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Mar 23, 2022·edited Apr 10, 2022Liked by JRahman

Bangladeshi establishment including defence establishment should learn lessons from Ukrainians who resiliently and perseveringly standing up against all the odds and fighting against a formidable superpower nuclear armed Russia, as well as observe Ukrainians' flaws in their home front battlefield. Also worth taking lessons from Ukraine's failure in their diplomacy in the run up to Russian invasion, which failed to stop Russia's invasion. One thing that has been proved from Ukraine's war is that no country can be over reliant on allies hoping they would risk to come and defend; ultimately the country need to learn to defend herself. In this 21st century of realism, there's no permanent friends or allies. Today's friends may become tomorrow's enemies and today's enemies may become tomorrow's friends. For too long Bangladesh has been ignoring here defence needs and isn't on par with the neighbouring countries Indo-Pak defence expenditure, even after factoring the population size of the country. For too long the country's defence needs have been ignored. Bangladesh need to spend at least US$100bn in the next 5-10 years to seriously upscale and modernise its defence systems, notably air force and naval maritime power and bring it up to 21st century 4.5 - 5th generation standards on per with neighbouring countries' aspirations. This would mean sacrifices i.e. like Pakistan, it would dip into country's hard earned forex reserves in considerable manner; it's little use to have a great economy with great forex reserves if the country's dated not-fit-for-purpose defences belong to yesterday's 20th century standards. Unlike Ukraine where every able citizens are being drafted and called up from the reserves, Bangladesh does not have the luxury as it does not have Singapore Turkey style compulsory military service, where those countries can mobilise their reserves at a moment notice. Also Bangladesh, being geographically small country yet population wise one of the larger countries and surrounded by geopolitical rivalries, seriously need to consider about introducing compulsory national military service, as unlike Pakistan or India, the country does not have nuclear weapons as a deterrent. A top Bangladeshi diplomat quipped in an informal setting that foolishly Bangladesh's incumbent Awami League's Hasina government has given up Bangladesh's right to acquire nuclear weapons for deterrence purposes by opting to become signatory to Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a kind of shooting oneself on the foot. Ukraine is learning the hard way where it was lured to give up its nuclear weapons with the false assurances from both US and Russia. It is now paying the price. I also wrote a piece on Russian sanctions and the positions taken up by India and Bangladesh, link here:

https://ismailysyed.substack.com/p/russian-sanctions-and-unintended

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