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

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / United States Navy Source- The Diplomat Author- Franz-Stefan Gady China will remain on “high alert for intervention by Japan in the South China Sea issue” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei told Xinhua today, urging Japan to reflect on its past aggression during the Second World War. The Chinese statement was issued in response to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s remarks to U.S. President Barack Obama during a bilateral meeting at this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Manila that Japan would consider sending the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) on patrols in the South China Sea. “China firmly safeguards navigation freedom of various countries in the South China Sea in accordance with international laws,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said. “In the meantime, China is strongly against any country using the excuse of navigation and overflight freedom to engage in activities threatening

Russian S-300 SAM ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Kremlin) Source- Eurasia Review Author- Neville Teller Russia’s S-300 family of surface-to-air missiles is generally acknowledged to include the most sophisticated and effective air-defence systems in the world. There are nearly 30 variations of S-300 in existence, and the PS and PM versions are, it is believed, fitted with nuclear warheads. It was more than mildly disturbing, therefore, to learn on November 9 that Russia has lifted its embargo on supplying Iran with the S-300, and that a firm contract to provide four systems is signed and sealed. What is not yet clear is when they will be delivered. Speaking at the Dubai Airshow-2015, which ran from November 8-12, Sergei Chemezov, the head of Russia’s Rostec Corporation, the conglomerate that includes arms exporter Rosobornexport, said: “The contract for the delivery of the S-300 to Iran…has already entered into force.” This deal has had a long gestation.

Sukhoi SU-35 ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Aleksander Markin) Source- The National Interest Author- Dave Majumdar Russia has reached an agreement with the People’s Republic of China to supply the nascent Asian superpower with twenty-four Sukhoi Su-35 Flanker-E fighters. The two countries have been discussing the sale of the powerful Russian-built jet since at least 2011. “Long negotiations for the supply of Su-35 in China are completed, we signed a contract,” Sergei Chemezov general director of Rostec—which is a Russian government entity that helps facilitate Moscow’s defense exports—told the Russian daily Kommersant. According to Kommersant’s Russian government sources, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force will receive twenty-four jets for a total of $2 billion dollars. The unit price for each Su-35S is expected to be $83 million. “China officially became the first foreign customer of the Su-35 is unprecedented in the history of the contract deliveries o

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons Source- The Diplomat Author- Kabir Taneja Over the past six months, Russia has made its presence felt in the global realpolitik scene with gusto. With the Kremlin militarily intervening in Syria, reportedly bombing ISIS and in effect protecting Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus, while juggling a yet unresolved Ukraine crisis and dealing with Western sanctions… Moscow has its hands full. Most aspects of India-Russia bilateral ties are quite institutionalized, and work in an automated manner irrespective of who is in power in New Delhi or Moscow. Russia could perhaps be seen as India’s only definitive “strategic” partner in its truest form, and this unique relationship has developed over decades. However, over the past year the Moscow-Delhi dynamic seems to have lost some of its previous momentum. This may now be about to change, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi preparing to make his first visit to Moscow early next month. Ru

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / VOA Source- Eurasia Review Author- Chris Zambelis The full repercussions of Russia’s growing involvement in the Syria conflict in the form of overt military action have yet to be realized. Until now, Moscow’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s Ba’athist regime, in concert with ongoing support furnished by Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, and Iraq, has proved critical to its survival in the face of an ever expansive insurgency. Despite its embattled disposition, the Ba’athist regime remains without question the most powerful actor in Syria’s civil war. The conflict has come to be typified by a muddle of armed opposition factions represented by competing radical Islamist currents led by Daesh (“Islamic State”) and al-Qaeda’s Syrian-based franchise Jabhat al-Nusra and a host of other hardline Islamist militants that straddle the ideological divide between both camps. The far less impactful yet nevertheless notable cohort of insurge

INS Satpura F-48 ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / United States Navy) Source- The National Interest Author- Daniel Markey As I was researching and writing the latest Contingency Planning Memorandum for CFR’s Center for Preventive Action, “Armed Confrontation Between China and India,” one of my top priorities was to avoid overstating the probability of the contingency. Throughout most of my conversations with Indian, Chinese, and U.S. policy analysts, I found a striking consensus about the relative stability between these two giant Asian neighbors. This was reassuring, but also slightly surprising given the lingering suspicions and growing competition between New Delhi and Beijing. Then I started reading a new book by Bharat Karnad, Why India Is Not a Great Power (Yet), and quickly observed that nearly all of the avenues by which I thought a China-India conflict might conceivably emerge (land border skirmish, Tibetan protests, India-Pakistan standoff, and maritime

Shanghai stock exchange ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Heurik) Source- The Diplomat Author- Sara Hsu The conditions that gave rise to shadow banking in China before the bursting of the real estate bubble were unique; a finance-fueled stimulus package, coupled with moral hazard, under changing financial regulations, produced a shadow banking system that fomented institutional risk and threatened to bring about systemic risk. This was tightly managed by the Chinese government, which monitored developments, allowing some freedom while reining in the shadow banking sector when its costs outstripped its benefits. Shadow banking, which rose after the global crisis hit, appeared to be a matter of political expediency rather than careful planning, and its decline was absorbed into the greater concept of the “New Normal.” Shadow banking lost its luster and converted from a lending boom into a debt debacle that was absorbed under the umbrella of restructuring. As a br

Image credits- MEA Official gallery, Govt of India Source- Eurasia Review Author- Mohammed Fahad Al-Harthi The barbaric attacks in Paris have led to discussions at the G-20 Summit in Antalya which have been more political than economic. Antalya, with its strict security, was packed with political and business delegations. Despite the summit’s economic focus, politics has forced itself into the discussions. The Paris attacks shocked the world only a few days before the summit; they showed yet again that terrorism has no respect for either religious or cultural boundaries. Saudi Arabia has always warned against terrorism, and the words of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman at the conference left no room for doubt or indecision. “We have suffered in the Kingdom from terrorism,” he said. “We have been determined to fight it rigorously and decisively, and to address its intellectual perceptions, especially those that take from the teachings of Islam a ju