his presidential campaign, in an interview to TIME magazine's Joe Klein, candidate Barack Obama said that he intended to work "with Pakistan and India to try to resolve, and Kashmir, crisis in … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/11/09/obama-and-the-k-word/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • The missing ingredient in India’s soft power

    This is going to make you uncomfortable. The idea of secularism is meaningless in the amoral world of international relations. What is an excellent principle to order our diverse, plural nation is a millstone around India's neck when it comes … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/10/26/the-missing-ingredient-in-indias-soft-power/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • How to Fix Illegal Bangladeshi Migration

    "Probably the most important event in (Assam) during the last 25 years -- an event, moreover, which seems likely to alter permanently the whole future of Assam and the whole structure of Assamese culture and civilization -- has been the … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/10/12/how-to-fix-illegal-bangladeshi-migration/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • Solving the Pakistan Problem

    India's Pakistan problem is over. Even before this year's floods destroyed what was left of its socio-economic structures, it was abundantly clear that the idea of Pakistan had failed. You don't have to believe hawkish Indian strategists -- just search … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/09/28/solving-the-pakistan-problem/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • Five neighbourhood paradoxes

    You might have noticed that, relatively speaking, India's policy towards the United States or Japan is far more coherent than towards, say, Nepal. Over the last few years, New Delhi was able to challenge the age-old dogma of the nuclear … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/09/14/five-neighbourhood-paradoxes/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • We Are Not South Asian

    At a seminar a couple of weeks ago, one of the organisers argued that the "South Asian identity" has made inroads across the world. He supported this argument with an example. Many universities in the United States, he said, now … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/08/31/we-are-not-south-asian/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • Your Own Private Foreign Policy

    Over the last few days, before SM Krishna called his counterpart offering help, many of my friends complained that India -- that is, the Indian government -- had not offered any humanitarian assistance to flood-ravaged Pakistan. 'Politics,' some said, should … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/08/17/your-own-private-foreign-policy/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • East of Singapore

    Global Times, an English language daily newspaper owned by the People's Daily, Communist Party of China's mouthpiece, devoted an astonishing 11 of its 22 editorials last month to threatening the United States, South Korea, Vietnam and Southeast Asian countries for … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/08/03/east-of-singapore/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • The call General Kayani cannot make

    Imagine that General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani wakes up one fine morning and decides that the Talibanisation of his country now risked destroying the military establishment that nurtured it since 1947. The militant groups that the army had used to attack … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/07/20/the-call-general-kayani-cannot-make/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • Playing the energy game against China

    Yes, India has lost several rounds of the energy resources game -- as much to itself as to China -- over the last few years. In a recent, well-researched article Bloomberg's Rakteem Katakey and John Duce point out that in … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/07/06/playing-the-energy-game-against-china/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • The G-20 opportunity

    There is a case for reforming the set of international organisations created by the victors of one of the bloodiest wars of the last century. The United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are all manifestations of … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/06/22/the-g-20-opportunity/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • The Palestinian Card

    You probably think the flotilla is about the Palestinian people. Well, yes and no. For much of the last six decades, the Palestinian 'cause' has really been a Palestinian 'card' used by regional powers in the region aspiring for pre-eminence … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/06/08/the-palestinian-card/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • Why India Must Swing

    "[The] very fact of China's rising economic and military power," Robert Kaplan concludes in an essay in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, "will exacerbate US-Chinese tensions in the years ahead. To paraphrase the political scientist John Mearsheimer, the United … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/05/25/why-india-must-swing/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>