India
Great power rivalry is poisoning multilateralism
Multilateralism functions when great powers agree on certain fundamentals. Conversely, multilateralism is bound to sputter when there are deep contradictions between major powers…
India’s delicate dance with the Taliban
The Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan has not yet been the nightmare scenario that some in New Delhi had feared. India finds itself in the peculiar position of now being…
This year, India leads the G20, Japan the G7, and together can make a potent team
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has declared India as “indispensable” to the vision of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific”. This echoes former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s…
A Catch-22 for India’s tech ambitions
The ongoing Russia–Ukraine war has induced several unexpected shifts in global geopolitical dynamics. While previously stagnant India–Russia trade has more than tripled in just…
The Indian Navy’s aircraft carrier dilemma
The late General Bipin Rawat, India’s first Chief of Defence Staff, took a dim view of aircraft carriers. He considered them expensive and unnecessary. In his telling, including…
Finding the right approach to India as a “Civilisational State”
Over the last few weeks Australia’s newly intimate diplomatic relationship with India has been on full display. The “Raisina at Sydney” component of the 2023 Raisina dialogues was…
Getting India right
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s visit to India this week comes at a pivotal moment for Australia’s ties with that country. Over the past 15 years, the two have overcome decades…
Will India’s G20 deliver more than hot air?
Some years ago I interviewed a senior Indian bureaucrat who, as small talk, lamented the G20 and the utter waste of time it was (“all those air miles, and for what? Nothing is…
India’s defence-diplomacy bet
The reported visit by Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to Australia, scheduled for late February, is indicative of the convergence of India’s diplomatic, commercial and…
The Maldives: geopolitics of Chinese tourism
For the decade prior to Covid-19, China was the Maldives' biggest source of tourism. The pandemic changed all that, with arrivals dropping from 284,000 in 2019 to 34,000 in 2020…