StratNews Global

A lot of lessons from the Ukraine, Gaza wars, and the Ladakh standoff with China. In an interview with Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale, Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhuri, the Chief of Air Staff (CAS) dwells on lessons learned from the Russia-Ukraine war, the changing nature of war, and why the Indian Air Force will always be the first offensive choice in any conflict.

In this interview, the Air Chief lists the key takeaways from the conflict in the Himalayan frontier and wars in distant lands. Talking about lessons drawn from the standoff with China in Eastern Ladakh, the CAS highlighted leadership, ability to adapt, and training among other factors that the IAF has inculcated. The Ladakh experience has also boosted jointness.

According to the CAS, common platforms, and common systems will have common maintenance. Complete interoperability between the Army and the IAF.

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The Indian Army's Southern Command is not just the biggest but also the oldest Command of the force. It covers 41% of the Indian landmass, 11 States, and four Union Territories. The Command hosts a large number of training establishments too. In a way, Southern Command is the Indian Army's training hub.

In an interview with Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale, Southern Army Commander Lt Gen AK Singh speaks about how troops under him prepare for all contingencies, knowing fully well that there are no runners-up in war.

As he says, the Army must be fully prepared to take on conventional challenges, even while absorbing technology to fight in all domains. Tri-services exercises are run based on plans evolved jointly by all three services, as was done recently. In one of the largest exercises ever, equipment failure was rare, a very heartening situation, Lt Gen Singh pointed out. Watch the full interview conducted at the Army War Memorial in Pune at the Southern Command Headquarters.

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The Russia-Ukraine war refuses to wind down, and the West keeps imposing sanctions on Russia-linked entities but human tragedy is piling up. Over a third of Ukraine’s population has fled their homes, reconstruction is getting costlier and the aftereffects of the conflict may last generations. So how does one assess the conflict as it stands today?

One way is to map the first three months of the war with the three months that led into the second anniversary, says eminent journalist, author and commentator MJ Akbar.

Speaking to StratNews Global Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale on ‘The Gist’, Akbar said the world needs to factor in the fact that Russia has the capacity to defend its strategic interests and that the Cold War hasn’t stopped.

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The World Bank recently released its annual tracker on global remittances for 2023. It showed that globally remittances at $669 billion grew higher than forecast. India, like always, was the top recipient with $125 billon—accounting for little under fifth of the global remittances in 2023.

According to the World Bank, a distinctive feature of remittances to India is the shift away from blue-collar workers to white-collar workers based in Europe, Australia and the United States.

To unpack this trend, Anil Padmanabhan spoke with Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder of TeamLease.

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Iran is more sinned against than sinning, is the message from Seyed Mohammad Marandi, professor at Tehran University and a political commentator.

Marandi gave a bird’s eye view of how Tehran sees the regional situation at a time when the US has carried out air strikes on armed groups in Syria believed to be loyal to Iran. The US classifies these groups, from Hamas to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen as terrorist but Marandi disagrees. In his view, the real terrorist groups are Al Qaeda and its off shoot the Islamic State, both of which are Western creations.

He claims the US military presence at Al Tanf in Syria is intended to help the Islamic State simply because it is a useful tool against Iran. Marandi says Israel along with the West is carrying out genocide in Gaza and insists that its withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territories is the only way for peace in the region.

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India and Australia already share a robust defence relationship but that can be deepened, says Philip Green, Australian High Commissioner to India.

We are not only looking for interoperability between the many platforms that we share but we could hope to go beyond interoperability, to interchangeability, the envoy told StratNews Global Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale.

He also advocated a new level of intimacy: “more Australian servicemen working on and with Indian platforms and Indian defence personnel in our headquarters”.

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Nobody is speculating on the next meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Emmanuel Macron, but with six meetings last year alone, there is clearly a lot going on in the India-France relationship, says Arun Kumar Singh, former ambassador to France.

Ambassador Singh was on The Gist, talking about President Macron’s recent visit and the many takeaways, from a defence industrial roadmap to cooperation in space, and technology transfers in key areas that could well be unprecedented.

In that sense, France is a useful partner, providing steadfast diplomatic support in international bodies while also being rock solid in its strategic relationship with India. Paris also helps India leverage its relationship with the US, helping Delhi ensure balance.

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A “dangerous separatist”, as China calls William Lai, will be Taiwan’s next president, which means the arsenal that Beijing deployed, including military exercises and propaganda, failed to make a difference.

There is a growing body of people in Taiwan who now feel that they have a separate identity which is not identical to that of the mainland, says former Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale. “Today you have a position in which China has no option but to deal with its worst case scenario for the next four years, at least in political terms,” he told StratNews Global Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale.

In the interview, Vijay Gokhale also talks about his latest book ‘Crosswinds: Nehru, Zhou and the Anglo-American Competition over China’ that offers insights into Indian foreign policy in the first decade after Independence and why India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, did what he did when it came to dealing with China and the United States.

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The armed exchange between Iran and Pakistan targeting their respective halves of Balochistan was sudden and unexpected. But it is not that they haven’t clashed before in that region, says Tilak Devasher, author of a book on Balochistan and former special director Cabinet Secretariat.

Devasher says the Pakistanis have been backing the Sunni militant group Jaish-e-Adl formerly Jundullah for many years. It has killed and abducted many Iranian border policemen forcing the latter to respond with their own brand of violence. Could the clashes be the result of the US and Saudis egging on Pakistan against Iran?

It cannot be ruled out although the speed with which hostilities ended underscored that neither side saw any purpose in escalation. But it has also emphasised that the longer the Gaza War continues, the greater the risk of it spilling over into new areas. Lebanon is already a flashpoint given Hezbollah provocations against Israel; the Houthis are another.

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India’s premier defence research body — the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) — which was set up over 60 years ago needs to change the way it operates. That’s what a committee headed by K. VijayRaghavan, former principal scientific advisor to the government, has recommended.

So what is wrong with DRDO and what changes has the committee recommended? StratNews Global Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale explains.

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William Lai’s election as the next Taiwanese president has not gone down well with China which has said he doesn’t represent the choice of the masses. So what does it mean for China-Taiwan relations that are already under considerable strain?

China will continue its policy of harassment against Taiwan; coercion and intimidation will be the norm and could be a little bit more intensive, I-Chung Lai, President of Prospect Foundation, a Taiwanese think-tank, told StratNews Global Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale.

Another Taiwanese analyst — Lin Fei-fan, Director of the Board, New Frontier Foundation — who joined in the discussion said China played a role in amplifying fake news spread by Opposition parties that Taiwan would open up its labour market to Indian workers, an issue on which the Taiwanese government has not taken a final decision yet.

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National security looks at capabilities and capabilities could be technologies, either old or new but traditionally it’s a combination of both, says Anshuman Tripathi, Member, National Security Advisory Board (NSAB).

Speaking to StratNews Global Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale, he said technology is supposed to augment human capabilities, be a force-multiplier but it has unfortunately ended up playing on the human failing that we become lazier. “As a race, we humans need to be careful that we keep our skill sets alive going forward.”

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Has growing proximity between Russia and China and India’s greater engagement with the United States strained the India-Russia bilateral relationship?

Both India and Russia might have special relationships with other partners but we can be sure about India and you can be sure about Russia that it’s a choice by us and by you; it’s not for anybody else to dictate these relationships, says Fyodor Lukyanov, Research Director, Valdai Discussion Club.

Speaking to StratNews Global Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale, he said the view in Russia now is that it’s normal that any country tries to diversify its relationships. Andrey Bystritskiy, Chairman, Valdai Discussion Club, who was also part of the discussion, said Russia is paving the way to the future which doesn’t have to be unidirectional but can carry others along.

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The recent round of elections to state assemblies saw the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pull off an audacious win in Madhya Pradesh. Not only did it overcome four-term anti-incumbency, but it also managed to win two-thirds majority in the state assembly. Undoubtedly, the big draw was Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

However, there is a very important subtext to BJP’s electoral victory that has not get its due. It is one of the key reasons influencing BJP’s outstanding victory. Regardless, it has put the spotlight on the state’s agrarian economy, which has undergone a massive makeover in the last 15 years.

How did Madhya Pradesh pull this off? To answer this and more, Anil Padmanabhan spoke to Ashok Gulati, an agriculture economist and the last word on all things Indian agriculture.

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Talks with China are continuing at both military and diplomatic levels but we are also maintaining a robust posture along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), says Army Chief General Manoj Pande.

In an exclusive interview with Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale, Gen. Pande talks about Indian Army's transformation journey, modernisation, aatmanirbharta in defence, global reach, situation along the China and Pakistan border and more.

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From Kyaukpyu and Chittagong ports on India’s eastern seaboard to Hambantota in Sri Lanka and Gwadar in Pakistan, China has strategically invested all along this country’s maritime borders, with serious implications says Alok Bansal, former naval officer who has been writing and researching on India’s neighbourhood.

He spoke to Surya Gangadharan about his latest book ‘Gwadar: A Chinese Gibraltar’. In his view, the fact that neither Hambantota nor Gwadar have proved commercially viable is irrelevant. Beijing sees these ports as part of its larger design when its navy enters the Indian Ocean in force, with the aim of securing its energy supplies and limiting the Indian Navy’s ability to interdict them.

Bansal also pointed to China’s naval base in Somalia, where it has naval assets including marine personnel, giving it another instrument to monitor the flow of its energy supplies.

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Sushant Sareen is not known for mincing his words. In a chat with Ramananda Sengupta, the Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation who ranks among the leading Indian experts on Pakistan and India’s place in the world discusses the issues of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the Khalistani terrorist living in the US that Indian agents reportedly tried to assassinate, as well as the growing number of Pakistani terrorists linked to attacks on India who are being ‘taken out’, by mysterious “unknown gunmen” across their homeland.

As for the violent deaths of terrorists in Pakistan linked to attacks on Indian interests, he says he would be delighted to know that Indian agencies, or even ‘Agent Vinod or The Phantom’ were behind this. However, given the fact that India is unlikely to have the footprint, or logistics and assets in place to kill these people in the hinterlands of the country, it is far more likely that the Pakistani deep state is indulging in some cleaning up operations.

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Eight years ago India teamed up with France to launch the International Solar Alliance (ISA) on the first day of the Paris meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP).

This took the world by surprise, which till then believed that India naysaying could sabotage the crucial talks to battle climate change. Indeed, this was the coming out moment for Indian climate diplomacy, which till then had been siloed as a perennial critic and naysayer. It also ensured India a passage to the global high table as an entity seriously committed to fighting global climate change.

This so-called alliance of sunshine states—falling between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn–is made up of mostly countries from the global South. It provides another platform for India in its bid to be the champion of the global South.

How will all this play out? And has the ISA lived upto its initial hype? To answer this and more, Anil Padmanabhan spoke to Vyoma Jha, India Clean Energy Senior Advocate, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

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On this day 52 years ago, India won the war against Pakistan, which led to the creation of a new country (Bangladesh). It was a swift military operation but was planned over months after the Pakistani army went on a killing spree in late-March that year in what was then East Pakistan.

As the Indian military prepared for an operation, Indian authorities also ensured that the atrocities committed by the Pakistani army did not go unnoticed, especially by the Western media.

In this episode of 'Simply Nitin', StratNews Global Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale details what happened in the lead-up to December 16, 1971, and how in 13 days the Pakistani army bit the dust.

The recent US commando raid, which led to the killing of ISIS chief Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi in Syria, has left many counter-terrorism experts downplaying the operation and warning that his death will not prevent the resurgence of the group. Already, ISIS is expanding its base in both Iraq and Syria. However, Dr Adil Rasheed, Research Fellow and Coordinator of Counter-Terrorism Center, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA) points out that the US operation should be seen as an encouraging sign by the international community. Dr Rasheed argues that with Washington’s focus on Ukraine and China, and its withdrawal from West Asia and Afghanistan, perceptions had grown that the US was no longer interested in battling the war against terror. This operation, he argues, has dispelled such notions and restored faith amongst the US’s allies. Such an attitude should be welcomed especially as ISIS continues to expand its footprint into East and West Africa while also making a base for itself in the Af-Pak region.

Disclaimer: The views shared are the interviewee’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of IDSA

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The recent Houthi drone attacks upon the UAE is significant as it has dragged another actor into the over six-year-long Yemen conflict which so far was being conducted between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis. Dr Alvite Ningthoujam, Assistant Professor at Symbiosis School of International Studies and an expert on West Asia believes that the timing of the attacks is significant as the Houthis – who are rapidly losing territory in Yemen – want to draw the attention of the international community. He adds however that given that there is an “Iranian fingerprint” as far as the supply of drones to Houthis are concerned, it is possible that the drone attacks could also be seen as an Iranian pressure tactic during the ongoing JCPOA talks. Such drone attacks suits Tehran, as it would serve its “maximalist agenda” of ensuring concessions from the West before a deal is signed while also being seen as the state that can ensure stability in the Middle East.

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After the Malian junta pushed back elections by four years, the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) imposed harsh economic sanctions on the country. There have been huge protests in Mali against the sanctions, with most of the anger directed at former colonial power France which has had a troop presence in Mali for nearly a decade now. In this podcast with StratNews Global, Michael Shurkin, Director of Global Programs at 14 North Strategies, says neglecting the importance of building narratives and image has cost France and the western powers dear. He also dwells on the role of Russia. Listen in for more.

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Tensions have been raised as North Korea continues to conduct ballistic missile tests. The tests which came after the United States put more sanctions on the DPRK has most people wondering as to how far Kim Jong Un is likely to go and what is likely to be the US’s response. Korea expert Professor Ramon Pacheco Pardo who is Professor of International Relations at King's College London and KF-VUB Korea Chair at the Brussels School of Governance believes that North Korea sees the tests as a “window of opportunity” for talks and win concessions from both South Korea and the Americans. They feel the timing is opportune for them right now as the region is particularly sensitive with Beijing heading into the Winter Olympics next month and South Korea heading into elections in March. On the US’s side, Professor Pacheco believes that the Biden administration will not consider North Korea a priority right now and will possibly sit with a new South Korean president post March to devise a new strategy. As far as other actors are concerned, Professor Pardo believes China is particularly unhappy with the tests given the timing but there is little Beijing can do to rein in North Korea because the border is currently closed right now.

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A meeting of the foreign ministers of The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that was to take place in Cambodia—the current chair of the 10-member bloc—next week has been postponed indefinitely. The official reason is that some members can’t make it due to other engagements but there’s more to it. The Malaysian foreign minister has said some members had reservations about Cambodian PM Hun Sen’s visit to Myanmar earlier this month, the first by a head of government since last year’s military coup in Myanmar. The Cambodian leader justifies his engagement with the junta as necessary but not all in the bloc are convinced. Given the sharp divisions within the group, what’s the way forward? In this podcast with StratNews Global, Hunter Marston, a researcher at the Australian National University, who focuses on Southeast Asia, offers his views. Listen in for more.

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A video released by the Chinese official media on New Year’s Day shows troops with a Chinese flag and claims that the location was Galwan. Propaganda videos by the Chinese are not uncommon but this one was meant—mainly for Chinese audiences—to project that Xi Jinping has a fim border policy in place, says Tibetologist, historian and author Claude Arpi. In this podcast with StratNews Global, Arpi also dwells on the bridge that China is building across Pangong Lak. Listen in for more.

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Gabriel Boric, 35, will be Chile’s youngest president. The former student leader and Leftist candidate defeated his far-right rival José Antonio Kast in a highly polarising election in which the two candidates put forth starkly different visions for the Latin American nation. Both of them come from parties that have never governed Chile. In this podcast with StratNews Global, John Londregan, Professor  of politics and international affairs at Princeton University in the U.S.  tells us about the road ahead for what was once South America’s most  stable economy.

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The recent flurry of high-profile visits conducted by the UAE suggests that the Emiratis are looking to not just bolster but balance ties with fellow countries in the region. The visit by Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett – the first time an Israeli PM has officially visited the UAE – occurring just after the UAE NSA Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan visited Iran for talks with Iranian leaders is a case in point. Navdeep Suri, former Indian ambassador to the UAE says that such talks not just with Iran and Israel but with other nations such as Syria and even Turkey – a country once viewed with hostility by the UAE – suggests that the Gulf country may now be looking to adjust in a region which it believes will soon see reduced American influence. Suri’s contention, which comes in the face of the Gulf nation publicly rejecting the US F-35 fighter jet deal for French Rafales, suggests that Middle East politics may be undergoing a change with geographically small but rich nations such as Qatar and UAE slowly coming into the forefront.

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What’s behind Saudi Arabia’s decision to ban the Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamic missionary movement launched in India nearly a century ago, which has a huge following, especially in South Asia? It’s an attempt by an authoritarian regime that has been accused of human rights abuses to repaint the image of the kingdom and its leader (Crown Prince Mohd bin Salman) in the West that has little knowledge about Islamic movements, says Talmiz Ahmad, former Indian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. In this podcast with StratNews Global, Ambassador Ahmad shares his views on the heart of the conflict. Listen in for more.

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