Mainstream Weekly

On the Brink of Collapse: Nuclear Agreement with Iran

Ninan Koshy — 2014-12-01T18:50:06Z

There was great expectation that the majestuc Coburg Palace Hotel in Vienna would witness the signing of an epoch-making agreement heralding dramatic changes in international relations, especially in West Asia. But unfortu-nately that did not happen.
The negotiations between P5+1—the USA, UK, Russia, China, France, Germany—on one side and Iran on the other on Iran's nuclear programme did not collapse, but failed to make a comprehensive agreement at Vienna by November 24, the deadline set (…)

- 2014

US General Wants to Learn from India

Ninan Koshy — 2013-09-02T17:25:08Z

General Raymond T. Odierno was in an upbeat mood. He had just returned from a visit to India. He was profuse in his praise for the Indian Army. He said the US Army had to learn a lot from its Indian counterpart.
The US Army Chief of Staff visited India at the end of July. During that visit he met with defence leaders in India including his counterpart, the Indian Chief of Army Staff, General Bikram Singh. He visited the Indian Army's Northern Command, responsible for the borders with (…)

- 2013

US' Strategic ‘Pivot' To Asia-Pacific — Some Implications

Ninan Koshy — 2013-08-12T11:26:39Z

What are the Implications of the Imperial Pivot?
There is a new definition of the Asia-Pacific reflecting the expanded stretch of the imperial territory: The Strategic Guidance document maps the region as “the arc extending from Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia”. In her Foreign Policy article “America's Pacific Century” (November 2011), the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, defined the Asia-Pacific as “stretching from the Indian subcontinent (…)

- 2013

The Imperial ‘Pivot' to Asia-Pacific and the New Cold War

Ninan Koshy — 2012-10-11T20:04:35Z

The Pentagon document on Strategic Guid-ance, entitled “Sustaining Global Leadership: Priorities for Twenty First Century”, released in January 2012, has inaugurated a new cold war. If the theatre of the ‘old' Cold War was Europe, the new theatre is the Asia-Pacific. The docu-ment affirms that the US will of necessity rebal-ance towards the Asia-Pacific region. ‘Rebalance' seems to have replaced the earlier term ‘pivot'. The document maps the region as “the arc extending from the Western (…)

- 2012

NATO's Legitimacy Crisis

Ninan Koshy — 2012-06-08T15:13:09Z

Every NATO Summit is an exercise in its quest for legitimacy. The Chicago Summit was no exception except that the legitimacy crisis has deepened with the debacle in Afghanistan. It was the biggest meeting of the alliance ever organised, with more than sixty countries and organisations represented there. Staged in the home town of President Obama, it was meant to declare the exit from Afghanistan—as if it were an achievement—and to boost the Presi-dent's geopolitical leadership, both messages (…)

- 2012

The State of the Empire— Some Reflections on the Geopolitical Situation

Ninan Koshy — 2011-05-24T00:21:01Z

If anybody had hopes that the replacement of a Republican President by a Democratic President would reform, if not begin to dismantle the Empire, their hopes have been totally belied. The continuation of the Bush era policies, military doctrines and strategies by President Obama is deeply disquieting, but not surprising. In the wake of the Bush Administration's disastrous neoconservative ideologies, the Obama Administration initially appeared to be seeking to realise the liberal (…)

- 2011

On Dealing with Nuclear North Korea

Ninan Koshy — 2011-04-08T18:55:01Z

“I was stunned by the sight of 2000 centrifuges in two cascade halls and an ultramodern control room. But it was not until the long drive back to Pyongyang that the political implications of these findings hit me. It will be more important than ever to limit Pyongyang's nuclear programme and calm tensions in the Korean peninsula.”
—American Scientist Dr Siegfried S. Hecker in Foreign Affairs, December 2010, after visiting the new uranium enriching plant in North Korea
North Korea was (…)

- 2011

When will the Occupation of Afghanistan End?

Ninan Koshy — 2010-12-31T04:07:36Z

Forty nations are embroiled in an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. Anyone who travels through the country with Western troops soon realises that NATO forces would have to be increased tenfold for peace to be even a remote possibility. —Ulrich Fichtner in Spiegal online International,May 29, 2008
When will the occupation of Afghanistan by the USA-led NATO end? While the NATO Summit in Lisbon, Portugal in the third week of November gave a timetable for exit, with the end of 2014 as the point (…)

- 2010

Iraq: Continuing Occupation with a New Codename

Ninan Koshy — 2010-09-02T15:34:45Z

“There are people in Washington who never intend to withdraw military forces from Iraq and they are looking for ten, twenty, fifty years in the future. The reason that we went into Iraq was to establish a permanent military base in the Gulf region and I have never heard any of our leaders say that they would commit themselves to the Iraqi people that ten years from now there will be no military bases of the US in Iraq”
—Jimmy Carter (former US President), February 3, 2006
President Barak (…)

- 2010

Syndicate of Terrorism and ‘Af-Pak-Ind'

Ninan Koshy — 2010-02-18T17:42:36Z

During his visit to New Delhi in the third week of January, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said that the Al-Qaeda had formed a “syndicate” of terrorist groups with Taliban factions in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as the Lashkar-e-Taiba. He said that the Al-Qaeda was using proxy terrorist organisations to orch-estrate attacks in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan as part of a broader strategy to destabilise the region. Gates added that the Al-Qaeda was aiming also to provoke a war between (…)

- 2010