A. Vinod Kumar

The Trump administration’s BMDR, released in early 2019, can be described as the most proactive BMD plan since the SDI days with fillip given to areas like directed-energy, addressing gaps in boost-phase interception and harnessing the space frontier. Besides analyzing the BMDR threadbare, this Volume uses a hitherto unexplored cache of documents to reconstruct the anatomy of the India-US BMD dialogue so to ascertain why it failed and what the BMDR augurs for India’s BMD future.

• Published: 2019
• IDSA Occasional Papers

For every major military invention in human history, there has quite always been a countervailing technology. Nuclear weapons have, however, remained an exception. Ballistic missile defence (BMD) has, in recent years, emerged as a formidable means to defend against nuclear-armed delivery systems though yet to prove their total reliability. What does the advent of BMD mean for the nuclear revolution – will it make nuclear weapons obsolete or in turn lead to a new arms race among great powers?

• Published: 2019
• Monograph

Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN 978-11-0705-662-6
Price: Rs.895/-
The book describes India as a unique case of an outlier surviving outside the regime’s overarching system, as a nuclear-capable state with prolonged record of resistance (and selective adherence), but ending up seeking opportunities to engage with its normative structures. The ideological and policy shifts that had shaped India’s transformative journey from a perennial outlier to one seeking greater integration with the regime, though, also exemplifies the underlying strategic paradoxes and dogmatic incongruities. The book assesses how these dynamics will determine India’s role in global anti-proliferation and its status in the emerging global nuclear order.

• Published: 2014
• Book

• Published: 19700101
• IDSA Occasional Papers

How will ballistic missile defences affect nuclear deterrence? This is a question as old as the nuclear revolution but has attained significance in the current security environment wherein nuclear-armed states are increasingly pursuing development and deployment of BMD and their doctrinal integration with strategic forces and postures. Yet, the advent of BMD is bereft of conceptual clarity as their effects on nuclear deterrence is yet to be aptly understood.

• Published: January 2022
• Strategic Analysis

It may seem premature to discuss the advent of an illiberal global order, however, the numerous catalytic events of recent years and the apparent decline of American heft in shaping global norms and structures might indicate that the international system is on the cusp of a major transformation.

• Published: October 12, 2021
• Issue Brief

Through effective contagion mitigation and disease control strategies, India has managed to confine the COVID-19 to a minuscule section of the population, though at great economic cost.

• Published: March 24, 2021
• Issue Brief

Associate Fellow, Manohar Parrikar-IDSA, Mr. A. Vinod Kumar's chapter ‘The Struggle Between Political Idealism and Policy Realism: The Making of India’s Nuclear Policy’ has been published in the edited volume ‘The Interface of Domestic and International Factors in India’s Foreign Policy’, published by Routledge: Taylor and Francis (March 2021).

The chapter assesses the evolution of India's nuclear policy within the larger framework of the country's foreign policy. Using various archival records, the chapter traverses through the defining phases of Indian foreign policy and evaluates the course of the nuclear policy through these phases.

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• Published: 8 March, 2021

Biden has set an ambitious agenda to reinvigorate US global leadership by pursuing a proactive grand strategy. He will, however, have to reckon with the legacy of Trumpism that has made a significant imprint on American foreign policy.

• Published: November 27, 2020
• Issue Brief

India’s decision to reject the NPT was a display of astute statecraft with idealist posturing used to masquerade pursuit of national interests.

• Published: September 25, 2020
• Issue Brief