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

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

Air India Boeing-777-300 ER ( Image source- Wikimedia Commons / Author- Kentaro Lemoto) Source- The Defence World Indian Defense Acquisition Council (DAC) on Wednesday cleared a proposal to convert two Boeing 777-300ER aircraft for VVIP travel as a replacement to Air India’s Jumbo jets. The two jets will be tasked to ferry the President, Prime minister and other VVIPs. The aircraft will be equipped with advanced self-protection suites to jam and beat hostile incoming missiles besides having encrypted satellite communication facilities. "These old aircraft do not have anti-missile defense systems, which the SPG holds is necessary. The decision was taken after a committee of secretaries from top ministries and aviation experts examined the matter," an unnamed source was by several media after a briefing following the DAC meeting. The two 777-300 (ER) aircraft will be bought from Air India, which has a dozen such relatively new wide-bodied planes, and then

Image credits- Xinhua  Source- The Diplomat Author- Peter E.Robertson China’s economic rise means that the world’s largest army now also has the resources of the world’s second largest economy. The security implications of this are discussed in the U.S. Department of Defence’s latest report, which highlights not only the sheer growth of China’s military, but also its sustainability. Although China still spends less on its military than the United States spends on its own defense forces, China’s far higher economic growth suggests it will be able to catch-up rapidly, with relatively little economic burden. This contrasts with America’s economic malaise and raises questions over the credibility of the U.S. security guarantees to Western Pacific allies and its pivot to Asia. But the economics of growth are not quite so simple. Though China’s economy is indeed growing rapidly, this doesn’t mean you can get more of everything at the same rate. Some things become much more

India's New Air Craft Carrier Vikrant  ( Image source- Wikimedia Commons / Credits- Indian Navy)) Source- The National Interest Author- Zachary Keck India is set to launch its first indigenous aircraft carrier later this month, according to local media reports. On Thursday The Hindu reported that India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant, will be launched from Cochin Shipyard on May 28. “All major equipment has gone into the vessel, which has now acquired the shape of an aircraft carrier, with a finished hull. Barring a bit of ongoing work on the superstructure, structural work is all over and the internal compartments have all been welded in,” an official at shipyard was quoted as saying. The INS Vikrant will displace 40,000 tons and feature a short-take off but arrested recovery (STOBAR) system, rather than the catapult-assisted take-off but arrested recovery (CATOBAR) launch system used by current U.S. aircraft carriers. The ski-slope launc

Pakistani Air Force F-16 ( Image source- Wikimedia Commons / Credits- USAF) Source- The National Interest Author- C. Christine Fair This week, the Congressional Research Service published a list of all major U.S. arms sales and grants to Pakistan. Washington claims that these transfers enable Pakistan to be better a partner in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. The evidence belies these claims. In fact, Pakistan undercuts key U.S. interests in the region and it perdures as a source of Islamist terrorism at home and abroad. The items that Washington has conveyed to Pakistan have little utility in fighting insurgents and terrorists; rather, they enable Pakistan to better fight India, a democratic American partner that has long endured Pakistani predations. A new American policy towards Pakistan, rooted in sober realism, is long overdue. Since 9/11, the United States has lavished Pakistan with nearly $8 billion in security assistance, $11 billion in economic assistance, and

Image credits- Flickr / MEA Official Gallery Source- Eurasia review Author- Dr.Subhash Kapila China’s persistent strategy is to play the ‘Pakistan Card’ against India both as leverage and its strategy of coercion against India. Prime Minister Modi on his visit to China next week will face a more subtle playing by China of its ‘Pakistan Card’. In fact, much before Indian Prime Minister’s visit to Beijing, China played its ‘Pakistan Card’ against India on a more gigantic scale when Chinese President Xi visited Pakistan last month and unveiled China’s massive outlay of $ 44 billion in the proposed China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. It was not an economic move only as it was accompanied by China’s decision to supply Pakistan with six Chinese submarines and over 100 frontline Chinese fighter combat aircraft. So, in actual fact, Chinese President Xi signalled two forceful messages to India, as follows: India-US Strategic Partnership evolving proximity supplemented by

Internet Image Source- The National Interest Author- Elliot Brennen This week the annual report to the U.S. Congress on China's Military Power was released. It noted Beijing's use of “low-intensity coercion” across the South China Sea and East China Sea. Its assessment stated that: “China often uses a progression of small, incremental steps to increase its effective control over disputed territories and avoid escalation to military conflict.” Recently those “incremental steps” have been getting bigger. Southeast Asian states have reacted in turn.  Beijing's well-reported land reclamation at seven sites in the South China Sea has quickened in pace. According to U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, China has “intensified the militarization" of these islands and reefs. This has included the construction of a military-sized airstrip and at least one other non-military airstrip. Reports last week that China is already 'practicing' an i

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

Image credits- Flickr / United States Pacific command Source- The National Interest  Author- Zachary Keck On Monday, a U.S. and Chinese naval ships squared off in the South China Sea. According to numerous news articles, and seemingly confirmed by the U.S. Navy, the Yancheng, a PLA Navy Type 054A guided-missile frigate closely tracked the USS Fort Worth, a U.S. Navy Freedom-class littoral combat ship, as the latter patrolled the South China Sea near disputed Spratly Islands. A photo released by the U.S. Navy showed the USS Fort Worth patrolling the area with the Yancheng trailing it in the distance. Vice Adm. Robert Thomas, the commander of America’s 7th Fleet— whose area of operations includes the South China Sea— sought to downplay the significance of the event. “It’s routine for U.S. 7th fleet ships to operate in the South China Sea and also routine for [Chinese] PLAN ships to operate at visual range of us,” Thomas said, Stars and Stripes reported. “Not a day g

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Author- United States Navy Source- The National Interest Author- Richard Javad Heydarian No more hiding its claws, no more biding its time, China has unquestionably entered a new era of assertiveness, casting aside Deng Xiaoping’s decades-long call for moderation, humility, and calculation in foreign policy. China is slowly but surely moving from consolidating its claims on features it has been occupying for decades to dominating the entire South China Sea, gradually achieving the capability to fully drive out Southeast Asian claimant states from other features under their control. Quite naturally, a sense of panic has gripped neighboring countries such as the Philippines, which have been locked in a bitter and seemingly hopeless maritime spat with their giant neighbor. We are no longer just talking about hypotheticals here; China is unabashedly operationalizing its sweeping claims across adjacent waters. Far from resorting to its fr