Deep Jayasekera — Using India to encircle China

Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and his US counterpart, Ashton Carter, announced Monday that they have signed an agreement that gives US combat planes and warships and their personnel routine access to Indian military bases for resupply, repairs, and rest. The India-US Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) also allows the Pentagon to “forward position” materiel on Indian bases.
With the signing of the LEMOA, India has taken a major step toward becoming a “frontline” state in US imperialism’s drive to strategically isolate, encircle, and prepare to wage war on China.

This is being done entirely behind the backs of the Indian people. While various Indian military and geo- strategists chortle over the supposed leverage India will gain thanks to its alliance with Washington, the LEMOA is being publicly presented as largely benign. The Indian media is making much of the fact that the LEMOA is a reciprocal agreement that also provides for India’s military to use American bases—no matter that the difference between the global reach of the US and Indian militaries is exponential….

India’s close military-strategic ties with Moscow date back to the Cold War. However, the US has surpassed Russia as India’s largest military supplier and the Indian and US militaries are, as exemplified by the LEMOA, increasingly enmeshed. Washington’s strategic turn to New Delhi has been driven by its determination to thwart China’s rise. But there is no question that at least since 2014, when India failed to fall into line with the US’ depiction of Russia as the “aggressor” in the Ukraine, a key objective of Washington’s India policy has been to weaken and ultimately break New Delhi’s strategic alliance with Moscow.

The world is influx geopolitically and geostrategically. This transition greatly increases the dangers. India is positioning itself as China's rival for Asian hegemony but at the cost of becoming a vassal of the American Empire.

India has also further positioned itself in the Chinese crosshairs without a defense pace with the US.

Defend Democracy
Using India to encircle China
Deepal Jayasekera

Anton Tsvetov — The changing nature of Russia-Southeast Asia relations

The figures quoted above are certainly not yet indicative of a booming Southeast Asian presence on the Russian market. But these examples do demonstrate an important trend. The roles of Russia and its ASEAN partners are not what they used to be or at least not what we perceived them to be. When thinking about these relations we usually use a mindset where Russian policy towards the countries of Southeast Asia is in focus. We seek the reasons for underdeveloped ties in the fallacies of official Russian external action. Well, it seems that this has to change. 

With great economic difficulties at hand and help from the developed West unlikely, Moscow might as well start thinking of itself as an object of action on behalf of Southeast Asian countries. In private discussions and even in some public speeches Vietnamese scholars and civil servants are bluntly pondering the idea that Russia’s economic woes are a chance for Southeast Asia to take a bite of the Russian markets, particularly in the areas where local producers are not very competitive.

For decades, Asian states were seen from Moscow merely as a marketplace for Russian arms, hydrocarbons and machinery exports. This created a certain image for the relations as those of a great power and lesser-developed recipients of technology. Seems that this is no longer the case and Russia can benefit greatly from the growing capabilities of the ASEAN countries in terms of capital exports.…

Russia's Asian pivot is more than just toward China. European business people musts be having heartburn watching the Russian market slipping away from them due to sanctions, a sour political climate, and Russia's consequent pivot away from Europe toward import substitution and emerging nations of the Global South and import substitution.

Russia Beyond the Headlines

The changing nature of Russia-Southeast Asia relations

Anton Tsvetov, Media and Government Relations Manager at the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC)

Natalya Zamaraeva — Pakistan-India: New Phase of Nuclear Tensions

“Pakistan reserves the right to safeguard its national security interests; the operationalisation of Indo-US nuclear deal for political and economic expediencies would have a detrimental impact on deterrence stability in South Asia,” the foreign minister of Pakistan said, describing the outcome of the visit of President Barack Obama to India in the end of January 2015. 

For the first time, the current political leadership in Islamabad officially broadcast their reaction in connection with the events in another country.The highly emotional statements revealed the backlog of complaints against both Washington and New Delhi.

Pakistan sees the signing of the Indo-American nuclear agreement as a violation of the balance of nuclear and conventional weapons. Taking into consideration national security interests, Islamabad adheres to the position that it cannot continue to rely on strategic stability and deterrence in the region anymore, thinking that this way the nuclear threshold can significantly decrease. It sees the building up of nuclear potential as one of the possible ways and means of equalizing the balance. In this connection, on January 29, 2015, Pakistan warned of a new round of the arms race in South Asia.

Looks like Washington cannot have a relationship with both Pakistan and India, but will have to choose. If the US chooses India, it will have to compete with Russia,which has a deeep foothold there already and cede Pakistan to China, further solidifying China's domination of Eurasia. Choosing Pakistan leaves India to Russia.

Looking good for the arms industry though.

New Eastern Outlook
Pakistan-India: New Phase of Nuclear Tensions
Natalya Zamaraeva, Ph.D. | Senior Research Fellow, Pakistan Institute for Near-East Studies

First appeared:http://journal-neo.org/2015/02/08/rus-pakistan-indiya-vitok-yadernoj-napryazhennosti/

Caijing (CN) — Southeast Asia May Replace China as the “World’s Factory” after 2016, Economist Says

Sun said the ASEAN which has a population of 600 million, of which 66% are at the age of 15-64, and most are educated, is well qualified to be the world’s next factory.

Viewed as an economic region, ASEAN is now the tenth largest consumer market in the world and its consumption now is about 46% of China.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into ASEAN grew at an average annual 25% over the ten years from 2002 to 2011, far exceeding the 11% annual growth seen in China.

Caijing (CN)
Southeast Asia May Replace China as the “World’s Factory” after 2016, Economist Says