Strategic Analysis
Strategic Analysis is the bimonthly journal of the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA), New Delhi. It is published by Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, United Kingdom.
For subscription and other details, please visit the Taylor and Francis Online webpage.
The Journal provides a forum for independent research, analyses, and commentaries on national, regional and international security issues that have policy relevance. It seeks to promote a better understanding of Indian thinking on contemporary national and international themes. The Journal reflects a diversity of views from the strategic and international relations studies community both from within and outside India. The flagship in the IDSA stable of publications, Strategic Analysis began as a monthly journal in April 1977 and served as a medium for publishing commentaries on current events. From early 1987, its contents came to include both research articles as well as commentaries on national and international developments. It was transformed into a quarterly, refereed, journal in 2002. Routledge has been publishing the journal in a bi-monthly format since January 2007.
Scholars and analysts are welcome to submit well-researched papers for publication in this refereed journal.
Submissions should be directed to the T&F Group Submission Portal.
Guidelines for contributors [+]
Current Issue: November-December 2025
The final Issue of 2025 brings together a set of contributions that exmaine the shifting intersections of power, identity, and strategy in an increasingly fluid global order. The lead article analyses India’s use of strategic narratives and smart power in shaping its external engagement between 2014 and 2024, highlighting the interplay between perception, policy, and influence. In a complementary vein, another study examines India’s defence diplomacy as an instrument of soft power in Southeast Asia, highlighting its significance in strengthening regional partnerships. Broadening the analytical lens, one paper offers a literary and philosophical interpretation of the global order during the COVID-19 pandemic, engaging with deeper questions of contagion, crisis, and systemic change. Additional contributions investigate ethnocratic statecraft and conflict in Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts, analyse the material and ideational drivers behind the conceptualisation of the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor, and assess the role of minilateral mechanisms in reinforcing ASEAN centrality, with particular focus on the Mekong sub-region.
The Commentaries section turn to the growing salience of education as a tool of soft power to enhance security and influence within competitive regional environments. The other write-up of this section explores how educational engagement shapes influence in Asia and evaluates its role in strengthening India’s ties with Afghanistan, situating these efforts within broader realist dynamics.
The Strategic Essay reflects on the mounting strains within the liberal international order, arguing that its foundational assumptions are increasingly under pressure from shifting power balances and competing normative frameworks.
The Review Essay revisits the political legacy of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah through an engagement with his biographers, offering insights into the contested narratives that continue to shape understandings of leadership and regional politics.
Finally, From the Archives section revisits enduring questions in foreign policy and strategic alignment, with reflections on Indo-Soviet relations and Pakistan’s foreign policy orientations, offering historical perspectives that continue to inform contemporary geopolitical debates.
Archives [+]
