Although President Putin’s extraordinary and somewhat contentious foreign policy initiatives have been the hallmark of his third presidential term, it took the scheduling of the on-going maiden Russian military exercises with Pakistan to focus the Indian strategic community on Russian objectives and power-plays in Asia. This attention has been heightened, accompanied with some alarm and dismay, ever since Moscow decided to go ahead with the planned drills, despite the Pakistani-based terrorist attack in Uri.
This 16 day long exercise being held at a special forces academy at Cherat, in the mountainous Khyber province, has been named ‘Friendship-16′, further aggravating …read more