Rajeesh Kumar

The year 2020 marked 75 years of India’s association with the United Nations. India was one of the founding members of the UN when its institutional edifice was built in 1945. Since then, the concept of UN centrality in international peace and security matters is one of the features of Indian foreign policy. Over the decades, India played an active role in the UN’s political process and significantly contributed to its policies and programmes. At the UN, India stood at the fore of the struggle against colonialism and apartheid.

• Published: May 2021
• Strategic Analysis

UNAMID's exit did not emerge from a context of peace or progress towards conflict resolution in Darfur. Instead, the exit decision was essentially the outcome of the reflection that keeping the mission on the ground would not change the situation. Initially, the hybrid peacekeeping model was seen as a paradigm shift in peacekeeping operations, and many hailed it as the future of UN peace operations.

• Published: January-December 2021
• Africa Trends

COVID-19 vaccine hoarding by wealthy nations will prolong the pandemic, and result in greater economic and social damage.

• Published: January 04, 2021
• Issue Brief

Strategic Analysis, Volume 44, Issue 5 (2020)

Special Issue: UN@75 – Challenges Ahead

• Published: September 2020
• Strategic Analysis

While India’s decision to ban Chinese apps is legally tenable under both domestic IT laws and international trade rules, it is important that any ambiguity in the ban order that can be challenged at WTO is effectively addressed.

• Published: July 29, 2020
• Issue Brief

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed vulnerabilities of the international system, particularly those of multilateral institutions. When the much spoken borderless threat became a reality, the multilateral institutions were found not only unprepared but acting in a self-destructive mode.

• Published: May 21, 2020
• IDSA Comments

Associate Fellow, Manohar Parrikar IDSA, Dr. Rajeesh Kumar’s chapter on American exceptionalism, titled ‘From Bush to Trump: American Exceptionalism and its implications for Multilateralism’ has been published in Arzu Merali & Faisal Bodi, eds. The New Colonialism: The American Model of Human Rights, London: IHRC, 2019.

The chapter examines the implications of American exceptionalism, belief that the US differs qualitatively from other nations, on multilateralism by analysing the US foreign policy from President George W. Bush to Donald Trump. It argues that American exceptionalism always seeks to safeguard the sovereignty of the US in all aspects of global politics, and this approach often transformed into unilateral international actions and challenged the very existence of multilateral institutions.

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• Published: 1 May, 2020

Associate Fellow, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, Dr. Rajeesh Kumar’s article on SAARC, titled ‘Is Revitalising SAARC Possible and Rational?’ has been published in the Spring-Summer 2020 edition of Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies (JSPES).

The article explores, as a regional organisation, how SAARC has failed to promote cooperation in the region. Against the backdrop of the structural fragility of SAARC and conflict among member states, this article examines the possibility and pragmatism of revitalising SAARC and argues that even if reinvigorated through structural reforms, the organisation will not be able to contribute to regional cooperation and development.

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• Published: 18 March, 2020

COP25 was expected to give prominence to science, streamline ambitious targets and raise trust among parties. Even after a marathon two-week talks, issues such as creating an international carbon market and climate financing were pushed to the next year.

• Published: January 15, 2020
• IDSA Comments

One of the limitations of Indian foreign policy literature is its apathy towards employing novel approaches and methods. Though Indian foreign policy has gone through a dramatic transformation, particularly in the last two decades, the majority of scholarly attempts still spin around traditional theoretical paradigms. Thus, the academic enterprise on Indian foreign policy remained limited to the realist, liberal and at best post-colonial explanations. The inability of these distinct theoretical traditions to explain the complexity of Indian foreign policy created a void in the literature.

• Published: September 2019
• Strategic Analysis