S. Samuel C. Rajiv

With the possibility of ‘smart’ sanctions in the near future and muscular US military moves in the Persian Gulf, the grids for the end game on Iran’s nuclear intransigence are getting strengthened.

• Published: April 07, 2010
• IDSA Comments

While countries need to adopt each other’s best practices to deal with the hydra-headed monster called terrorism, there cannot be a magic bullet or a single successful counter-terror strategy.

• Published: November 26, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Obama is the first American president to actively pursue the goal of nuclear disarmament. But roadblocks on the road to disarmament nirvana, as envisaged by Obama, remain.

• Published: October 08, 2009
• IDSA Comments

An editorial in the New York Times on July 18, 2009 ahead of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to India - ‘Secretary Clinton goes to India’, has generated a lot of interest.

• Published: July 25, 2009
• IDSA Comments

April 29 marked the first 100 days of the presidency of Barack Obama. Urgency, pragmatism and engagement have marked his method of tackling the enormous challenges bequeathed to him by the previous administration. Complimenting this three-pronged approach in dealing with inherited challenges, the Obama administration has also initiated major policy moves with ambitious agendas encompassing a triad of issues - nuclear disarmament, energy independence and climate change.

• Published: May 01, 2009
• IDSA Comments

As the new government headed by Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu takes charge in Jerusalem, it seems that there are no easy solutions to what Israel perceives to be its central strategic question – how to effectively stop the Iranian nuclear quest. Israel’s leaders across the political spectrum have long maintained that a nuclear capable Iran, coupled with the rhetoric against Israel emanating from Tehran and its help to groups like the Hezbollah and the Hamas, constitutes an existential threat.

• Published: April 08, 2009
• IDSA Comments

• Published: January 2009
• Strategic Analysis

The military commander most associated with executing President George Bush’s ‘troop surge’ in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, handed over command of US forces to Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno on September 16, after completing nearly 18 months of duty at the helm. He had taken over from the then commander Gen. George Casey in early February 2007, at a time when rising American and Iraqi civilian casualties threatened to engulf the whole region with its attendant negative consequences.

• Published: September 24, 2008
• IDSA Comments

The latest US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear programme, “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities” of November 2007 (released on 3 December 2007) notes with “high confidence” that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons programme in the fall of 2003 and with “moderate confidence” that Iran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007.

• Published: December 20, 2007
• IDSA Comments

• Published: September 2007
• Strategic Analysis