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

  Colombo World  Trade Centre ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Attributes- Mystic Source- The Diplomat Author- Harsh V. Pant Last week, in a stunning blow to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Sri Lankan voters opted for his former colleague Maithripala Sirisena to end a decade-long regime that has been increasingly marked by allegations of nepotism, corruption, and authoritarianism. Rajapaksa, after having defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE), won an overwhelming mandate for himself and his party in the 2010 elections.  The LTTE had been fighting since 1983 for an independent homeland for minority ethnic Tamils after decades of discrimination at the hands of the Sinhalese majority. Though the civil war in Sri Lanka, which lasted for more than 25 years and claimed over 100,000 lives, ended in 2009, the country still remains bitterly divided and reconciliation efforts have faltered. When the war ended in 2009, there was an opportunity for the ethnic commun

Indian Coast Guard Vessel ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Attributes- Around the Globe ) Source- The Eurasia Review Author- Observer Research Foundation    / Vikram Sood These must be tense days for the security forces and intelligence agencies. There is heightened cross-LOC firing, repeated attempts at intrusion as Pakistan desperately looks for a diversion from Peshawar. If the social media is any indication, then their aim is to somehow pin all blame on India for whatever has gone wrong, or will go wrong, in Pakistan. They wish to convince the world that they need continued support from them against an ‘expansionist’ India. The current psywar campaign in Pakistan is more to convince their own people of an imagined eternal threat rather than frighten India, because deep down there is a realisation that the trouble is from within and not from external factors. The forthcoming visit of President Obama for the second time to India, and that, too, without going to

Japanese Coast Guard vessel ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons) Source- The National Interest Author- Ryan Scoville Commentary on the long-standing contest over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands may be entering a new and more conciliatory phase. A lot of early scholarship focused on the zero-sum question of who has proper title under international law, but more recent analyses have started to explore paths toward a cooperative resolution. Last month, Akikazu Hashimoto, Michael O’Hanlon and Wu Xinbo offered a multipronged plan under which China and Japan would promise not to raise new territorial disputes in the future, the parties would agree to decouple EEZ determinations from sovereignty over the islands themselves, each side would acknowledge the other’s territorial claims and Japan would delegate rights of administration to a joint oversight board with authority to regulate patrols and usage. The authors view their approach as “designed to respect the core interests and

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Attributes- Philippines Government Source- The National Interest Author- Richard Javad Heydarian  By all possible measures, 2014 was a roller-coaster year for East Asia, particularly for the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which have anxiously watched Beijing’s widening shadow of influence and territorial assertiveness across the region. China kicked off the year with a bang, introducing a second amendment to its fisheries law in Hainan, which placed additional restrictions on the freedom of movement of foreign fishing vessels, particularly Vietnamese nationals, in the South China Sea.  This was followed by an intensified showdown with Filipino forces stationed at the Second Thomas Shoal, placing tremendous pressure on the United States to check China’s yet-another bold foray into a treaty ally’s 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Manila was gripped by panic, keeping in mind the Scarbor

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Attributes- Kremlin  Source- The Diplomat Author- Stephen Blank Allegedly, Russia invaded Ukraine because Russians and Russian speakers there were in danger of losing their cultural-political rights to a supposedly neo-Nazi, Fascist government there. Of course, these charges were wholly mendacious. But they do highlight the salience of Russian language use in the countries of the Russian diaspora of the former Soviet Union as having a direct bearing on the security of those states. Indeed, a 2009 Russian law that Russian President Vladimir Putin directly invoked to justify the invasion of Crimea permits the Russian president to order troops into other countries to uphold the “honor and dignity” of Russians and Russian speakers if it is being violated. Given that, it should be clear that linguistic policy in Central Asian countries is a matter of the utmost importance, requiring considerable subtlety on the part of Central Asian leaders.

Indian troops under UN flag in Congo ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Attribution- Julien Harneis ) Source- The Diplomat Author- Pushan Das As the conflict in South Sudan crosses the one year mark, China is preparing its first deployment of combat troops in UN peacekeeping operations, reflecting the change in the country’s policy of non-interference based on principles set down by Premier Zhou Enlai at the 1955 Bangdung Peace Conference. But what exactly does this deployment of 700 combat troops to South Sudan mean – is it an example of China using its military to safeguard its commercial interests in the region? And does it also open up a new front in the country’s rivalry with India, which has been one of the major security providers operating under the UN flag on the African continent? With both countries becoming ever more dependent on African resources to drive their growing economies, India and China’s interests in peace and stability for trade are very high –

Long March Rocket ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Attributes- Author ) Source- The Diplomat Author- Jan Mortier & Benjamin Finnis In October 2014, China’s Chang’e 5-T1 lunar probe, known as Xiaofei or Little Flyer, successfully completed an orbit around the Moon. This was the first time that a trip around the Moon and back of this sort had been made since the USA and Russian trips in the 1970s. The Little flyer is a precursor to Chang’e 5 which will bring back lunar soil (regolith) containing the nuclear fuel helium-3 that can be used for baseload energy production and the next generation of nuclear weapons. The Little Flyer mission lasted eight days and its primary objective was to conduct atmospheric re-entry tests on the Chang’e 5 capsule design which will be launched by 2017. The destination on the lunar surface for Chang’e 5, like that of the Yutu Jade Rabbit rover, is the Mare Imbrium also known as the Sea of Rains, one of the vast lunar crater seas vi

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Attribution- Al Jazeera Source- The Diplomat Author- Shairee Malhotra Pakistan and the world were shocked by the deadly and heartbreaking attack by the Pakistani Taliban on a school in Peshawar that killed more than 130 children, many the sons of Army personnel. Yet just a few days later, Pakistan’s courts decided to grant Zaikur Rehman Lakhvi, the terrorist mastermind behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks, bail. The debilitating situation in Pakistan is the natural outcome of a strategic culture that is entirely the creation of the Pakistan Army. A perpetual hostility towards India is a keystone of the ideology of the Army, and by extension, the Pakistani state, given that Pakistan is an army with a country. Its strategic depth theory, whereby Pakistan is undefeated as long as it continues to challenge and resist India’s rise, has seen it resort to asymmetric warfare and encouraged it to solicit the support of dangerous non-state actors.

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Attributes- World Economic Forum Source- The Diplomat A uthor- Nitin A. Gokhale In less than a week, President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka will be facing the toughest political battle of his life as the country votes in the presidential elections on January 8. The Sinhala strongman, credited with ending a 30-year war against the separatist Tamil Tigers in 2009 was expected to have a cakewalk until one of his closest colleagues Maithripala Sirisena walked out of the ruling combine and mounted a credible challenge after the fragmented opposition rallied around him. The outcome of the polls will be watched keenly in at least two foreign capitals – New Delhi and Beijing – since both have large stakes in the island nation. While India’s strategic interests in Sri Lanka are vital, it also has cultural and religious ties with the Sri Lankan society going back centuries. China, a relatively new presence on the island, on the other hand, has