India’s most conspicuous political move of late is certainly its refusal to join the West’s condemnation of Russia’s war against the Ukraine and to comply with its sanctions against the aggressor. India has even, together with China, become Russia’s main buyer of oil and is, thus, indirectly funding Putin’s war. India may not be known…
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Die Arktis – ein neuer geostrategischer Fokus
[ ... ]Vom Ukrainekrieg aus gehen Schockwellen um die Welt. Russlands Aussenminister Lawrow definiert in diesen Tagen eine neue Weltordnung als ausdrückliche Zielsetzung eines Krieges, der anfänglich „nur“ die militärische Unterwerfung des Nachbarn Ukraine zum Ziele hatte. Der bündnisähnliche Zusammenschluss mit China hat diesen Nachbarn, soweit erkennbar, noch nicht zum Kriegseintritt veranlasst. Aber er weist auf eine…
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Taking Xi seriously
[ ... ]As the Ukraine disaster shows, an internally undisputed autocrat’s words have to be taken seriously. This goes for Putin – the demise of the USSR as ‘the biggest disaster of the 20th Century’, thus his fight to restore it – as it does for Xi Jinping. The latter’s rhetoric, political initiatives and actions since his…
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An important year for India’s Government
[ ... ]Throughout 2023, India will play a prominent role in world politics. It will be chairing the G-20, the grouping of the world’s 20 largest economies. The G-20 is not an international organisation, nor a group sharing common values, and even less an alliance, but it is a setting in which the world’s most important economic,…
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The UK and Switzerland: EU non-members trying to get in
[ ... ]Mutual agreements between the UK and Switzerland are an attempt to overcome the evident disadvantage of not being a formal participant in the European single market. But the Swiss case cannot be a template for the UK to overcome its Brexit woes. A mutual recognition agreement (MRA) in the financial sector, ‘aimed at facilitating or…
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Saudi-Arabien an der Seite Russlands?
[ ... ]Das Ölkartell OPEC-Plus (also mit Russland) stösst die USA und Europa mit einer Förderverknappung vor den Kopf. Bedeutet dies einen pivot to Asia von Saudi-Arabien und der arabischen Halbinsel zu China und Russland? Nein, denn grundlegende Interessen zählen mehr als autokratische Eitelkeiten. MBS zeigt seine Faust Der covid-bedingte fist bump zwischen Biden und MBS im…
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Russia’s Ukraine war and India
[ ... ]India’s refusal to adhere to Western sanctions against Russia as a consequence of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is in stark contrast to its recent repeated confirmations of unequivocally siding with its QUAD partners US, Japan and Australia against China’s expansion and its joining the newly created quadrilateral forum I2U2, a grouping comprising India,…