Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury

The Annual Jamboree of global defence leaders at the Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore is much more than just a talkathon. Amidst the wining and dining, and in the chambers and corridors, policymakers and thought leaders get the opportunity to interact with one another intensely

A supporter of the current dispensation in the United States with President Donald Trump at its helm, may be forgiven if he or she were to view the contemporary world through the lens of the above doggerel of a 19th century compatriot, William Wendell Holmes. For such a viewer, it would have looked a wonderful world some years ago. Everything was going right for America. There was the perception of it as the sole hyper-power, and one that was largely seen as benign. Thereafter, through the mechanism of America’s complex political system, its people put a new man on horseback to run it.

Apart from its contribution to civilisation in the form of the English language, the great civic legacy of the Anglo-Saxon tradition, emanating from the British Isles is said to be its political system.

Only a few would be persuaded that President Donald Trump is deeply informed about any moderately complex subject. Ballistic missiles is one such.

America has had a fairly inscrutable history. Haven to the oppressed in the European continent, its early settlers, while relishing the fruits of freedom, pretty much exterminated its indigenous inhabitants.

In these Trumpian times, the northeast of the South Asian subcontinent does not grab headlines. Nothing of significance usually happens there to warrant that. Particularly when the idiosyncrasies of the lead global personality, Mr Donald Trump himself, are so preponderantly dominating in that regard.

In my previous avatar as a diplomat, like much of the rest of the world, I saw myself as an ardent advocate for change in Myanmar. It was in the grip of Generals who ran a horrendously repressive regime.

The relationship between a smaller and a larger neighbourly state, as also between a weaker and stronger one, is often tricky on both sides.