India

This article builds on extensive debates on the role of BRICS in world order. But instead of focusing on BRICS’ impact on the world order, the article takes a different methodological approach. It traces how much the evolution of BRICS’ rational was prompted by changes of the international system and Russia’s and China’s grand strategies. The key finding is that the BRICS does not determine major world developments, but acclimatizes to the evolving international situation.

The BRICS are at a turbulent crossroads as renewed great power competition intersects with countervailing tendencies in the emerging multipolar arena. Their success depends avoiding the external costs and domestic pathologies generated by great power friction. Emerging multipolarity provides opportunities for manoeuvre, but only if outsized China accommodates the other BRICS as it competes against the United States. The BRICS’ strongest common aversion concerns American hegemony and its weaponization of finance.

The article outlines four types of globalism contending for hegemony today. The struggle of what effectively represents different types of international order is one reason why international politics today looks so disordered. The BRICS association is firmly located as part of one of these orders, that of sovereign internationalism, but is challenged by the disruptive implications of the Trumpian mercantilist order. BRICS and its members as a result are drawing closer to the liberal internationalist model.

Pakistan’s historical insecurity towards India and the Islamisation of its military raises a curious question of strategy and identity rooted in Pakistan’s political genesis. This article examines the social and geostrategic factors underpinning Pakistan’s Afghanistan approach between its inheritance of security principles from colonial administration after Partition, and the Taliban’s capture of Kabul in 1996 and beyond. This article also critically analyses the existing link between the Taliban and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).

Implementing the outlined 27 reform measures in four broad areas – Planning, Defence Budget, Acquisition and Make in India – would strengthen defence preparedness and build a credible defence industrial base.

During his first term, Modi had invested considerable political capital in cultivating critical players. The second term should enable him to reap the fruits of his political investments and elevate his engagements to a higher level.

By implementing the Protection from Online Falsehood and Manipulation Act (POFMA) 2019, Singapore is demonstrating resolve to fight the growing spread of false news and misinformation campaigns.

The best option would be for India to continue to work with individual members of the OIC to establish friendly relations and deepen bilateral cooperation, and work to negate the machinations of Pakistan within the OIC.

The implications of a no-deal Brexit, particularly on EU-UK trade relations, security and the rights of the citizens, would be grave and irreparable.

The distraction of Chabahar’s questionable economic rationale and the embellishment of a centuries-old fascination with Suez alternatives, whilst entirely logical from a Muscovite perspective, must cede priority to New Delhi’s immediate interests in its own strategic backyard