Manoj Ambat's Blog dealing with Defence, Foreign Affairs, Strategic Affairs and Politics

Image credits- VOA Source- Eurasia Review Author- Dan Stienbock The recent Washington summit took the US-China bilateral relations onto a new level, while President Xi’s UN visit gave a glimpse of China’s new global role. Currently the U.S.-China bilateral relations are characterized by very different trajectories of power. As President Barack Obama is on his way out, President Xi Jinping is just getting started. In turn, the U.S. presidential election cycle, particularly its aggressive rhetoric, may cast shadows over bilateral progress. Before the summit, there was much speculation in the United States about China’s ability and willingness to execute reforms amid challenges in the mainland and a volatile international environment. At the eve of his first state U.S. visit, President Xi addressed these concerns in a Wall Street Journal interview. “Like an arrow shot that cannot be brought back,” he said, “we will forge ahead against all odds to meet our goals of re

Image credits- VOA Source- Eurasia Review Author- SAAG / Dr Subhash Kapila Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States last week cannot be said to be all that fruitful, taking place contextually against the backdrop of the large number of divisive issues that divide China and the United States and the ongoing election debate in USA in which India seems to be emerging as the American favourite in United States formulations. One could straightaway observe initially, that the Chinese President’s visit to USA has taken place at an inauspicious time when chinks have appeared in China’s greatest strength, that is, its powerful economy. The global community was left gaping to witness that the Chinese impregnable economic bubble had eventually burst. China may not be economically down and out but the Chinese economy has lost its momentum and renowned economists opine that the Chinese economy was in for a period of sluggish growth. The above weakens China’s l

USS Nimitz, CVN-69 ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / United States Navy) Source- Eurasia Review Authors- Scott N. Romaniuk and Marinko Bobić US President Barack Obama recently (albeit allegedly) put an end to America’s foreign policy that had resisted external influence and interference in the Western Hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine originally stated that efforts by foreign (European) states to colonize and become involved in states either in North or South America would ultimately be seen as aggressive acts. These conditions were articulated clearly and concisely by former president James Monroe in his seventh annual message delivered to Congress in December 1823. Monroe declared, “we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have

USS San Antonio- LPD17 ( Image source- Wikimedia Commons / Author- Government of the United States) Source- The Diplomat Author- Prashanth Parameswaran Earlier this week, media outlets reported that the U.S. Marine Corps was bringing together foreign commanders from amphibious forces – mostly those deployed in the Asia-Pacific – for a new conference to help integrate amphibious operations, with China excluded from the event. The engagement in question is the inaugural U.S. Pacific Command Amphibious Leaders Symposium (PALS) held from May 17 to 21 in Hawaii involving around two dozen foreign nations. The Star Advertiser notes that according to the Marine Corps, the objective of the symposium is to get a handle on regional considerations with respect to amphibious operations – useful for a variety of purposes including humanitarian assistance, power projection and territorial defense. PALS reportedly includes group briefings, scenario-based exercises, and the observatio

Images credits- Government of the United States of America Source- The Diplomat Author- Walter C. Clemens Jr Might China and the United States retrace the path taken by Athens and Sparta as they destroyed the glory that was Greece? Will the two great powers of our era fall into what political scientist Graham Allison, head of Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, calls the “Thucydides trap” – the pressures that arise when an upstart threatens to overtake a hegemon? Updating what he wrote in Financial Times on August 21, 2012, Allison spoke to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on April 14, 2015, and again quoted the historian Thucydides: “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made the [Peloponnesian] war inevitable.” A similar “trap” has often recurred, according to Allison: “In twelve of sixteen cases in the past 500 years when a rising power challenged a ruling power, the outcome was war.” Sin

USS Nimitz (CVN-68) ( Source- Wikimedia Commons / Credits- The United States Navy) Source- The National Interest Author- Harry J. Kazianis The balance of power in Asia is changing—and not in Washington’s favor. No longer can the United States count on simply massing forces Gulf War I style and quickly coming to the aid of its allies if combat ever commenced on the Korean peninsula, in the East China Sea, around Taiwan or in the South China Sea—all thanks to China’s massive military buildup and growing anti-access/area-denial capabilities. The Obama Administration is quick to point out America is “pivoting” or “rebalancing” to Asia—maybe one of the most “sticky” foreign policy slogans in the last twenty five years. But catchphrases can’t change the facts and many would argue the pivot remains only a slogan when we take a hard look at facts on the ground. China is not only altering the status quo on land but on the water, in the sky, in space, and maybe even in cyberspace