Imtiaz A Hussain

KAUTILYAN KRONICLES

Lessons from history: Will Trump’s tariffs shake up world leadership?

Bangladesh’s cardinal lesson is to do what the US did in 1934.

1d ago

Geopolitics in the age of Trump: Have we been here before?

Will the 21st century move towards a world war like the 20th century?

3m ago

Bangladesh at UNGA 2024: Glitter, gold, and ground reality

Bangladesh desperately needed global attention to reap gold out of this moment of change.

6m ago

Are the Rohingya facing an ‘endgame’?

Did Bangladesh over-stir its pot?

7m ago

What the Rana Plaza tragedy means in 2024

Let’s visit this discussion on three levels of analysis on the local, national, and global scenarios and impacts.

1y ago

To catch a pirate

Today’s piracy further feeds upon those flows including petroleum and the growing numbers of African/Asian countries involved. Control is now imperative.

1y ago

Foreign policy quandary for Bangladesh: ‘Umbilical’ or ‘geopolitical’?

Bangladesh’s foreign inclinations increasingly sway between “umbilical” and “geopolitical” poles, as principles, policies and preferences compete for priority.

1y ago

The colour of war?

Today’s Red Sea skirmishes raise multifaceted concerns, which range from the war in Gaza widening and awakening old wounds, to geopolitical frontlines being rewritten by shifting chokepoints.

1y ago
August 22, 2021
August 22, 2021

Afghanistan, Taliban and the United States

Full US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan was announced by President Joe Biden on April 14, 2021. It raised eyebrows but did not ruffle public feathers.

February 19, 2021
February 19, 2021

Branding Bangladesh: The ‘identity’ challenge

Identity matters. It matters most amid flux, which the 21st Century is riddled with. Compromising the past and adding “new” components always knock on identity doors. Distinguishing the non-negotiable identity components from the negotiable gives us a head start.

February 18, 2020
February 18, 2020

The inclusivity paradox of the digital age

Behind every “age”, as if by definition, lies a spark. Ironically, although the “digital age” may be the most profound of them all, as deducible from its own so-called “digital revolution”, its time-span is too fluid and that “revolution” is more revolutionary linguistically than it is on the ground.

December 7, 2019
December 7, 2019

Asia’s balancer, Bangladesh

Remember those expansive aphorisms, “Britannia rules the waves” and the “empire where the sun never sets”?

July 29, 2019
July 29, 2019

Oscillating Anglo-American relations

A rolling stone, as the cliché goes, gathers no moss. According to musician Robert Zimmerman, it is “like a complete unknown,” indeed, “with no direction home.” Under his more popular identity, Bob Dylan, he penned “Like a rolling stone,” often regarded the crème de la crème song in its genre. It might also be the swansong of a fabled bilateral relationship. Gone awry, that relationship arguably symbolises the upended global status of two partners.

July 20, 2019
July 20, 2019

A Giant Retreat for Mankind

Remember those first words ever spoken from the moon? In the half-century since Neil Armstrong uttered them, the space race has invited many other countries—from the rich to the poor, from the developed to the developing—and even attracted private-sector

June 10, 2019
June 10, 2019

‘Clash of civilisation’ or crash: Environmental doomsday?

What do the following civilisations have in common: Mesopotamia four millennia ago; the 8th-century Viking Greenland settlement; Mayas from the 10th century; and the Khmer empire in the 15th century?

June 3, 2019
June 3, 2019

Angela Merkel’s legacy: ‘Holy Roman Empress’?

Historians are often bemused by how the millennia-old Holy Roman Emperor was not holy, nor Roman, nor even an emperor.

May 29, 2019
May 29, 2019

GPA and beyond: Time to break out of old pedagogical models

Grumpy” was her name. In the flower-filled month of May, the world’s most famous cat of the same name bid her ever-cheering audience a sad adieu. Perhaps not the best of analogies, but it highlights grumpiness in another area, that, fortunately, we can do something about.

May 18, 2019
May 18, 2019

Galloping Bangladesh: Emperor with no clothes?

Don’t judge a book by its cover.” So goes a popular cliché, though appraisals become more sanguine the more one opens the volume. Recent (April) reports about the country’s top-flight economic growth-rates expose why heeding that message helps keep us on track.