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

Credits- Internet image Source- The Diplomat Author- Alexander Gabuev During Vladimir Putin’s visit to Beijing this week, he will be at pains to downplay the ongoing chaos in Chinese financial markets, drop in global crude prices, and lackluster Sino-Russian trade figures. Taken together, these developments are a huge disappointment for a Kremlin that just a few months ago was betting on China to serve as an economic lifeline for the Russian economy in the wake of Western sanctions. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. After being frozen out of Western capital markets by waves of sanctions, a great many top Russian government and corporate players had loyally heeded the Kremlin’s directive, “Go east, young man!” The Kremlin’s pivot to Asia was intended not only to form a Russia-Chinese alliance of likeminded authoritarian states, but also to re-orient the Russian economy toward the East. This effort was intended to  provide Vladimir Putin with financial means to sustain

Image source- Wikimedia Commons Source- The National Interest Author- Lauren Dickey Chinese military muscle was on full display in Beijing this week, with hundreds of new weapons platforms, fly-bys, 12,000 troops, and foreign dignitaries all in the global spotlight of Tiananmen Square. Yet, it wasn’t just the land-based anti-ship ballistic missiles and ground assault units that stole the show. Simmering behind the scenes, and underpinning Chinese President Xi Jinping’s evolving political-military agenda, were the renewed discussions of imminent plans for an overhaul to the operating structure of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Beginning with Xi’s announcement of a 300,000 reduction in Chinese troops from the Tiananmen Square rostrum, subsequent plans will include a comprehensive upending to the military’s existing structure, a vision of U.S.-style joint command structure adapted to the Chinese forces. This is no small undertaking for the Chinese, akin to the intro

PLAN Destroyer Shenzhen ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Author- United States Navy) Source- The Diplomat Author- Francis Sempa In July 2015, the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute published a collection of papers under the title, The Chinese People’s Liberation Army in 2025. The book’s editors, Roy Kamphausen, a senior advisor at the National Bureau of Asian Research, and David Lai, a research professor of Asian Security Affairs at the Army War College, describe it as “an effort to examine the drivers, potential vectors, and implications of China’s military modernization for the near-to-medium future.” The contributors to the volume are experts on the Chinese military and the geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region. The papers are grouped into three broad categories: (1) domestic, external and technological drivers of PLA modernization; (2) alternative futures for the PLA in regional and global affairs, including a weakened PLA; and (3) implicatio

Soviet proposed super carrier Ulyanovsk ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Author- K.E Cepreeb) Source- The National Interest Author- Paul Richard Huard Had she ever sailed, the Soviet supercarrier Ulyanovsk would have been a naval behemoth more than 1,000 feet long, with an 85,000-ton displacement and enough storage to carry an air group of up to 70 fixed and rotary wing aircraft. With a nuclear-powered engine—and working in conjunction with other Soviet surface warfare vessels and submarines—the super carrier would have steamed through the oceans with a purpose. Namely, to keep the U.S. Navy away from the Motherland’s shores. But the Ulyanovsk is a tantalizing “almost” of history. Moscow never finished the project, because it ran out of money. As the Cold War ended, Russia plunged into years of economic hardship that made building new ships impossible. The Ulyanovsk died in the scrap yards in 1992. But now the Kremlin is spending billions of rubles mod

MQ-9 Reaper ( Image source- Wikimedia Commons / Author- United States Army) Source- The Diplomat Author- Franz Stefan- Gady China’s heaviest attack and reconnaissance drone to date, the Caihong 5 (CH-5), or Rainbow 5 recently made its maiden flight at an undisclosed airfield in Gansu province, according to China Military Online. The UAV’s maiden flight, conducted in the early morning, lasted only about 20 minutes, although the new UAV can allegedly stay in the air for more than 30 hours. According to the South China Morning Post, Chinese state television announced that the debut of the Rainbow 5 will “change the game in airstrikes.” The CH-5, developed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), appears to be based on the United States’ MQ-9 Reaper drone design and has a wingspan of 20 meters (66 feet) and a takeoff weight of about 3 tons. It can carry a maximum payload of around 900 kilograms – which allegedly is 2.5 times more than prev

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons Source- The National Interest Author- Julian Snelder There's a rule in economics called Goodhart's law: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a useful measure. If a government chases a particular economic variable, then it becomes influenced by policy, and so loses its meaningfulness as an input. 'Information value' is lost in the interference. Because managing economies is hard and good information is scarce, that's a big problem. The last few tumultuous weeks of action in Chinese financial markets shows Beijing struggling with Goodhart's law.  First, state institutions are actively supporting equities, reportedly on Chairman Xi’s personal order to push prices up. Second, after long controlling the exchange rate, policy-makers briefly let it go, only to rush back in days later to fix it again. These panicked interventions have cost Beijing dearly in both money and credibility and jeopardies its e

Royal Australian Navy ship in India ( Image credits- Indian navy) Source- The Diplomat Author- Prashanth Parameswaran Next month, the Indian Navy and Royal Australian Navy will hold their first-ever joint maritime exercise. The exercise, called AUSINDEX, will he held off India’s Visakhapatnam Port in the Bay of Bengal in mid-September. According to defense sources, Australia is sending Lockheed Martin’s P-3 anti-submarine reconnaissance aircraft, a Collins-class submarine, a tanker, and frigates, while India will deploy assets including Boeing’s P-8 long-range anti-submarine aircraft and a locally manufactured corvette. The exercise will have both sea and shore phases and include table-top exercises, scenario planning, and at sea, surface and anti-submarine warfare. Unsurprisingly, the media attention has focused on the exercise narrowly as a response to rising concerns about China. For instance, the anti-submarine warfare focus of the exercise – which includes ex

USS New Jersey ( Image source- Wikimedia Commons / Author- United States Navy) Source- The National Interest Author- Kyle Mizokami In the early 1980s, four Iowa-class fast battleships originally built during World War II—Iowa, Missouri, New Jersey and Wisconsin—were taken out of mothballs and returned to active duty. Nearly 900 feet long and displacing close to 60,000 tons, the battlewagons could fire a nine-gun broadside sending 18 tons of steel and explosives hurtling towards their targets. The battleships were modernized to include cruise missiles, ship-killing missiles and Phalanx point-defense guns. Returned to the fleet, the ships saw action off the coasts of Lebanon and Iraq. At the end of the Cold War the battleships were retired again. All were slated to become museums. Few knew, however, that returning the battleships to service in the ’80s had been only part of the plan. The second, more ambitious phase was a radical redesign of the massive warships