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June 10, 2025
 

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Brahma Chellaney

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Brahma Chellaney
Brahma Chellaney, a longstanding contributor to The Japan Times, is a geostrategist and the author of "Asian Juggernaut" (Harper, 2010) and "Water: Asia’s New Battlefield" (Georgetown University Press, 2011), which won the 2012 Bernard Schwartz Award. He is professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research, New Delhi.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 17, 2014
Pakistan's internal dynamics keep a lasting peace with India at bay
Every time a Pakistani leader has moved to build better ties with India, Pakistan's politically strong military has masterminded a cross-border attack or terrorist strike. India is signaling that its response to Pakistan's military strategy will no longer be survival by a thousand bandages.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2014
A serial intervener, after all
In launching his presidency's seventh bombing campaign, Barack Obama has shown himself to be one of the most militarily aggressive U.S. presidents since World War II.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 28, 2014
China's border belligerence
It appears that the central objective of Chinese leaders' visits to India over the years has been to reinforce China's territorial claims. Beijing is at it again.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 12, 2014
Co-opt the water hegemon
The vast majority of the 57 transnational river basins in continental Asia have no water-sharing arrangement or any other cooperative mechanism — a troubling reality amid the already strained political relations in several Asian sub-regions.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 2, 2014
Asia's best friends shape an axis
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's watershed visit to Japan, and the bear-hug welcome from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, have added concrete content to a relationship embodying Asia's emerging democratic axis.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 26, 2014
The spawning of Islamic State
It took just two years for Syria to descend into a Somalia-style failed state under the weight of the international jihad against Bashar Assad. This helped the Islamic State not only to flourish but also to use its control over northeastern Syria to stage a surprise blitzkrieg deep into Iraq this summer.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2014
Deadly geopolitical games
The destabilization of Ukraine, Syria and Libya is a result of the geopolitical games that big powers continue to play when they target specific regimes. This destabilization in turn contributes to the rise of dangerous extremists and terrorists.
COMMENTARY / World
May 20, 2014
Narendra Modi: India's Shinzo Abe
Just as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's return to power in late 2012 reflected Japan's determination to reinvent itself as a more competitive and confident country, Narendra Modi's election victory reflects Indians' desire for a dynamic, assertive leader to help revitalize their country's economy and security.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 29, 2014
Alarm bells ringing in Asia
The deteriorating situation in Ukraine and rising tensions between Russia and the U.S. threaten to bury President Barack Obama's floundering 'pivot' toward Asia.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 25, 2014
America's Afghanistan albatross
Pakistani interference in Afghanistan's internal affairs can be made to stop only if the Obama administration finally makes that a condition for continuing its generous aid to cash-strapped Pakistan — a remote prospect.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 1, 2014
An Afghan 'Afghanistan'?
As it braces for its upcoming presidential election, can Afghanistan finally escape the cycle of militancy and foreign intervention that has plagued it for more than three decades?
COMMENTARY
Mar 28, 2014
Averting a second cold war
Seeking to economically squeeze Russia and isolate it internationally would mean a strategic boon for China,
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 7, 2014
China gains from U.S.-Russia face-off
The clear geopolitical winner from the U.S.-Russian face-off over Ukraine will be an increasingly muscular China, which harps on historical grievances — real or imaginary — to justify its claims to territories and fishing areas long held by other Asian states.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 31, 2014
Asia's emerging democratic axis
A Japan-India democratic axis, with U.S. support, could reshape the Asian strategic landscape and block the rise of a Sino-centric Asia. A rudderless India is in search of its own Shinzo Abe.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 14, 2014
Japan's Obama problem
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe does not appear to have considered the possibility that his pilgrimage to Yasukuni Shrine on Dec. 26 might end up helping China by deepening South Korea's antagonism toward Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2014
China's anti-Kim campaign
The next target of China's autocrats, already waging an undeclared war over territory against multiple neighboring countries, is likely to be fellow communist state North Korea, now an estranged ally.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 23, 2013
Do international rules apply only to weaker countries?
China's Nov. 23 declaration of an air defense identification zone extending to territories it does not control and America's Dec. 12 arrest, strip-search and handcuffing of a New York-based Indian woman diplomat epitomize these powers' unilateralist tendencies, demonstrating that universal conformity to a rules-based international order still seems distant,
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 10, 2013
U.S. moves embolden China
China's Nov. 23 declaration of an air defense identification zone extending to territories it does not control is just the latest example of its jurisdictional creep that reflects a larger strategy to supplant the U.S. as the preeminent power in Asia.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 3, 2013
China's territorial creep in Asia
China's 'territorial creep' is contributing to Asian insecurity, fueling political tension and turning the world's economically most vibrant continent into a potentially global hot spot.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 29, 2013
Obama's risky Afghan gambit
The Obama administration's decision to conduct U.S. training and counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan through 2024 means virtually an indefinite American troop presence there.
Explosion at U.S. air base in Okinawa injures four
The Kadena U.S. Air Force Base in Okinawa Prefecture. An emergency call was made at around 11:15 a.m. reporting that a small-scale explosion occurred at a storage depot for unexploded shells.
Japan eyes tougher rules for foreign residents and tax hike for tourists
A tax-free shop in Kyoto in April 2024. Last week, members of a Liberal Democratic Party study group drafted a proposal seeking to scrap the country's tax-free shopping system altogether.
Hakuho vows to grow sumo globally after exiting domestic sports body
Former yokozuna Hakuho gives a news conference to announce his retirement from the Japan Sumo Association and reveal his future plans in Tokyo on Monday.
Victims mourned 17 years after Akihabara indiscriminate attack
A mourner prays for the victims of a stabbing rampage on a street in Tokyo's Akihabara district on the 17th anniversary of the incident on Sunday.
Top banker vows loyalty to DEI at Tokyo Pride Parade as Trump’s pushback rages
Akihiko Ogino, president and CEO of Daiwa Securities Group, says Japan should press ahead with diversity initiatives as he attends the Tokyo Pride parade in the capital's Shibuya area on Sunday.
‘Kokuho’ finds riveting drama on and off the kabuki stage
Lee Sang-il’s "Kokuho" stars Ryo Yoshizawa as an orphan from a yakuza clan who rises through the world of kabuki to become a star performer.
Junto Nakatani remains on collision course with Naoya Inoue after latest win
Junto Nakatani celebrates after defeating Ryosuke Nishida to unify the WBC and IBF bantamweight titles at Ariake Coliseum on Sunday.
At a mountainside shrine, yuzu candy made by imperial decree
Descendents of the original "Gonin Byakushō" families are the only vendors allowed inside the gates of Kotohira Shrine, where they sell "kamiyoame," a golden-hued, yuzu-flavored candy meant for good fortune.
What can Kenji Yanobe’s cosmic cats teach us about humanity?
Kenji Yanobe’s spacesuited cats are the main characters of “Ship’s Cat Island,” the inaugural exhibition at Hyper Museum Hanno in Saitama Prefecture.
From ridicule to redemption: Rice crisis returns Koizumi to the spotlight
Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi speaks to the media as he inspects a warehouse storing stockpiled rice in Kanagawa Prefecture on May 30.

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