Writer
Ramesh Thakur
Ramesh Thakur is emeritus professor at the Australian National University and a former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General. Of Indian origin, he is a citizen of Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
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The challenge of nuclear weapons to the UN Security Council: Adapt or Die
The United Nations is the biggest incubator of global norms to govern the world and the vital core of the rules-based global multilateral order. Four parts of the UN system have complementary roles in efforts to regulate and eliminate nuclear weapons. Continue reading »
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The long arc of India-Russia relations
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Russia on 8 and 9 July and embraced President Vladimir Putin. The outcome of the visit included mutually beneficial substantive agreements, but damaged India’s reputation in the West at a time when President Joe Biden hosted the NATO summit in Washington. The BBC featured an analysis under the title Continue reading »
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What stands in the way of a nuclear weapon-free world?
Stronger treaties are needed more than ever as Hiroshima marks A-bomb anniversary. Continue reading »
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Voters tell Modi: Keep going, but under caution
The biggest takeaway from India’s eighteenth general election is that the death of Indian democracy has been much exaggerated. The exercise was a resounding win for the election machinery of the world’s most populous democracy. The entire exercise and the outcome affirm once again the competence, professionalism, and integrity of the country’s election machinery. ‘India Continue reading »
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Israel and Gaza: Yesterday, today and tomorrow
Veterans of Middle East affairs say wryly that anyone who claims to understand the Israel-Palestine conflict has been misinformed. This paper reviews the complex and emotionally fraught history of the Conflict; looks at 10/7 and Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza in retaliation, and then speculates on possible pathways to the conflict’s resolution that could Continue reading »
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While Australia votes, India-Pakistan cricket is downstream of politics
On 14 October, my attention will wander between three unconnected stories as they unfold in real time. I will be in New Zealand on that general election date. Polls indicate the Labour government will be replaced by a centre-right coalition. But the peculiarities of the electoral system make election results and the outcome of post-election Continue reading »
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Assassination allegations: The caution of Canada’s allies is well grounded
Seemingly out of nowhere, Canada and India are embroiled in an escalating diplomatic crisis after PM Justin Trudeau implicated India in the June 18 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent British Columbia (BC) Sikh leader. India has strongly rejected the ‘unsubstantiated’ charge as ‘absurd’. Continue reading »
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US decides to supply depleted uranium shells to Ukraine
At the G20 summit in Bali last year, most of the world’s most influential leaders had strongly deplored ‘the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine’. By contrast, the joint declaration from the just concluded summit in New Delhi does not mention Russia by name. Instead, it talks about ‘the human suffering and negative added impacts of Continue reading »
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NATO enlargement enthusiasts look to the Indo-Pacific
Lord Ismay, NATO’s first secretary-general (SG), famously said the purpose of NATO was to ‘keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down’. Continue reading »
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The Wagner coup: Strategic setback or military deception?
The Wagner coup equation doesn’t compute. It just doesn’t add up. Herbert Wulf gave us a concise summary of the surreal 24 hours that gripped the world. But there are missing pieces of the puzzle that we haven’t been given. And now we learn that the Wagner boss is back in St Petersburg, Russia. Continue reading »
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U.S. allies look for their place in the emerging global order
America and the West are more isolated from the rest of the world than at any time since WWII. Continue reading »
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Four nuclear myths
The hubris and arrogance of the nuclear-armed states leaves the world exposed to the risk of sleepwalking into a nuclear disaster. The case for nuclear weapons rests on a superstitious magical Realism that puts faith in the utility of the bomb and the theory of deterrence. Here are four myths about the utility of nuclear Continue reading »
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Nuclear weapons may not be in Seoul’s best interest
Going nuclear would likely hurt rather than enhance South Korea’s global prestige. Continue reading »
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NATO’s mission creep remains a threat to European and world peace
In September 2014, in the aftermath of the Maidan coup that saw yet another in the distressingly long list of US-engineered regime change coups in foreign lands where the government proved insufficiently deferential to the ruling Washington foreign policy elite, I argued that NATO’s mission creep had become a threat to European and world peace. Continue reading »
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The minefields that could sink AUKUS SSNs
The most consequential aspect of AUKUS is it embeds the UK and the US firmly into Australia’s Indo-Pacific strategy. But what if the secret US calculation behind AUKUS is to goad China into war before China’s superiority outpaces US and allied capabilities? A war that China does not want and will likely lose? Continue reading »
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Australia is an important Quad partner that India cannot trust
Despite flourishing relations, Australia is governed by a ruling elite whose commitment to a rules based order is suspect, selective and risks dragging India into a catastrophic conflict with China. Continue reading »
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What are the possible endgames in the Ukraine war?
Prudent nations would do well to prepare for peace even in the midst of an armed conflict. Continue reading »
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What’s not to like about Rudd’s appointment as Canberra’s man in Washington?
On Dec. 20, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the appointment of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as his country’s next ambassador to the U.S. Continue reading »
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The mystery of the Nord Stream pipeline explosions
On 26 September, the Nordstream 1 and 2 pipelines were badly damaged in a deliberate act of sabotage that released huge amounts of methane gas. Almost all the Western media has pointed the finger at Russia but Moscow blames actors hostile to it. There are four plausible suspects: Russia, the US, Poland and Ukraine. Given Continue reading »
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Gorbachev changed the world
Most people have modest aspirations of being able to feed, house, clothe and educate their families, assist their children to climb one rung higher on the social ladder and spend their autumn years in comfortable retirement. Some aim a little higher and strive to make a mark in a chosen field of human activity. There Continue reading »
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Learning the right nuclear lessons from Ukraine
The Hiroshima gathering affirms the importance of nuclear arms control and disarmament. Continue reading »
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Modi and the polarisation of India
Modi must reverse the sectarian polarisation, rein in the hate-spewing Hindutva mobs and practice as well as preach inclusion. Continue reading »
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The journey from nuclear non-proliferation to prohibition and disarmament: roadmaps, roadblocks and speedbumps
This is the text of the address delivered by Ramesh Thakur at the launch of The Nuclear Ban Treaty: A Transformational Reframing of the Global Nuclear Order (Routledge, 2022) at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation on Friday, 24 June 2022. Continue reading »
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Truth – the first casualty of war
Wars are complex issues with blame shared albeit not equally distributed among all sides. They are unpredictable and can lead to perverse, including lose-lose outcomes. In a war with the world’s biggest nuclear power, a dispassionate analysis of costs (of victory and defeat), risks and constraints is especially advisable. Yet this is mostly missing in Continue reading »
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Russian and US parallel pathways to a nuclear conflict
Biden escaped rigorous critical scrutiny that is the normal lot of presidential campaigns with the help of major media and Big Tech platforms that despised Trump. The world is now discovering just how grave the real-world consequences can be when reality bites back. Continue reading »
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The tale of two airlines, Iranian Air IR 655 and Malaysian Air MH 17 and double standards
While in Iranian territorial waters, USS Vincennes fired two surface-to-air missiles to bring down the Iranian plane with the loss of all 290 on board on 3 July 1988. The captain and crew of the Vincennes were later awarded medals. Vice President George H W Bush insisted he would ‘never apologise for the United States Continue reading »
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Putin’s actions in Ukraine are vile, but Russia was sorely provoked by NATO
The moral outrage insisting on retaliation over the invasion of Ukraine ennobles the American war machine. Continue reading »
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Ukraine and nuclear risks
Three overarching goals have informed the Asia Pacific Leadership Network’s (APLN) approach to nuclear threats since its inception a decade ago: the imperative to hold firm against proliferation, the matching importance of credible steps toward disarmament, and defusing geopolitical tensions that heighten nuclear risks. All three are at play in Ukraine. Continue reading »
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The slide to war with Russia. Part 1 & 2…First posted on October 26, 2016
God Created war so the Americans could learn geography Continue reading »
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Putin may be executing NATO’s 1999 playbook, not Hitler’s from the 1930’s
The brutal reality is NATO played hardball, won in the short term but now finds itself at the receiving end as Putin decides it’s payback time. Continue reading »
