Our country’s conduct in the 1971 War with Pakistan offers several lessons at a time when the principles of peaceful coexistence and a rules-based global order are in freefall. History shows that any war in the Middle East has a way of expanding beyond its declared aims. The ongoing confrontation involving the U.S.-Israel and Iran, now stretching into its second month, has already outgrown its immediate theatre, unsettling energy markets, rattling allies and inviting a famili

The ongoing Iran conflict is a systemic shock that exposes how fragile the world economy becomes when chokepoints close and diplomacy fails. “ Arthasya mūlam karma ,” wrote Kautilya, wealth is the root of all human endeavour. It is a maxim that has outlived empires, surviving the churn of kingdoms, colonies and modern nation-states. But the present moment suggests a grim inversion of that wisdom. The engines of wealth in form of trade, energy and cooperation are being throttl

From dealmaker to belligerent, America’s President risks repeating the history he once sought to escape. In 1917, Woodrow Wilson, a scholar-president wary of foreign entanglements, found himself drawn into a war he had hoped to avoid. A century on, Donald Trump, who rose to power denouncing “endless wars” and promising to end them, appears to be caught in a similar contradiction. The arc of his Middle East policy, at once erratic and revealing, has bent from negotiation to co

The Islamic Republic’s failed strike on Diego Garcia suggests that even the most secure outposts are no longer beyond reach. For decades, distance was Diego Garcia’s greatest defence. Marooned in the central Indian Ocean, far from the Middle East’s turmoil and the Pacific’s rivalries, the atoll functioned as America’s unsinkable aircraft carrier. Iran’s recent attempt to strike the island with ballistic missiles, though unsuccessful has punctured the illusion of sanctuary. On