For someone who started a war with Iran with destructive international consequences, who calls the Iranians scum and a cancer and wants to bomb them back to the Stone Age, supported Israel in its destruction of Gaza, still participates in a proxy war on Russia, kidnapped the serving head of state of a sovereign country and grabbed its oil, wants Greenland, the territory of an ally etc, to claim he is the most eligible candidate ever for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize is a parody. He implicitly endorses Pakistan’s threat to use nuclear weapons against India by repeating Shehbaz Sharif’s claim Trump saved 30 to 50 million lives in Pakistan’s conflict with India. This means Pakistan was ready to use nuclear weapons, had worked out targets in India and estimated the casualties. Sharif has now officially in a message to Trump on the 250th anniversary of the US applauded him for saving hundreds of millions of lives. The figure has ballooned. India has a No First Use doctrine which Pakistan rejects despite India proposing an agreement on this. India would not have used nuclear weapons first. Instead of deploring Pakistan’s nuclear threat inherent in Sharif’s statements, Trump is legitimising it politically. No concern about millions of Indian lives lost because of Pakistan’s nuclear madness. Instead, Trump capitalises on Sharif’s pandering to his vanity to lay claim to the Nobel Peace Prize.

This is not old- fashioned Russian diplomacy. Russia has not needed flattery to forge major defence and energy ties with India over years. India’s biggest investments in the energy sector abroad is in Russia. Putin’s public praise of Modi and the Indian model of uniqueness and unity is genuine.

No other leader of the world has shown such sophisticated understanding of Indian society, culture and traditions. And that publicly. No western leader has shown a similar grasp of the larger India’s reality . Putin sees this reality of uniqueness and unity as an example for building “relations between different countries, with different cultures, with different histories, with different traditions”.

The US is obviously seeking more concessions from India in sensitive areas. They are holding up the deal while developing more points of pressure through Section 301 and Russian oil legislation.

Very well put.

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You succeeded in carving out a separate state from historical India based purely on Islam. You continue to repudiate civilisational India and seek roots in Arab or Turkic civilisation. Do you now want to repudiate your Islamic roots and seek to forge a new identity within layers of Indic civilisation? What has Mehrgarh, Harappa, Mohenjo-daro etc have to do with Islam, the reason for your creation? Suffering now from an acute identity crisis? @anwaar_kakar

Institutional depth was being built despite elements in the US targeting India on democracy, minority and religious issues. But now with India being targeted with sanctions by both the White House and the US Congress, the trade deal blocked, the H1B visas issue, the Indo- Pacific and Quad losing steam, Pakistan being wooed, the Indian diaspora quiescent, anti- Hindu sentiments developing in the MAGA base, the institutional facade is developing cracks. US hi- tech sector is still committed to India. Defence acquisitions and exercises continue. At functional levels, the dialogue goes on. All is not lost. The US remains a vital partner but a huge effort will need to be made to restore mutual trust and the strategic underpinnings of the relationship.

Haven’t read the book but some observations can be made from past experience. With lack of access to Russian language writings, such books become a source of information on Russia with all their truths. half- truths and propaganda. Alexandra Prokopenko is a journalist and works at the Carnegie Eurasian Centre in Berlin. Has a degree from the University of Manchester- strong US, UK and German connections. If the book has to be taken seriously and for the author not lose her credibility and her job, the book is bound to paint Putin in dark colours and reflect the West’s long standing demonisation of Putin and the campaign against him by dissident Russians. That does not mean that such books are entirely propagandist. They are a subtle mixture of facts and self- serving interpretation of them. The author gives the game away by talking of a “full scale invasion of Ukraine” which is factually wrong. The Minsk Agreements made clear Putin’s limited aims. The Istanbul Agreement showed his willingness to compromise. The governance and other deficiencies in Russia could be reasonably pointed out, of course. As for the Russian elite bending to Putin’s will, one can ask the question about the US and European elites supporting their leaders in a number of wars of choice and now a dangerous proxy war against Russia.

The unusually public expression by the US ambassador to China about ending China’s chokehold on critical minerals and technologies and the US developing its own capacities shows that the US is giving itself time before it deals with China unconstrained by its present vulnerabilities. The outlook on constructive strategic stability between the two countries that China seeks may prove wishful.

Marco Rubio says Iran is run by ‘radical Shia clerics’ who believe they have a religious duty to trigger an apocalypse, and therefore Iran can never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon. The religious framing is interesting. Because if Washington’s concern is really about nuclear weapons in the hands of governments influenced by religious extremists, where exactly does Pakistan fit into this equation? Pakistan is not merely a nuclear-armed state. Its military, which has a long and well-documented history of cultivating terrorist groups, sits at the centre of the country’s strategic decision-making. This is also the military establishment under whose watch Osama bin Laden was living in Abbottabad, of all places, while the US was hunting for him across the region. Pakistan’s political and religious establishment, meanwhile, has its own long and complicated history with Islamist groups. In May 2025, after just four days of fighting with India, Donald Trump himself repeatedly claimed the conflict could have become a nuclear war. He said the two countries were ‘going at it nuclear’ and that it might have gone nuclear in the next round. Yet America seems concerned only about Iran’s nuclear programme. If the concern is really about existential nuclear threats, how does Pakistan not figure more prominently in that calculation? The religious extremism within Pakistan is far more deeply entrenched than in Iran. Iran’s hostility towards Israel is primarily driven by its ruling establishment; it is not the same as a broad-based hostility towards Israel within Iranian society. Pakistan is different. Anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment is deeply entrenched in Pakistani political, religious and social life, making the problem less dependent on any one government or military regime. Even a change in leadership does not necessarily mean a change in the underlying hostility towards Israel. Nuclear threats against Israel have repeatedly been made by Pakistani political and religious figures. And if these threats are not being taken seriously, Pakistan is also developing longer-range ballistic-missile capabilities with assistance from entities in Belarus and China. Pakistan’s existing Shaheen-III, with an estimated range of 2,750 km, can already reach targets across India and, if deployed from western Balochistan, could bring Israel within range. Iran’s hostility towards Israel also serves a political purpose for its leadership; Pakistan already has India as its primary strategic adversary, yet its political and religious establishment continues to make Israel a target. The Shia clerics in Tehran are dangerous because of their religious ideology, we are told. What about the Sunni maulvis and a nuclear-armed Pakistani military that, by Trump’s own account, was involved in a conflict that could have gone nuclear? If America’s concern is really about nuclear weapons falling into the hands of religiously driven actors, why does the standard change with the sect?

This aggressive post from the US ambassador to China raises serious questions about the results of Xi’s visit to the US.

Former FS @KanwalSibal questions those who believe in the reality of "soft power" in IR and think that Bollywood, yoga, music, dance, cuisine, our practice of democracy and pluralism amidst huge diversity give India added diplomatic weight internationally. dailymail.com/indiahome/indi…

In the case of India and Pakistan the answer lies in the partition of India. Pakistan needs enmity with India more than the reverse to consolidate nationhood. India has civilisational depth which is not based on an external enemy. Pakistan lacks this depth and seeks it externally in the Arab world. Islam is no doubt a bond but Pakistan is not part of the Arab civilisation. It is a hybrid entity. Pakistan is an ideological state which explains the deep rooted hostility of its ruling class towards India.

Fantastic piece! “I argue that the United States is deliberately preparing to sacrifice Europe. When Ukrainian manpower is exhausted, European men and European territory are to become the next expendable resource in a proxy war against Russia. For decades a networked elite has manipulated governments, manufactured consent for wars of aggression, and shielded itself from accountability through legal and institutional mechanisms designed for that purpose. That same elite now faces the collapse of its financial instruments, the failure of its traditional tools of control, and the rise of powers it can no longer dominate. It cannot afford to lose power, because loss of power would mean exposure for crimes that, under the standards established at Nuremberg, constitute the supreme international crime. Europe’s own political class is not working for Europe’s interest. Its loyalty has been carefully cultivated to serve the American hegemon — more like a beaten wife than an equal partner. The continent is therefore being transformed from ally into resource: economically drained, politically captured, and militarily prepared as the theatre in which the costs of imperial decline will be paid. The ultimate expression of this strategy is a managed escalation that keeps the American homeland as sanctuary while Europe absorbs both the conventional attrition and the nuclear risk”. Link to the article: mattiasforsgren.substack.com…

Needed plainspeak. We are in a situation where we cannot keep quiet and need to express our concerns and highlight how the global south is suffering from weaponising by the powerful of trade, finance, technology and critical materials.

Former FS @KanwalSibal highlights China's opposition to the creation of Bangladesh and subsequently its non-recognition of the country for several years; calls out the double standards employed by select neighbouring countries in their attitude towards India and China (2023):

IE has published a highly one- sided patently propagandist bleeding heart piece penned by the Ukrainian, Canadian and Norwegian ambassadors in Delhi on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine and Donbass. The Ukrainians and the West have a point of view which they are free to express but why misuse the pliable Indian media for agitprop. These ambassadors are interfering in our foreign relations, showing disrespect, and indirectly questioning our foreign policy choices. They can write whatever they want in their own media. The issues raised are not black and white. Our press should have higher standards and not allow itself to be manipulated by foreign interests that work at cross purposes with our foreign policy interests.

Well articulated. Hard truths stated softly about the impact of self- centred US policies globally. Stress on multipolarity is important in the context of US unilateralism under the present administration.

A realistic view of current India- US relations. In cautious diplomatic language the point has been made that the relationship faces difficulties on trade, terror and mobility fronts and awaits an upward trajectory. It is important that this is being stated publicly even if in a low key manner.