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Indus Waters Treaty: From Cooperative Vision to Calculated Confrontation
September 4th, 2025
Via The Diplomat, a look at how – instead of believing that strategic patience would breed stability – the Modi government’s strategic escalation has made Indus water flows a tool of coercive diplomacy: The Indus Waters Treaty, once described as a treaty that withstood three wars between India and Pakistan, is receiving much flak after […]
Read more »China’s Himalayan Megadam Poses A Global Threat. Why No International Outrage?
September 2nd, 2025
Via Stagecraft and Statecraft, commentary on how the world ignored warnings about the Three Gorges Dam until it became an environmental nightmare. It cannot afford to repeat that mistake with China’s super-dam near the Indian border — a project whose ecological fallout will ripple globally. Last month, China officially acknowledged that it is constructing the world’s largest […]
Read more »Weaponizing Water in South Asia
August 30th, 2025
Via Dawn, commentary on Pakistan’s floods and the concerns that India is weaponizing water in the ongoing clash between the two nations: AS the raging floodwaters make their way through Punjab towards Sindh, the nation must confront the fact that other than heavy monsoon rainfall and climate change, India’s apparent weaponisation of water has also […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: The Engineering Marvel That China Hopes Will Help Wean It Off Foreign Energy
August 11th, 2025
Via the Wall Street Journal, a report on a planned $167 billion power project which promotes Chinese self-sufficiency while unsettling neighbors: China has begun the construction of a giant hydropower project at the earthquake-prone edge of the Tibetan plateau, a spectacular engineering feat that is central to Beijing’s enduring mission to become self-sufficient in critical areas […]
Read more »Yarlung Zangbo Dam: The Dawn of Zero-Sum Water Politics in South Asia
August 11th, 2025
Via Geopolitical Monitor, a look at the Yarlung Zangbo Dam and the dawn of zero-sum water politics in South Asia: The Yarlung Zangbo dam project represents a watershed moment in China’s emergence as a hydro-hegemon capable of manipulating water flows across multiple international boundaries for its own strategic advantage. While Beijing frames the initiative as part […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: China’s Super Dam – An Ecological and Geopolitical Time Bomb
August 1st, 2025
Via Stagecoach and Statecraft, commentary on how China’s super-dam is an ecological and geopolitical time bomb: China has built more dams than any other country and more large dams than the rest of the world combined. This month, it officially acknowledged construction of the biggest dam ever conceived in human history — although satellite imagery suggests the groundwork […]
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