Brahma Chellaney - The Japan Times

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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.

For Brahma Chellaney's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

COMMENTARY

Apr 27, 2003

Bush faces long-term burden of triumph

NEW DELHI -- Aggression pays, and naked aggression pays handsomely. That may sound like the moral of America's occupation of Iraq after a faster-than-anticipated military triumph that threatens to herald a more muscular U.S. foreign policy. That moral may be reinforced by the way the Bush administration has sought to rapidly turn Iraq into a profit hub for U.S. construction, energy and other firms.

COMMENTARY

Mar 14, 2003

9/11 gave life to U.S. imperial ambitions

NEW DELHI -- As U.S. President George W. Bush readies a war on Iraq without any direct provocation, the United States faces international opprobrium and isolation. Rarely before has the U.S. risked its future international role and image on a huge strategic gamble untied to the protection of its vital interests.

COMMENTARY

Oct 26, 2002

Sino-Indian war still haunts New Delhi

NEW DELHI -- Forty years after China humbled India in a two-front Himalayan war masterminded by Chinese leader Mao Zedong, the lessons of that crushing defeat still reverberate in New Delhi. The war was Mao's attempt to demolish India as an alternative democratic model and geopolitical rival to communist China by heaping humiliation on it when it was militarily weak and least expected to be attacked.

COMMENTARY

Oct 12, 2002

In pursuit of terrorists and oil

NEW DELHI -- U.S. President George W. Bush is taking a big gamble with his single-minded mission to get rid of a toothless but unsavory dictator, who, far from being a menace to U.S. security, is not a threat even to his neighbors. Bush, who accuses Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein of being "a homicidal dictator addicted to weapons of mass destruction," has raised the war rhetoric to such a level that he has left himself with little choice but to effect a regime change in Baghdad through the application of military force.

COMMENTARY

Aug 28, 2002

George W. Bush's two-faced foreign policy

NEW DELHI -- Which country poses a serious threat because of its established links with international terrorism, proven program to develop weapons of mass destruction and close ties with other dictatorships in WMD-related matters? To a resident of New Delhi, the answer may be obvious: Pakistan, bristling with dangerous extremists inside and outside its armed forces and engaged in covert WMD cooperation with the communist regimes in Beijing and Pyongyang.

COMMENTARY

Aug 11, 2002

U.S. may manage Kashmir row at best

NEW DELHI -- Every regional crisis seems like an opportunity for U.S. policy to advance its interests. This has come out starkly since 9/11, as Washington has gone about extending its influence and building long-term strategic arrangements with nations across Asia, from the Caspian region to the South China Sea. It has put in place a network of forward bases that can serve as vantage platforms to launch attacks on any nation or group threatening U.S. interests.

COMMENTARY

Jun 5, 2002

Eliminate Pakistan's ability to commit nuclear blackmail

NEW DELHI -- With the issue of terrorism threatening to spark an open military confrontation between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, U.S. President George W. Bush is rushing his defense secretary to the subcontinent in a last-ditch effort to persuade Islamabad to sever its links with terror groups.

COMMENTARY

Mar 28, 2002

New focus on security pushes nuclear deterrence to the fore

NEW DELHI -- In the post-Sept. 11 environment, nuclear-weapons issues had acquired a lower profile in international relations as the controversy generated by America's missile-defense plans, the ongoing deadlock at the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament and the coma-like state of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, or CTBT, tapered off. But now nuclear issues appear set to rise to prominence again.

COMMENTARY

Feb 3, 2002

Judge Beijing by its deeds

NEW DELHI -- At a time of growing U.S.-Indian strategic engagement, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji's unusually conciliatory tone during his visit to India last week reflected his country's desire to decelerate that process by emphasizing areas of potential Sino-Indian cooperation. China is suddenly signaling its intent to be more responsive to Indian concerns in an effort to dissuade New Delhi from building a close military relationship with the United States.

COMMENTARY

Jan 8, 2002

India set to keep full press on Pakistan

NEW DELHI -- The biggest question now is whether war will break out between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan. Although no right-minded citizen in either country wants war, many forget that Pakistan has thrust an undeclared war on India for years, bleeding India noticeably. Thus the aim is not continued peace but a return to peace.

COMMENTARY

Dec 2, 2001

Afghan unification looks impracticable

NEW DELHI -- In the name of nation-building, a new great game is unfolding in Afghanistan even before the retreating Taliban militia's capacity to hold on to the southeastern provinces has been crushed. The new game is premised on the supposed need to keep that landlocked country united through a broad-based, multiethnic, stable government.

COMMENTARY

Nov 10, 2001

Pakistan's uncertain future

NEW DELHI -- Much before America's declaration of war on terrorism forced Islamabad to turn against its own creation, the Taliban, Pakistan faced an uncertain future. During a four-hour stop in Islamabad in March 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton warned Pakistanis in a televised address about the "obstacles to your progress, including violence and extremism," saying "there is a danger that Pakistan may grow even more isolated, draining even more resources away from the needs of the people, moving even closer to a conflict no one can win."

COMMENTARY

Jul 21, 2001

Pakistan outmanuevered India

NEW DELHI -- Behind the blame game over the collapse of the India-Pakistan summit in Agra, a harsh reality faces New Delhi. The expectations and calculations that prompted Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to make a dramatic U-turn in his Pakistan policy and invite Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf proved to be wrong. He overestimated several factors and underrated some others. He now needs to examine why he went wrong and recalibrate his policy.

COMMENTARY

Jul 1, 2001

U.S. confronts high hurdles in Kashmir

NEW DELHI -- The United States has tried hard over the past five decades to mediate an end to the conflict between India and Pakistan. Lack of success has prompted it more recently to switch from an overt to a quiet, behind-the-scenes role as a peace broker.

COMMENTARY

Jun 13, 2001

A windfall for Nepal's Maoists

KATMANDU -- The picturesque Himalayan nation of Nepal, wedged between India and China-occupied Tibet, was once an idyllic hideaway for Western trekkers and hippies. Although still a popular tourist destination, Nepal has been wracked in recent years by an expanding Maoist insurrection in the countryside.

COMMENTARY

May 31, 2001

India reverses course again

DELHI -- With its continuing "war of a thousand cuts" against India, military-ruled Pakistan poses the single biggest challenge to Indian foreign policy. Yet Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has changed course on Pakistan often in the past three years. The unending policy dance, with its monkey-like somersaults, has left the Indian public dazed.

COMMENTARY

May 9, 2001

Why India endorses NMD

NEW DELHI -- U.S. President George W. Bush's publicly announced plan to push ahead with defenses against nuclear missiles reflects his administration's unilateral determination to assertively advance U.S. national interests and put some muscle into foreign policy. From repudiation of the Kyoto Protocol to its readiness to abrogate the 29-year-old Antiballistic Missile Treaty, the Bush team is signaling America's intent to utilize its global pre-eminence to full advantage.

COMMENTARY

Apr 14, 2001

Clinton's shadow over India

NEW DELHI -- Scarred by his ignominious final acts in office, former U.S. President Bill Clinton stepped out of the shadow of scandal to try and be a healer during his just-completed tour of the earthquake-ravaged western Indian state of Gujarat. In New Delhi this week, Clinton was welcomed by another scandal-tainted leader, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who is fighting for his political life after a bribery expose damaged his government.

COMMENTARY

Mar 31, 2001

The power of the camera

NEW DELHI -- For three years as Indian prime minister, the aging Atal Bihari Vajpayee was treated deferentially by the national media and intelligentsia. They portrayed him as a great leader, to whom there was no credible alternative. Even when his physical condition began to slip visibly, no questions were raised about his health or capacity to lead a nation of 1 billion people.

COMMENTARY

Dec 4, 2000

Turning a blind eye to Chinese proliferation

NEW DELHI -- It speaks volumes that just when the United States determined that China was engaged in clandestine missile trade with Pakistan and, to a lesser extent, Iran, Washington announced that it was waiving a law requiring imposition of economic sanctions in such a situation. The unmistakable message the U.S. conveyed is that as long as proliferation does not directly impact on U.S. interests, it is always willing to cut a deal with Beijing.

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