Salman Rafi Sheikh
31.01.2014 Salman Rafi Sheikh

Despite an extended period of civil and inter-state wars, ethnic strife and external intervention, Africa is said to be showing certain positive prospects of political change, economic stability and development. Not only have many African states shown signs of prosperity and peace but...

19.01.2014 Salman Rafi Sheikh

Numerous incidents of violence and conflict and consequent news of constructing new habitations constitute the main outline, in the Western media, of the “Palestinian” conflict. Usually, the stories of violence are covered under the heading of targeting the so-called “terrorists...

11.01.2014 Salman Rafi Sheikh

The US’ decision to effect “pivot” to Asia has also stimulated some major powers of Asia to build their strangleholds across different countries. The underlying logic for this policy shift is the threat perception they have from this and many other strategic moves of the US. In a...

16.12.2013 Salman Rafi Sheikh

The so-called ‘all-times’ alliance between the US and Israel --- the supposedly ‘only’ democratic state in the Middle East --- has  largely been determined by politico-strategic expediencies  rather than by some ‘natural’ convergence of interests...

06.12.2013 Salman Rafi Sheikh

The killing of Hakimullah Mahsud on November 1, 2103 in a drone attack is said to have derailed the peace process, however fragile it was, between Pakistan and the Taliban (TTP and that serious resentment is being observed among the Pakistani authorities over the US strategy...

02.12.2013 Salman Rafi Sheikh

One of the most conspicuous features of the international system is the shifting nature of what are commonly called the “durable alliances.” Perhaps, it is for this very reason that state to state relations and alliances are more often characterized as artificial in the sense that they...

20.11.2013 Salman Rafi Sheikh

The BRICS are said to have emerged as a major challenge to the so called global hegemony of the US and its satellites. It is a politico-economic union of five countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa striving to come up with some sort of a formula which could help them co-ordinate their...

15.11.2013 Salman Rafi Sheikh

Although it appears that the 12 year Afghan war will end in stalemate in 2014 with Afghan resistance groups poised to pounce as NATO troops are on the way out, the Taliban have taken considerable beating as well and have been compelled to alter its position dramatically. Not only have they...

09.11.2013 Salman Rafi Sheikh

The much heated debate in the western media on the ‘probable’ use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government, and the US’ attempts to use this ‘use’ of weapons of mass destruction to legitimize an attack on Syria has left virtually minimum room for investigating as to how the world...

26.10.2013 Salman Rafi Sheikh

articles6It has been said that “conflict is endemic to budgeting.” Nothing else would prove this statement more accurately as the example of the latest  government shutdown in the U.S. Conflict between the US Congress, opposition and the US President over fiscal allocations…

18.10.2013 Salman Rafi Sheikh
The US’ “Asia Pivot” policy, announced in June 2012, has since been heralded as a ‘new’ cold war in a new disguise against a newly emerging strategic competitor—China. Some analysts have even gone to the extent of tracing seeds of a major armed conflict in the Far East between the US...
11.10.2013 Salman Rafi Sheikh

Change in the leadership of Qatar has been followed by certain significant geo-political changes not only in Qatar, but also in the Middle East and beyond, leading to a relationship of ‘near-confrontation’ between Qatar and Saudia on the one hand, and Qatar and the US on the other...