author

 
Menu
Search
 
August 08, 2025
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access
Brahma Chellaney

Meta

Twitter

@Chellaney

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.
Ukrainian military members fire a howitzer at Russian forces in the Zaporizhzhia Region of Ukraine in December. Ukraine’s war effort is highly dependent on the U.S. and the other Western nations who comprise the country’s largest military and economic backers. 
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 26, 2023
The wars shaping the new world order
From Gaza to Urkaine to Taiwan, there is an unfolding geopolitical drama and global rebalancing among the great-powers.
Hamas fighters take part in a military parade in Gaza in July to mark the anniversary of the 2014 war with Israel.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 21, 2023
Israel's historical role in the rise of Hamas
The complicated relationship between Israel and Hamas with the the "Frankenstein" Jewish state help create
While India’s gross domestic product is still smaller than China’s, the country is currently the world’s fastest-growing major economy and is projected to account for 12.9% of global growth over the next five years.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 18, 2023
India’s quiet rise as Asia's other demographic giant
While India appears stable and resurgent under Modi, its future will depend on its ability to maintain political stability and rapid economic growth.
Chinese leaders seem to believe the country has a narrow window of opportunity to achieve global preeminence before unfavorable demographic and geopolitical trends catch up with it.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 15, 2023
China’s dangerous secrets
China's secretive approach to projects and activities, including its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, should be a significant concern.
Indian border security force soldiers stand guard at a checkpoint along a highway leading to Ladakh in Kashmir's Ganderbal district in June 2020.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 6, 2023
China-India border conflict holds lessons for Japan, too
India has learned that bilateral ties and economic interdependence do not constrain China's territorial ambitions. That is a lesson Japan should heed.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 31, 2023
Bedlam in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Pakistan's political unrest, coupled with the Afghan Taliban regime's support for terrorists, has grave implications for international security.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 27, 2023
It’s in America’s interest to end the Ukraine crisis
A negotiated cease-fire is the only way out of the current military deadlock in Ukraine, and it must happen before Russia and China cement a strategic axis that weakens the West.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 17, 2023
South Asia’s looming water war
The Indus Waters Treaty is nowhere near meeting India's needs and it is in Pakistan’s interest to remedy that.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 13, 2023
Unpacking the limits to Japan’s military awakening
Japan must find ways to frustrate China's furtive efforts to alter the regional status quo while avoiding the risk of open combat.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 18, 2022
Are Europe’s Russia sanctions a shot in the foot?
If the European Union is enduring severe economic pain while Russia's Ukraine war proceeds apace, sanctions become tantamount to self-flagellation.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 4, 2022
A spotlight on Chinese debt bondage
China's creditor imperialism holds far-reaching risks — both for the debtors themselves and for the future of the international order.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 17, 2022
The Afghan abyss: One year after the U.S. pullout
The Taliban regime is behaving as expected, turning the country into a breeding ground for international terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and mass migration.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2022
The fall of the house of Rajapaksa
Through a combination of authoritarianism, nepotism, cronyism, and hubris, the Rajapaksa family weighed down Sri Lanka's economy with more debt than it could possibly bear.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 1, 2022
Hydropower is a bad bargain
There is no question that the world must cut its reliance on fossil fuels. but building more hydroelectric dams is not the way due to the environmental impact they have.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 20, 2022
A clash of titans: The forgotten India-China border row
Chinese President Xi Jinping has picked a border fight that he cannot win, and transformed a previously conciliatory India into a long-term foe.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 27, 2022
The 'Quad' at a crossroads
The Indo-Pacific's four leading democracies can hold as many leaders' summits as they want, but without a clear strategic vision or agenda, the 'Quad' will have little impact.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 25, 2022
Putin’s war and the mirage of the rules-based order
Rules-based order and economic interdependence has not stopped countries like Russia and China from engaging in relentless expansionism at the expense of their neighbors.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2022
The new global Cold War clouds India’s tightrope walk
India's solo struggle to rein in an expansionist China in the icy Himalayan region has helped influence its measured response to the Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2022
Will the U.S. finally make the pivot to Asia?
Biden's Indo-Pacific strategy is essentially an exercise in public diplomacy, while Trump's strategic framework was formulated to advance a policy of a “free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 17, 2022
America is focusing on the wrong enemy
U.S. President Joe Biden is treating a “rogue” Russia as a peer competitor, when he should be focused on the challenge from America's actual peer, China.
How Pakistan shot down India's cutting-edge fighter using Chinese gear
An Indian Air Force pilot gets out of a Rafale fighter jet during its induction ceremony at an air force station in Ambala, India, September 2020.
Trump: The $550 billion pledged by Japan is 'our money'
U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday. He told CNBC that investment pledges are like signing bonuses.
The United States imposes 15% 'reciprocal' tariff on most Japanese goods
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the White House on Wednesday.
Japan's inheritance tax is high, unforgiving and sometimes avoidable
The National Tax Agency at the Ministry of Finance, Kasumigaseki, Tokyo. Japanese tax authorities can bill foreign residents in Japan for assets inherited globally.
Photographer Bleg Bayraktar is winning social media with politeness
A video on Bayraktar's Instagram account of the Belgian photographer approaching an elderly worker in Tokyo's Shibuya has gone viral, garnering almost 9 million views.
Cheer with caution: Expert advises sports fans have game plan for extreme heat
A Cardinals fan fans himself during the seventh inning of a game against the Pirates in St. Louis, Missouri, in June 2022.
Japan's inheritance tax is high, unforgiving and sometimes avoidable
The National Tax Agency at the Ministry of Finance, Kasumigaseki, Tokyo. Japanese tax authorities can bill foreign residents in Japan for assets inherited globally.
Will the movement seeking Ishiba’s resignation succeed?
Liberal Democratic Party youth division head Yasutaka Nakasone (center) and other members speak to reporters in Tokyo on July 25.
Photographer Bleg Bayraktar is winning social media with politeness
A video on Bayraktar's Instagram account of the Belgian photographer approaching an elderly worker in Tokyo's Shibuya has gone viral, garnering almost 9 million views.
Australia announces new warships will come from Japan
The Maritime Self-Defense Force's Mogami-class frigate Niyodo sails at an undisclosed location in this image released Tuesday.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person
By Naoko Abe

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Ishii Iron Works remakes self for workers, new energy
Ishii Iron Works remakes self for workers, new energy

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER