‘What all could have happened if we had Rafale?’ This statement by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi surfaced after the 2019 India-Pakistan aerial showdown. The Indian Air Force’s (IAF) failed airstrikes near Balakot met a swift broad daylight response by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) under Operation Swift Retort.
Operation Swift Retort was the first time in decades since 1971 that the air forces of India and Pakistan were pitched against one another. It’s been seven years since the incident, but the memory of a captured Indian fighter pilot sipping tea on national television remains vivid to this day.
Two to three decades ago, humanity committed an enormous mistake. We handed over the design of our social world to business, something we should have never done. Is it too early to rectify this mistake? Nick Couldry who is a professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science, in his book, The Space of the World, asks the similar question.
In today's age of technology, marked by ever-increasing digitisation and a new shift towards green energy, the topic of critical and rare earth minerals has become increasingly prevalent. From fighter jet engines and submarines to MRI machines and computer screens, critical minerals such as lithium and cobalt form the backbone of contemporary technology.
On 15 January 2026, the Pakistani defence production minister confirmed that an agreement for a new trilateral defence deal between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Türkiye is in the pipeline, other than the Pakistan-Saudi bilateral deal announced last year. Though no formal accord has been signed as yet, nor have any terms been made public, the countries' acknowledgement of the long-discussed deal has nonetheless inspired considerable discourse regarding its potential.
In 2025, according to governmental data, around 32,000 highly-skilled and highly-qualified Pakistanis registered for employment abroad, equivalent to roughly six per cent of the country’s half a million annual graduates. This number, too, represents only a part of the exodus of Pakistan’s advanced human capital nurtured in the country and now being absorbed into foreign economies.
On 19 January 2026, the three-hour visit of the United Arab Emirates’s (UAE) president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to India attracted significant attention due to the potential outcomes it intended to materialise. The visit prospects a deep strategic engagement between the two states across several domains, including defence innovation, industrial development, advanced technology, training, education and counter terrorism.
The United States’ use of brute force to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro marks a turning point for the US foreign policy in the Western hemisphere. The overnight swift execution of the integrated joint operation by the United States Air Force, Navy, Cyber Command and Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) has sent shockwaves in geopolitical hotspots elsewhere.
On the morning of January 3, 2026, the United States carried out an operation against Venezuela: deposing a sitting president Nicolás Maduro and his wife from the heartland of a heavily guarded capital. Although the legality and morality of this operation are highly contested, this article focuses on an equally important dimension, which is the employment of airpower in conflicts.
Trump's declaration to "run Venezuela" after Maduro's capture is a seeming promise of a sudden cure to Venezuela's ills. However, it ignores the nation's terminal diagnosis of a century of plunder. The rhetoric of imminent revival on the basis of the speedy return of international oil capital and the promise of 100 billion US dollars in reconstruction funds made the intervention seem like a unique opportunity.
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