Author: Maj Gen (Dr) G D Bakshi SM, VSM (Retd)

There is no gainsaying the fact that but for Indian massive orders for military hardware, Russia’s resurgence from the ashes of the Soviet empire would have taken more time and heartache. India needs to build similar bridges with NATO and the nations of Southeast Asia to ensure that the world does not lapse into a bipolar stasis that would leave India out in the cold. In a perceptive article in the Indian Express (06 December 2010 issue), C. Rajamohan highlighted the geo-strategic dynamic that is shaping the emerging global order. This is characterised by the relative decline of the USA and the unexpectedly rapid rise of China.

Author: Dattesh D. Prabhu Parulekar

It’s a staple to allude to ‘strategic relations’ between nations; a rarefied transpiring, to aver of a ‘strategic partnership’ between regions, that too, between geographical spheres, that are far from homogenous and embody, as much in variation, as there is in common, within them. That’s the oddity of quality, which underpins the inter-regional historical and evolving equation, between Europe and Latin America. Notwithstanding the odyssey of a shared civilisation, brought on by the Iberian (Spanish and Portuguese) colonisation of Central and South America, together with its devolving connections vide ‘migrationary’ trends and ensuing ‘demographic’ patterns, there isn’t a dearth of those, who point to the European Community’s abiding tepid interest in Latin America, ostensibly, on account of the former’s aggressive ‘Eastward Expansion’.

Author: Claude Arpi

Jawaharlal Nehru had dreamed of putting Humpty Dumpty together again into a loose confederation of independent nation-States but the potency of the poison that Britain spread by applying the Irish model of the “two-nation theory” in the sub-continent is apparent in the assiduous manner in which “crossborder terrorism” is being sought to be curbed be it between Pakistan and Afghanistan or India and Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. In this context Samuel Huntington’s opus ‘Clash of Civilisations’ is nothing but a ladle to keep the pot boiling and the poison in circulation. Because of it, even small steps are hard to take.

Author: Dr Pankaj Jha

Many of the former colonies in Southeast Asia prefer to retain and nurture linkages with their former masters - but on the basis of maturity and equality. Some, like Myanmar, prefer to plough a different furrow and no amount of coercion and suasion has had any effect on the dictatorship. The recent elections do not automatically translate into full-fledged democracy. As a cohesive whole the relationship has clearly been fruitful. The rising belligerence of China has tended to push ASEAN to resuming military relationships that had over time become dormant, giving way to the garnering of peacetime benefits of trade and investments.

Author: Kalyani Unkule

The US is not the only one to feel that the European Union is riven with schisms that are of modern origin like on issues of economic crises, unregulated migration and climate change. Nonetheless there is a general unanimity in the perception among European nations that the US is in decline. Conversely and unfortunately for the US, China is being seen as the rising power and that there is a great deal of realism in the conception that the euro or the Chinese yuan should replace the American dollar as the global currency.

Author: Dr Rashmi Bhure

The world has changed so fast since the disappearance of the Soviet Union that Americans themselves have come to describe this era as the post-American world. The two main protagonists – the US and the European Union – in this geopolitical drama have begun to find themselves adrift and somewhat lonesome. America is wooing Asia and the EU finds itself at a loose end. Nonetheless both sides must realise that their relationship is umbilical despite the difference in perspective, especially on security issues, that have occurred in recent times.