Showing 1 - 10 of 18
America will pay for pushing India away
Oped, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 11/12/2025
» At a time when US policy towards India has become distinctly punitive, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's warm reception for Russian President Vladimir Putin in New Delhi last week could not have been more pointed. Mr Modi's message was clear: India is a sovereign power that will not be dragooned into choosing sides in a widening rift between "the West and the rest".
US strikes on Iran nuke plants risk backfiring
Oped, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 26/06/2025
» Israel and the United States have dealt punishing blows to Iran's nuclear infrastructure. "Operation Rising Lion" and "Operation Midnight Hammer" have been portrayed as precision strikes that will stop the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme in its tracks. But whatever the bombings might have achieved tactically, they risk forfeiting strategically, as Iran is now more convinced than ever that nuclear weapons are the only way to deter future aggression and ensure the regime's survival.
US must change course with Myanmar
Oped, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 11/04/2025
» Myanmar needs help. After more than four years of brutal civil war, the country has been hit by a 7.7-magnitude earthquake, the strongest it has suffered since 1946. The resulting humanitarian crisis is dire, and continues to escalate, but despite an extraordinary appeal for international aid from Myanmar's military ruler, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the US has largely failed to deliver.
Tackling the global divide over the Ukraine war
News, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 17/03/2025
» At a time of rising geopolitical tensions and deepening global fragmentation, the Ukraine war has proved particularly divisive. From the start, the battle lines were clearly drawn: Russia on one side, Ukraine and the West on the other, and much of the Global South hoping only for the conflict to end. Now, however, alignments are shifting. Whether this will advance efforts to resolve the conflict and strengthen global stability remains to be seen.
The West's stealthy assault on democracy
Brahma Chellaney, Published on 12/09/2024
» With great-power rivalries again at the centre of international relations, democratic governments have been relying on secret statecraft to shape or sway regimes in weaker states, including by supporting or aiding regime change. Far from advancing democracy globally, these efforts are exacerbating its vulnerabilities at a time when authoritarianism is on the rise.
The deepening political turmoil in South Asia
Oped, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 15/08/2024
» Violent student-led, Islamist-backed protests in Bangladesh have toppled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government, and mob attacks targeting those viewed as supporters of her secular Awami League party -- in particular, the country's dwindling Hindu minority -- are proliferating. At a time when neighbouring Myanmar is engulfed in violence and the Pakistan-Afghanistan belt remains fertile ground for cross-border terrorism, political upheaval in Bangladesh, two years after the overthrow of Sri Lanka's government, is the last thing India, the regional power, needs.
Joe Biden's flawed policy on Myanmar
Oped, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 23/12/2023
» As the Israel-Hamas war rages, the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza is grabbing headlines -- as well it should. But another armed conflict, in Myanmar, is also causing mass suffering, with more than 2 million people internally displaced and over a million more streaming into neighbouring Bangladesh, India and Thailand. And it is attracting far less international attention.
The roots of the India-Canada diplomatic spat
Oped, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 07/10/2023
» Rarely have two major democracies descended into as ugly a diplomatic spat as the one now unfolding between Canada and India.
America's Myanmar policy is simply all wrong
Oped, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 15/07/2023
» A recent joint statement by US President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi "expressed deep concern about the deteriorating situation in Myanmar" and called for a constructive dialogue to aid the country's transition toward an inclusive federal democratic system. Unfortunately, the US-led sanctions policy has undercut this goal and made a bad situation worse.
Europe's Russia sanctions are a shot in the foot
News, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 19/12/2022
» It seems obvious that sanctions -- an increasingly important tool of Western foreign policy -- should inflict significant pain on the target without exacting unsustainably high costs from the country imposing them. But the European Union's sanctions on Russia -- intended to punish the country for its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine -- do not meet this condition.