Aqeel Ahmad

 For millennia, ideas, people, and goods moved freely between the Indian subcontinent and what is now the Middle East, with routine trade well established by the sixth century A.D. In A.D. 660 the second caliph, Umar, sent the first Arab expedition to Sindh, and in 711 the province was conquered by Mohammad ibn Qasim. Along with advanced military power came missionaries and traders, and the process of conversion to Islam began. There are still important Muslim trading communities throughout South India, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives—and farther east in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. These traders (and minor Muslim rulers) shared their knowledge of the sea route from East Africa to India with the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, the first European to make the long journey around Africa and across the Arabian Sea.1 Parenthetically, just as Islam came to India in the seventh to the eighth century, South Indian Hindu kingdoms began their exploration and domination over large...

  US Withdrawal from Afghanistan - an Act of Offshore Balancing By Aqeel Ahmad The year 2021 marked the end of the US war on terror in Afghanistan. The US invaded Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks planned by  Al-Qaeda . The US-led invasion lasted for two decades, and the  complete withdrawal  ended on 31st August 2021. Why did the US leave Afghanistan, a strategically important region in Asia, and ended its war? To adequately comprehend the situation, one needs to see within the lens of offensive realism's significant axiom offshore balancing . The US practiced offshore balancing to deal with world affairs, become a global hegemon, and maintain its regional hegemony. For offensive realists, the ultimate objective of the superpowers is to attain and retain global hegemony. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt emphasize that in reality, no country can attain global hegemony due to the difficulty of projecting and maintaining power throughout the globe and into the te...

  The AUKUS military deal signed by Australia, UK, and the US has left France infuriated because it came at the cost of the $66 billion French-Australian submarine deal. Australia will now receive nuclear-powered submarines from the UK and the US. Given the loopholes in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), many countries have already exploited its weaknesses, and Australia has become yet another country to benefit from these weaknesses. Although it is unclear how members of QUAD have reacted to the formation of AUKUS, it has become increasingly apparent that the broader aim is to contain China. Compared to diesel-supported, the nuclear-propelled submarine can stay in deep water for months. This provides Australia with a security edge. Though it may not instantly provide Australia an assured second-strike capability. AUKUS reflects the US grand strategy of offshore balancing: (a) aggressively following up the core pillars of its strategy in the Asia-Pacific region. One of which...

Diplomacy stands accepted as the mainstay and the core process of relations among nations. The process of establishment of relations among nations begins effectively with the establishment of diplomatic relations among nations. A new state becomes a full and active member of the family of nations only after it gets recognition by existing states. The common way in which this recognition is granted is the announcement of the decision to establish diplomatic relations. Thereafter diplomats are exchanged and relations among nations get underway. As such diplomacy is the means through which nations begin to develop their relations. “Diplomacy is the management of international relations by means of negotiations; the method by which these relations are adjusted and managed by ambassadors and envoys the business or art of the diplomats” —Harold Nicholson. “Diplomacy is the inevitable outcome of the coexistence of separate political units (states) with any degree of contact.” —Frankel Diploma...