State Affairs

The Plan, as they say, is invariably the first casualty in the war. The same appears to be the case in the ongoing conflict in what is being termed by a few as Europe's Afghanistan.  Putin, as it appears now, possibly chose a swift and surgical campaign over all-out destruction of Ukraine to tame the latter. However, that seems to be a casualty. No wonder then that the destruction mode has just about begun with blatant targeting of the civilian assets inside Ukraine. A lot more has been happening beyond the battlefield too. The USA under Biden continues to look spineless. And NATO is no different. However, a consolidation of the EU has been happening at an amazing pace. As a result, the European nations who are members of NATO and yet not very willing to jump into the fire, have suddenly changed their stance as it relates to their affiliation with the EU. EU, though a business and political entity, has acquired military teeth and effective ones on that. China, over the past two day...

  #RussiaUkraine  After WW2, as the power equations changed and the US emerged as one of the two great powers while most of the European nations went into a decline, the US adopted a policy wherein it started supporting various regimes and nations across the globe. Even UK was given aid by the US at one point in time. That initiative of the US consolidated his position and led to NATO and other strategic partnerships. A time came when East and West Germany, belonging to two different military alliances, decided to unite. As the tools to dismantle the Berlin Wall were being gathered in 1988-89, USSR expressed its apprehensions about NATO's footprint in its neighbourhood. Michael Gorbachev was then assured by the US that despite unification, no NATO expansion would be allowed in the E/Europe. When USSR got balkanised and the first Russian PM, Yeltsin, addressed the two houses at Washington, he expressed his desire to join NATO (Gorbachev had similar views) to ensure lasting peac...