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

A word of caution for my friends.I have been getting messages in the social media stating that the central government of India  has passed a new section into the Indian Penal Code  by which a girl  can kill a person who might try to rape and she is completely protected by law. For record, Sec.233 of IPC concerns the offence of counterfeiting.  It would be foolish to expect the government to pass such a law that will be open for misuse. Any girl can kill any man and take up this defence. No such law has been formulated. If you get such a message, please do not believe the same.

Source- Wikimedia Commons / Author- United States Marine Corps By Lance Caption Kevin M. Knallay Source- Want China Times Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the Komeito Party held negotiations over a new amendment to the US-Japan Security Treaty on March 20, according to Duowei News, a media outlet run by overseas Chinese. The amendment is expected to grant Japan the right to collective self-defense and will provide a legal framework for the Japan Self-Defense Force (JSDF) to provide back up for the US military and the militaries of its other allies. There are currently measures in place which prevent the dispatch of the JSDF overseas. The government is drawing up a draft bill to change this, however, at the same time as it is renegotiating its security treaty with the US. China and other neighboring countries engaged in territorial disputes in the resource-rich South China Sea were the focus of the negotiations on March 20. The negotiations suggest t

Source- Flickr (Image credits- The Presidency of Sri Lanka) Source- Eurasia Review Author- P.S Suryanarayana Neighbourhood diplomacy can be tricky even at the best of times, because any two neighbours will have common but differing expectations of a good bilateral relationship. Viewed in this light, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s latest visit to Sri Lanka has gone off well, without setting the Palk Strait on fire. This sums up the outcome, in a positive turn of the Thames-metaphor for the narrow waterway that bridges (or segregates) the two countries. To be sure, no diplomatic breakthroughs were announced during the two-day visit hat concluded on 14 March 2015. By all accounts, however, the diplomatic mood and political atmospherics toned up the quotient of Indo-Sri Lankan neighbourliness. Apart from holding talks with Sri Lanka’s relatively new executive President, Maithripala Sirisena, Modi met a number of leaders, including those out of office, across the p

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

Image credits- Xinhua Source- The Diplomat Author- Prashanth Parameswaran While a lot has been written about China’s growing economic influence in Southeast Asia, the analysis is often based on a survey of certain ambitious initiatives that have yet to play out – like the Maritime Silk Road – or flowery statements and declarations by leaders rather than measuring its actual impact using hard data. I’ve pointed out the folly of this before, most recently in an article on Sino-Indonesian relations for The Diplomat. A recent report released by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission attempts to actually measure China’s economic ties with the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) using trade and investment data. The report’s findings suggest that China is actually much less of a juggernaut than it is often portrayed to be in Southeast Asia, and that there are still lingering problems with Beijing’s economic relationships in the

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Author- J.A De Roo Source- The Diplomat Author- Ankit Panda The Washington Free Beacon reports that North Korea is making progress toward operationalizing submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). The report, by the Beacon‘s Bill Gertz, cites comments made by the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Admiral Cecil D. Haney, in a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee disclosed on Thursday. As The Diplomat covered last fall, North Korea’s SLBM development has been under the watchful eye of observers for some time now. A satellite imagery study by 38 North strongly hinted at an ongoing SLBM development process at North Korea’s Sinpo South Shipyard. Gertz’s report confirms that U.S. officials now believe that a North Korean SLBM is a safe assumption. A robust SLBM capability would be a major step for North Korea, particularly if it manages to successfully miniaturize a nuclear device for delivery from a submarine (a consider

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons Source- Eurasia Review Author-Vikram Sood The Baloch have more than one problem. They are just too few to matter in the calculus of Pakistan’s national politics, even though their province is 45 per cent of strategically vital territory. Despite being resource-rich, they are the poorest and most deprived in Pakistan. Islamabad and Rawalpindi are interested only in the enormous natural resources that the Baloch possess but are not allowed to reap the benefits of this bounty. Baloch have dreamt and steadily struggled for independence ever since August 1947, and have been suppressed brutally. Successive Pakistani regimes have kept the province subjugated, deprived and isolated, their voices stifled in an echo chamber. Foreigners, especially journalists, are persona non grata in Balochistan. Declan Walsh, then from The Guardian, was expelled for his ‘Pakistan’s Dirty War’ a graphic reminder of how gruesome the situation was in Balochistan.

Image credits- United States Navy Source- The Diplomat Author- Robert Farley Last Friday, the United States released its updated Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower (CS-21). One of the biggest critiques of the first Cooperative Strategy concentrated on the difficulty of fitting China and Russia into the “cooperative” frame. China continues to expand its navy and has obviously undertaken a set of assertive actions in the East and South China Seas. Russia has, in recent years, invaded Georgia and Ukraine, effectively annexing parts of both countries. How does it make sense to include either of these countries under the tab “cooperation?” The Cooperative Strategy is effectively a strategy for defending the liberal international economic order. The 2015 version (and its 2007 predecessor) is at its best when it envisions the operational employment of the U.S. maritime services in pursuit of basic oceanic maintenance.  Most notably, this includes fighting against

Russian Kh-55 Cruise Missile ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Author- George Chernilevsky) Source- The Diplomat Author- Franz Stefan-Gady On March 8, Iran’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) unveiled a new ground-launched cruise missile produced by Tehran’s Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO). The new surface-to-surface missile, designated the Soumar (after a city destroyed during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War), is based on the Russian Kh-55 — the backbone of the Russian air-launched nuclear deterrent. Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan praised the new missile as an “effective step” in strengthening the country’s deterrence capabilities. Dehghan noted the missile is capable of hitting long-range targets with “high accuracy, while evading enemy counter-measures.” According to Western intelligence agencies, the missile is not capable of carrying a nuclear device due the small size of the weapon’s payload. The missile allegedly has a range of 2,500 to 3,000 km. In

Image credits- Indian MEA Official gallery Source- Eurasia review Author- By C. Raja Mohan During his two-day visit to Sri Lanka, Prime Minister Narendra Modi walked the fine line between encouraging a political reconciliation between the majority Sinhalese community and the minority Tamils, and avoiding any impression of dictating a settlement. Modi presented India as an engaged but not too intrusive a neighbour. He did something similar when he went to Nepal last year and called on its parliamentarians to quickly wrap up the writing of the constitution. India’s neighbourhood policy has learnt, over the years, to carefully navigate between the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of its neighbours and the need to manage the indivisible nature of the subcontinent’s security. India’s intervention in Pakistan to liberate Bangladesh in 1971 and the deployment of a peacekeeping force in Sri Lanka during 1987-90 are just two examples of how India gets draw

Source- The Diplomat Author- Rohan Joshi India’s neighborhood is in the midst of significant change. In Sri Lanka, an unlikely coalition with former Minister of Health Maithripala Sirisena defeated Mahinda Rajapaksa in the country’s presidential election in January.  In the Maldives, former president Mohamed Nasheed, having been systematically harassed since a de facto coup in 2012, has been sentenced to 13 years in prison and found guilty of terrorism.  Afghanistan’s future looks precarious as a unity government led by President Ashraf Ghani attempts to make peace with the Afghan Taliban. Islamist forces in Bangladesh continue to challenge the secular fabric of the state, resulting in upswing in attacks against Hindu and Buddhist minorities. Those who champion the cause of freedom and tolerance are being silenced, the heinous murder of blogger Avijit Roy earlier this month being but the most recent example. These transformative events coincide with India having wit