China's BMD efforts advance; India, NATO align on missile defense; South Korea adds missile deterrent; Reassuring Russia over European defense; Turkey shuts Israel out of early warning; New Russian ICBM stumbles out of the gate

Cat-and-mouse over Gaza rockets; Taiwan scrambles for missile deterrent; Debating missile defense in Europe; Taking Russia to court over missile defense; India's missile defense grid takes shape

A new end to New START; Seoul eyes longer range strikes; Romania's quest for a missile defense role; A critical hurdle for India's missile shield; Taiwan's failed attempt at deterrence

President Barack Obama's 10-day tour through Asia is being deemed a disappointment in some Washington circles after the President failed to secure a free trade with South Korea, or forge a consensus on issues of currency manipulation and trade imbalances. However, the President's underwhelming performance in East Asia risks overshadowing his more commendable performance in South Asia, where President Obama announced that America now supports a permanent seat for India at the United Nations Security Council. The policy change was warmly received in New Delhi, where politicians have been lobbying the U.S. for such an endorsement for years (not even the Indophile Bush administration was willing to offer one). And while there is little likelihood that India's Security Council aspirations will be fulfilled anytime soon, President Obama's announcement at least temporarily silenced critics who had begun to question the President's commitment to the U.S.-India partnership.

Brahmos makes advances; TTP to FTO list; Rajapaksa does away with term limits; India and Russia to build fifth gen fighter; LeT ups presence in Afghanistan

HK may again consider controversial Article 23; China to help build railways linking it, ASEAN

Pakistan plays a triple game...; As the U.S. scales back pressure on Islamabad; AQ takes a backseat in Afghanistan; Pentagon report touches on China-India conflict

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the U.S.-India partnership is losing momentum under President Barack Obama’s stewardship.  Fortifying the alliance was bound to be a secondary priority for any administration faced with a recession, a flagging war effort in Afghanistan, political stalemate in Iraq, stalled Middle East peace efforts, defiant pariah regimes in Iran and North Korea, and strategic tensions with China. Still, allowing the partnership to falter appears to have come easier to a president who never quite displayed George W. Bush’s zeal for the Indian-American relationship. To be sure, problems also exist on the Indian side. New Delhi has itself fallen into a form of post-honeymoon malaise, as the phase of grand political gestures gives way to tough technical negotiations. However, rather than mitigate the downside of this difficult period, the Obama administration is pursuing an agenda that further complicates it and, in doing so, risks some of the tremendous gains made in U.S.-India relations over the past decade.

U.S.-India defense trade up but treaties stalled; Wikileaks fingers ISI support for Taliban; Pak slammed by worst floods in 80 yrs; India walks fine line with Burma

That a Pakistani-born U.S. national was responsible for the latest attempted terrorist attack on U.S. soil should come as little surprise. Pakistan has stood, almost unchallenged, at the epicenter of global terrorism for the post-9/11 era. Individuals or groups based in Pakistan have been involved in the majority of planned attacks on Western nations since 2001 and the country has played a critical role in the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Finally, nuclear-armed Pakistan maintains a network of Islamist militant groups focused on targeting India and is now host to a ferocious Islamist insurrection of its own; an insurgency that is now more deadly than those in either Iraq or Afghanistan. In short, no discussion of counterterrorism is complete without an examination of Pakistan and its role in Western terror attacks, the Afghan War, and its own attempts to combat domestic terrorism.