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

HARI SHANKAR VYAS , senior Journalist and anchor of the popular programme  Central Hall  on ETV, speaks to the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi about his vision and plans for a new India What is the significance of the slogan, ‘Congress-free India’? Why not, corruption-free India, unemployment-free India or poverty-free India? I have one satisfaction; the country knows me at least for one thing: Whenever Modi speaks, he speaks frankly without inhibitions, and from the heart, with conviction. When I speak about a ‘Congress-free India’, I mean freedom from the work-culture that the Congress has given to this nation during the last sixty years. I refer to freedom from the politics of vote bank, the politics of grabbing power through these means. The country hasn’t witnessed such a naked dance of corruption that it has seen during the last 10 years. Thus, a Congress-free India necessarily means an India free from bad governance, dynastic rule, misuse of Constitut

Image courtesy- The Reuters/ Muhamed Nureldin Abdalla Iran has a significant history of long-distance seafaring in pursuit of trade with Asia. The presence, to this day, of wealthy and influential families of Iranian descent in some Asian countries, notably India and Thailand, is lingering evidence of early Iranian maritime ambitions in the region. Tehran’s recent foreign policy has been aimed mainly at countering the isolation brought about through international sanctions, by prioritizing official contacts with a relatively small number of friendly nations, and demonstrating that Iran retains credible international reach. The Iranian leadership is, therefore, keen to demonstrate its country’s continuing blue water capability. Over the past seven years, Iran’s offshore naval force, the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (IRIN), has undertaken about 30 increasingly ambitious overseas deployments. IRIN’s focus is firmly on offshore waters, as coastal operations are the responsibilit

The conventional wisdom on U.S. alliances in Asia, at least in the West, Japan, and Taiwan (but not necessarily in South Korea), is that they are broadly a good thing. One hears this pretty regularly from U.S. officials and the vast network of U.S. think tanks and foundations, such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the American Enterprise Institute, and their many doubles in Asia. U.S. alliances, we are told, provide stability. They  keep China from dominating the region . They hem in North Korea and defend the powerfully symbolic South Korean experiment in liberal democracy and capitalism. They prevent the nuclearization of South Korea and Japan and a spiraling regional arms race. In short, they re-assure. The  Chinese would almost certainly disagree  with these attributions. I have  argued in  The   Diplomat   before that Chinese hegemony is less likely than U.S. and especially Japanese alarmism would have one think.  Nor is it really clear  that China i

JDS Congo- A Japanese Self defence Force Aegis class destroyer ( DDG-173) ( Pic Courtesy- Wikimedia Commons and United States Navy) Japan’s defense minister has ordered the Japanese Self Defense Forces (JSDF) to shoot down any North Korean ballistic missiles that are tested in the coming weeks,  Reuters  reported on Saturday. According to the  Reuters  report, which cited an unidentified government source, Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera issued the order on Thursday, which directed the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Forces (JMSDF) to shoot down any missiles that North Korea launches between April 3 and April 25. An Aegis destroyer has been deployed to the Sea of Japan to carry out the order, the report said. Defense Minister Onodera’s order comes as tensions steadily escalate on the Korean Peninsula.  As  The Diplomat  previously reported , North Korea tested two Rodong-class (Nodong) mid-range ballistic missiles last week in what was its longest range missile test

( I do not know who the author of this amazing letter is? Who ever he is, due credits goes to him for sharing such a beautiful letter. Due credits goes to him. In the name of those brave souls who have laid down their lives in service of our motherland and all those who serve and protect us, we dedicate this post- Manoj) Letter from an airline pilot: He writes: My lead flight attendant came to me and said, "We have an H.R. On this flight." (H.R. Stands for human remains.) "Are they military?" I asked. 'Yes', she said. 'Is there an escort?' I asked. 'Yes, I've already assigned him a seat'. 'Would you please tell him to come to the flight deck. You can board him early," I said.. A short while later, a young army sergeant entered the flight deck. He was the image of the perfectly dressed soldier. He introduced himself and I asked him about his soldier. The escorts of these fallen soldiers talk about them as if they

Image courtesy- Wikimedia commons and the author TOKYO -- Japan and the U.S. will likely agree to enhance cooperation in supporting Southeast Asian nations in sea surveillance and other areas when their leaders meet later this month.      U.S. President Barack Obama is slated to visit Japan from April 23-25, with a meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe likely to be set up on April 24.      Obama will use the first leg of his Asian tour, which will also take him to South Korea, the Philippines and Malaysia, as an opportunity to keep a check on China's growing assertiveness in the South China Sea.      The two leaders will seek to work closely to address security concerns among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The Philippines and Vietnam, for instance, are at loggerheads with China over claims on islands in the South China Sea. Japan has decided to provide 10 patrol vessels to the Philippines. Now, the U.S. and Japan are both considering providing patrol vesse

More fourth-generation fighters, including the Sukhoi Su-35S, will be deployed to the Russian city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur in Khabarovsk Krai region near the Chinese border in response to the growing strength of Chinese, American and Japanese air power in the Far East, according to the Canadian-based Kanwa Defense Review operated by military analyst Andrei Chang also known as Pinkov. Through providing S-300 air defense missiles and a Yakovlev Yak-130 trainer to Belarus, Russia had solidified its buffer zone in Eastren Europe against NATO air power. At the same time, Russia is encouraging Belarus to purchase 18 decommissioned Sukhoi Su-30K fighters from the Indian Air Force; however, the magazine said that the situation in the Far East is very different from that in Eastern Europe. As the People's Liberation Army Air Force and the PLA Navy Air Force become more powerful in the Far East after introducing new aircraft, equipment, doctrine and training systems, the United States

Image courtesy- Wikimedia Commons and the author Japan has lifted it decades old ban on arms export adopted as part of its pacifist constitution. The decision replaced the self-imposed ban dating to the late 1960s with new, still-restrictive guidelines that permit the export of weapons only to allies and partners that agree not to sell them to third nations without Japanese approval. The new guidelines will also make it easier for Japan to join multinational development projects for expensive new weapons systems, like the American-led effort to build the F-35 stealth fighter jet. In 1967, Japan adopted three principles of weapons sales which prohibited arms sales to Communist nations, countries under United Nations sanctions and countries in armed conflict, but it eventually grew into a blanket ban on all weapons exports. China repeatedly invokes the WWII and the atrocities of Japan to criticize any move by Japan to enhance its own security. China has over the last few years

The Chinese have fired yet another salvo in its cloak and dagger strategic games directed at India. It has gone totally unnoticed in the Indian media but for the last few days, both the  Peoples' Daily  of China and the  China Daily along with their Indian Sinophile minions have been crowing about the latest Chinese “smart” success in invading India's international strategic space. By itself, the current Chinese salvo seems pretty innocuous but it has far reaching consequences. The stapled visa issue also started as an innocuous action by low level visa officers in the Chinese embassy. One has to read in between the tea leaves to ascertain Chinese motives. By these aggressive containment efforts, China has proved once again that it is not a friend or an ally of India but at worst a determined and hostile strategic adversary and at best a peer competitor. There is a very clear cut pattern to Chinese geo-political endeavours. China is behaving as a classical hegemon that

Image credits- Reuters/Eric De Castro On March 18, China and ASEAN gathered in Singapore to pursue consultations on a  Code of Conduct  (COC) for the South China Sea, alongside talks on the implementation of the Declaration of Conduct (DOC). The gathering came at a time of rising preoccupation over a perceived creeping assertiveness by China in pursuing its maritime claims. Just one week before, Manila and Beijing experienced  another diplomatic row , after Chinese Coast Guard vessels barred the resupply of Philippine marines based in the Spratly Islands. In broader terms, several high-profile developments have hinted that China is becoming more inclined to consider the threat and use of force as its preferred vehicle for influence in the South China Sea. China’s considerable maritime build-up has been accompanied by the merging of its maritime agencies into a unified Coast Guard unit, the publication of maps with a  10-dash line  covering Chinese claims in the South China Sea,