India Archives - Page 9 of 21 - Foreign Policy In Focus

The Dracula Round

by Walden Bello, Mary Lou Malig, Emily Schwartz Greco | Aug 5, 2008

Like the good Count of Transylvania, the World Trade Organization’s Doha Round of negotiations has died more than once. It first collapsed during the WTO ministerial meeting held in Cancun in September 2003. After apparently coming back from the dead, many observers thought it passed away a second time during the so-called Group of Four meeting in Potsdam in June 2007 — only to come back yet again from the dead. Now the question is whether the unraveling of the most recent “mini-ministerial” gathering in Geneva was the silver stake that pierced the trade round’s heart, rendering Doha dead forever.

An Uncomfortable Conversation about Nukes

by John Feffer, Conn Hallinan | Jul 17, 2008

Why are Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, William Perry, and Sam Nunn writing opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons? Keep in mind, these four people are not just major defense hawks. People like Kissinger helped push through the single most dangerous and destabilizing innovation in nuclear weaponry, the arming of missiles with multiple warheads. All four have supported every conflict the United States has engaged in since World War II, all have enthusiastically supported nuclear weapons, and none has suddenly gone kumbaya on us.

A New Cold War?

by John Feffer, Conn Hallinan | Jun 17, 2008

Military alliances are always sold as things that produce security. In practice they tend to do the opposite.

Ten Years After

by John Feffer, Zia Mian | May 14, 2008

It has taken America’s leaders a long time to learn the lessons of nuclear weapons. President Harry Truman, who took the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki called the atomic bomb the “greatest thing in history.” Almost 20 years later, with America having lost its nuclear monopoly, trapped in a desperate growing arms race with the Soviet Union, and having survived a crisis that threatened nuclear war, President John F. Kennedy described the bomb as having turned the world into a prison in which man awaits his execution. Fast forward another two decades, under pressure from peace movements, President Ronald Reagan agreed with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that the superpowers should eliminate all nuclear weapons.

The Candidates and India

by John Feffer, Sammy Loren | Mar 31, 2008

For the past few months it seems that New Delhi has been shrouded in a thick, meandering fog. For the auto rickshaw drivers and fruit vendors, the intelligentsia and the elite who occupy the steamy Gangetic Plains, the fog has become, as all things in India must, symbolic of an uncertain future. A Pakistan on the verge of doom? An Olympic China who this summer will put India in the shadows? An increasingly bellicose Russia? Wrong on all counts.

Flogging a Dead Agreement

by John Feffer, Ninan Koshy | Feb 29, 2008

The Indian government suddenly finds itself under intense and mounting U.S. pressure to complete a nuclear agreement during the present U.S. administration. “We don’t have all the time in the world,” Nicholas Burns bluntly said this month. One of the chief architects of the agreement and the U.S. undersecretary for political affairs, Burns was referring to the India-specific agreements with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and change of rules at the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) that are necessary for the export of nuclear plants and equipment to India. He reminded the Indians that “this is an election year” in the USA and hoped “very much that this process can now be completed.” David C. Mulford, U.S. ambassador in New Delhi, similarly pressed for the conclusion of the agreement during the Bush administration. He suggested that it is almost “now or never” for New Delhi to get behind such a deal before non-proliferation groups force additional conditionalities.

Postcard from…Brussels

by John Feffer | Feb 28, 2008

Unlike in the United States, the issue of Afghanistan ranks high on the priorities of the European (and Canadian) peace movement. With NATO headquartered in Brussels, the Belgian peace movement has taken a particularly strong stand against the new deployment. “Instead of a humanitarian intervention, we see an unacceptable amount of collateral damage,” a coalition of Belgian peace groups wrote in an open letter to the Belgian defense minister. “Human rights and women rights are violated at large scale whereas the massive opium production finances the corruption and the warlords. What kind of objectives, then, can Belgian defend there?”

India and Israel Eye Iran

by John Feffer, Ninan Koshy | Feb 12, 2008

Israel’s spy satellite launched by India in the third week of January considerably enhances Israel’s intelligence-gathering capability. The launch of the Tecsar satellite, also known as Polaris, also marks a new stage in India-Israeli strategic relations and adds a new factor in the complex security scenario in the Middle East.

Challenging a Unipolar World

by John Feffer, Conn Hallinan | Jan 21, 2008

One of the more interesting phenomena to emerge from the U.S. debacle in Iraq is the demise of the unipolar world that rose from the ashes of the Cold War. A short decade ago the United States was the most powerful political, economic, and military force on the planet. Today its army is straining under the weight of an unpopular occupation, its economy is careening toward recession, and the only “allies” we can absolutely depend on in the United Nations are Israel, Palau, and the Marshall Islands.

Elites vs. Greens in the Global South

by Walden Bello, John Feffer | Jan 17, 2008

Last month’s conference on climate change in Bali, Indonesia, brought the North-South fault line in climate politics into sharp relief. While U.S. intransigence on the question of mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions took center stage, not far behind was the issue of what commitments fast-growing developing countries like China and India should make in a new, post-Kyoto climate change regime.