Play The Diplomat’s Quiz: September 25, 2016 Edition

Running between Miyako Island and Okinawa Island in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture, the Miyako Strait is just wide enough to accommodate an international waterway through Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

The Bashi Channel and Miyako Strait bear considerable strategic importance for the PLAAF and People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) as they permit China access to the Western Pacific beyond what Chinese strategists have called the first island chain, a set of islands running from the Kuril Islands in the Sea of Japan to the Philippines and Borneo.

On Friday, the government of India and French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation signed an agreement valued at 7.87 billion euros for the sale of 36 Rafale multi-role fighters. The agreement was finalized through a government-to-government arrangement and was signed by French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Indian Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar. The twin-engine, multi-role fighters will fulfill an important shortfall in the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) arsenal, with New Delhi planning to use the fighters in part as “an airborne strategic delivery system” for nuclear weapons. Per Dassault’s timetable, the first Rafale fighter should arrive in India in 2019.

For nearly a thousand years, Sri Lanka prospered as the Buddhist kingdom of Anuradhapura while the rest of India went its own way, with kingdoms rising and falling. However, by 1000 CE, the Tamil kingdoms in the south developed an advanced naval apparatus and an interest in maritime conquest. Chief among these was the Chola Empire, based in today’s Tamil Nadu. Rajendra Chola conquered Anuradhapura in 1017 and Tamil forces occupied the island for several decades. This was the first sustained political and military contact between the Indian mainland and Sri Lanka in centuries. Though Chola rule only lasted until 1070, it was the harbinger of continued Hindu Tamil settlement and invasions of northern Sri Lanka. Another Tamil kingdom from India, the Pandyans, invaded Sri Lanka again in the 13th century, and eventually a Tamil kingdom, the Jaffna Kingdom, was founded in northern Sri Lanka. In southern Sri Lanka, there were a series of Buddhist statelets. It was this fragmented state that allowed the Portuguese and the Dutch to establish control over coastal Sri Lanka in the 1500s.

“It’s possible this is the 80-ton booster that caused a large bump to the Iran Deal,” Hanham adds, referring to reports Iran and North Korea were cooperating on precisely such a booster for long-range rockets. Earlier this year, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned “11 individuals and entities” for their involvement in broader ballistic missile procurement for Iran, and noted in its release that “Within the past several years, Iranian missile technicians from SHIG (Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group) traveled to North Korea to work on an 80-ton rocket booster being developed by the North Korean government.”

This week, the B-21 Long Range Strike Bomber got a name: The Raider. The Air Force (with input from its airmen) selected well; Raider evokes themes consistent with the history of airpower theory, while not promising to replicate any particular legacy aircraft (the A-1 “Skyraider”) comes closest.

The long delayed, elusive agreement between the government of Afghanistan and notorious warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has been signed. The signing of the accord culminates what has been a seven month effort by Ashraf Ghani’s government to reincorporate Hekmaytar’s Hezb-i-Islami (HIG) faction with the central government. Delays over the accord this summer were focused primarily on disagreements surrounding the presence of foreign fighters in the war torn country.

Indonesia has offered to sell Pakistan defense equipment, local media reported Wednesday.

According to state-run news agency Antara News, Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Political, Security, and Legal Affairs Wiranto discussed defense sales with the commander of Pakistan’s armed forces, General Rashad Mahmood, during their meeting on Tuesday.

“We have also offered our defense equipment to them,” Wiranto was quoted as saying at his office.

Among the items considered, Wiranto said, were CN-235 aircraft, the Anoa armored personnel carrier (APC), and assault rifles.

The latest ostentatious construction project in Turkmenistan is reportedly complete. Ashgabat opened its shiny, falcon-shaped airport last weekend. It’s white, of course, and probably marble. The airport–which reportedly comprises 190 buildings spread across a 1,200 hectare site, with facilities to handle both people and cargo–cost a whopping $2.3 billion. The terminals, authorities say, will be able to serve 17 million passengers a year while the freight facilities are equipped to manage 200,000 tons a year.

After analyzing the images released by the North Koreans, experts at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey believe that North Korea showed off its extended range (ER) Scud missile. Because North Korea hasn’t flown or shown off the Scud-ER, the system has received fairly limited attention. The 2016 U.S. Department of Defense report on North Korea’s military notes the existence of the system alongside the regularly tested Scud-B (Hwasong-5), Scud-C (Hwasong-6), and the shorter-range Toksa.

The ER is a variation on the Scud-C with an elongated fuselage to store additional fuel. According to CNS’ Jeffrey Lewis, the pictures released by North Korea suggest that the launchers use a slightly larger cradle, but appear to otherwise be the same kind that Pyongyang uses for other missile launches. The Scud-ER is thought to be capable of delivering a 500 kg payload to roughly 1,000 km, Lewis adds. The payload is considerably reduced from the Scud-C–a trade-off that allows for a longer-range delivery.

The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG)—a group of ministers tasked with addressing serious or persistent violations of Commonwealth political values— will meet for the third time this year on September 23, 2016. The Maldivian government is certainly sensitive to CMAG’s verdict on the state of affairs in the country. Yameen and his ministers have been lobbying hard with the Commonwealth countries of Pakistan, India, and Malaysia, ostensibly to avoid a negative judgement.

For the Commonwealth to prove itself to be more than a post-colonial nostalgic circle, it must express its intent beyond words. Indeed, the CMAG meeting on Friday would be a test of its commitment toward the values of democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms.