Author: Nishant Yadav

Middle-East on October 7, the day of Simchat Torah- the last day of the public reading of the Torah, Israel and the world woke up to a horrific missile assault by Hamas across the Gaza Strip into the southern Israeli towns. This was an unprecedented firing of a barrage of missiles across the Israeli borders breaching Israel’s flagship Iron dome defence system. Israeli defence force IDF is reportedly planning a ground invasion of Gaza named ‘Operation Swords of Iron’.  Era of Detente in the Middle-East Abraham Accords signed in September, 2020 overhauled the geopolitics of the region resulting in exchange…

The US lead normalisations between Israelis and Arabs that kicked off during the Trump Administration is now under the stress of delay before the polls in the US next year. The US President Biden was following suit, brokering a peace deal between the Saudis and Israel but the recent Hamas’ attack on Israel altered the course of events that could have led to the greatest diplomatic victory for Biden. The Saudi-Israeli peace deal is in tatters against the ensuing catastrophe.  Just a few days back Israel’s flagship Iron Dome defence system failed to guard the state against a barrage of…

Israel-Iran relations have hit all time low and the problem of Peace in the Middle East looms large against a barrage of missile attacks by Hamas into Israel’s territorial space. Israel’s premier declared the state at war with Hamas. Birth of Israel spurred the dreadly Arab-Israeli conflict for the contested promised land as Jerusalem is home to holiest sites of the three Abrahamic religions. The conflict has manifested into deadly wars including the Six Day War, Yom Kippur War and the Lebanon war etc. Initially Israel aligned with Iran to carry out offensives against its Sunni Arab enemy states under…

Israel has been hit by 5000 rockets fired by Hamas, a Gaza stripe based Islamist Organization. Hamas’ militia has declared operation Al-Aqsa Storm to take on Israel and have demanded support from the Palestinians across the Arab world. Hamas emerged as a challenge to Palestinian Liberation Organization in the 1980s against the backdrop of the first Intifada. In August 2005, the Knesset approved The Disengagement plan which mandated Israeli forces to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza, giving the control of the region in the hands of the PalestinianAuthority. Resurgence of HAMAs In the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council election Hamas’ unexpected majority…

The US and China are at loggerheads for dominance in the world. While Americans want to maintain the status quo their National Security Doctrine has proclaimed the communist state as ‘revisionist power’ that seeks to alter US hegemony in world affairs. This rivalry has manifested in the Indo-Pacific as well and the region’s geopolitical structure has come to be defined broadly by the ensuing economic and security competition between the two powers in the region. The post-war period saw US’ resources directed towards securing energy supplies from the Middle-East and later engulfed into the self-proclaimed ‘War on Terror’. The Asia-Pacific…

“All sides have hammered out, I think, a basic framework for what, you know, what we might be able to drive at,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on unprecedented deal which could unite Jerusalem and Mecca on 30th September. Benjamin Netanyahu in an address to the UN General assembly said Israel is “on the cusp” of an historic deal with Saud Arabia. Netanyahu proclaimed “peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia will truly create a new Middle East” on 22nd September 2023. The news of Saudi-Israel normalisation talks have been doing rounds for a few months. The US…

The Indo-Pacific region is at risk of bipolarity as the tensions between the US and China escalate and the therefore emergence of new poles in international relations of the region is impulsive. The anxieties driven by China’s economic diplomacy and militarisation induced search for multilateral solutions to the ensuing problems. ASEAN has projected itself as a prominent pole in drafting regional economic and security architecture. The group’s stature as a premium strategic forum is challenged by the advent of Quad 2.0 which ropes in four gigantic countries into the fold of strategic planning for the Indo-Pacific. As ASEAN lead mechanisms…

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday said Indo-Pacific is a concept that has been “readily embraced” by many and “contested by few.” In his address at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC on Friday, the Minister said the concept of Indo-Pacific is something that has gained ground. India co-hosted the 13th Indo-Pacific Armies Chiefs Conference with the US on 25th September. The Defence Minister of India said “India always stood for a free, inclusive, rules-based Indo-Pacific region”. The central theme of this forum was “Together for Peace: Sustaining Peace and Stability in the Indo-Pacific Region”. Evolution of the Indo-Pacific…