Comment & Briefs

TAPI has the potential to be a game changer for Turkmenistan. To boost confidence among potential investors, Turkmenistan needs to adopt best global practices in its gas sector.

Differing perceptions among the various stakeholders has emerged because the contents of the framework agreement are not in the public domain.

Russia’s military intervention in Syria – its first beyond its immediate neighbourhood since the end of the Cold War – highlights the significant transformation that its armed forces have gone through.

While the Argentinian military’s desperate state of affairs can be partly blamed on the country’s economic woes, a substantial portion of the blame must fall on the somewhat tense relationship between the military and the civilian government.

The biggest lesson that India can borrow is France’s integrated and centralised procurement structure, which has the dual responsibility of arms acquisition and defence industrial development.

A scramble for assets between the years 2013 and 2015 culminated in the procurement of a fleet of vessels that have restored a degree of capability and viability to the TTCG.

Given that the NSG may not be able to withhold the India membership question for long, in spite of China’s inconsistent positions, it would be unwise on India’s part to forfeit any advantage it has on the SCS issue.

Furthering the premise of an increasingly severe security environment, Japan’s latest defence white paper has accorded relatively more space to its ‘strong concerns’ over China’s ‘active maritime expansion’ as well as progress in North Korea’s missile development programme.

India will have to keep a close watch on the developments within PoK and highlight the Pakistani strategy of promoting terror in Kashmir and expose its policies towards both the regions within PoK

ROK is employing an effective combination of gifting equipment combined with joint ventures with local industry, which has the dual effect of increasing exports and forging partnerships with domestic industries in a region where it has hitherto had a very minimal defence relationship.