Humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons use, dreadfully experienced in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has had little policy impact on concluding a genuine nuclear disarmament convention.
With increasing North Korean nuclear and missile threats, and Chinese nuclear force modernisation, the prospects of indigenous nuclear weapons acquisition by Japan and South Korea cannot be ruled out.
Japan’s proposal to host a NATO liaison office in Tokyo is facing objections from NATO members like France, who view it as a distraction from the alliance’s core task of ensuring security in Europe.
Japan is likely to play a decisive role in positioning Northeast India as a powerhouse through improved connectivity, opening up trade corridors and driving better economic integration.
While the US, Japan and Australia have taken an overtly critical stand towards Russia at the UN, India has abstained from all the UN resolutions condemning Russia. Will divergent views over the Ukrainian crisis weaken the Quad, is a pertinent question being examined in this issue brief.
The recent Joint Statement issued after the Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Melbourne indicates the grouping’s drive towards institutionalisation and coming close to achieving a concrete mandate for its existence.
