NEGOTIATING on home ground yields a tactical advantage. Recent history offers some examples. Take the pre-World War II war meetings between Chancellor Adolf Hitler and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938. Hitler ensured that the talks were held in Germany — in his mountain eyrie of Berchtesgaden, at Bad Godesberg on the Rhine, and in […]
Will there ever be peace on earth? Not in my lifetime. And not on this earth. World War II detonated in sequence: the Anschluss or annexation of Austria by Germany in March 1938; Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939; or Hitler’s incursion (with Stalin’s support) into Poland in September 1939. World War III began
An optimist is one who believes in reincarnation. In that sense, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama is the supreme optimist. The title Dalai Lama – Holiness Knowing Everything Vajradhara Dalai Lama – was bestowed in 1578 by Altan Khan (a descendant of Kublai Khan and the first Shunyi King of Ming China), on his
COULD one lunch in Washington cause so much dyspepsia in Delhi, or indigestion in Islamabad? On June 18, 2025, President Donald Trump invited Field Marshal Asim Munir for a private meal in the White House’s Cabinet Room. He set five places: for himself, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his aide Steve Witkoff. The field
A RELIABLE enemy is as difficult to find today as a loyal friend. In modern geopolitics, the first is a sine qua non, the second a fickle firefly. In its 250-year-old history, the US army has faced a range of foes. The list is long and open-ended — from Germany, the (former) USSR, Vietnam, Cambodia,
One has to be either a fool or in government not to fear a nuclear conflict. Fools need not worry; they live in their own paradise. Governments make provision for their safety in case sirens blow. It is we – the vulnerable citizenry of nuclear states – who are unprotected, when the doomsday button is pushed.
CHINA is India’s real-time nightmare. India’s paranoia is discussed in Ram Udhav’s book Uneasy Neighbours (2014). He quotes a prediction that India’s threat will come not from Pan-Europeanism but from “Pan-Islamism and Pan-Mongolianism”. He repeats the warning given in 1950 to Pandit Nehru by his home minister Vallabhbhai Patel: “In the guise of ideological expansion
THE whereabouts of Hitler’s charred remains are still a mystery. His spirit though has been reincarnated in numerous elected dictators, most recently in B. Netanyahu and N. Modi. No two modern leaders have shown such a flagrant disregard for societal norms, religious precepts, and legal undertakings. They deserve a Nobel Prize — for ethnic cleansing.
India’s true enemy is not Pakistan: it is hubris, the arrogance of a born-again bully. India emerged as a unified nation-state in 1947, the People’s Republic of China two years later. Both boast a heritage that is more than 5,000 years old. Yet each has spent the past seven decades struggling to resolve unfinished business
