Publication Filter

Waiting for Godot*: India and United Nations Security Council Reform

This article analyses the history of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) reform with a particular focus on India’s aspiration and attempts to become a permanent member on the Council. The primary objectives of this historical examination are to appreciate how hard reforming the UNSC is and to understand how challenging it will be for India to acquire a permanent seat on the Council. Probing the General Assembly debates on UNSC reform, the article exposes the fundamental hurdles to change, the duplicity of the permanent five (P-5) and lack of unity among the stakeholders.

Disaster Relief as a Political Tool: Analysing Indian and Chinese Responses after the Nepal Earthquakes

In the aftermath of the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal, China and India immediately sent relief teams. The relief efforts in Nepal showcase a competitive aspect of the two major regional powers, as China seeks to gradually increase its influence in South Asia. This article analyses how these two governments utilised relief efforts to increase influence in Nepal, within the wider context of the contentious Sino–Indian relationship. The Chinese and Indian relief responses after the Nepal earthquakes are extrapolated to assess their strategic utility.

How North Korea was Armed

China and to a lesser extent Pakistan have helped North Korea with its nuclear and missile development programmes.

Prabha Rao
October 30, 2017
Issue Brief

South Asian Geopolitics: Has Pakistan Lost its Plot?

Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War, by C. Christine Fair, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 343, £27.99

Defeat is an Orphan: How Pakistan Lost the Great South Asian War, by Myra MacDonald, London: Hurst & Co., 2017, pp. 328, £25.00‘

High End in the Pacific: Envisioning the Upper Limits of India-US Naval Cooperation in Pacific-Asia

The article argues that India and the United States are poised to strengthen their bilateral strategic convergences, not only in the Indian Ocean but also in Pacific-Asia that lies eastwards of the Malacca Straits, and wherein India’s geo-strategic stakes as well as its military-strategic footprint are likely to increase in the coming years. This would progressively enhance the complementarities between their navies in the western Pacific and its contiguous seas, thereby enabling substantive naval cooperation towards ensuring security and stability in the broader Indo-Pacific region.

The Trump Challenge to the JCPOA

Trump’s new policy statement on Iran has enveloped the UNSC-approved Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in a shroud of uncertainty that could lead to further instability in conflict-ridden West Asia.

India’s Strategic Connect with the World

The various connectivity projects put forward by India show its involvement as an investor in capacity-building efforts in the recipient countries across sectors of their particular needs and choices, not as an overarching and imposing economic power.

Sreemati Ganguli
October 23, 2017
IDSA Comments

A Rock between Hard Places: Afghanistan as an Arena of Regional Insecurity, by Kristian Berg Harpviken and Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh

The book, A Rock between Hard Places, is the result of research carried out by K.B. Harpviken and S. Tadjbakhsh, independently and jointly, with encouragement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway. In this book, the authors have examined the events unfolding in Afghanistan from a regional perspective up to 2015, set against the backdrop of the scheduled withdrawal of the United States (US)-led military alliance.

Foreign Policy and Sea Power: India’s Maritime Role Flux

The core argument this article makes is that India’s maritime worldview and role conceptions have not only been evolving since the 1950s, but they have also been closely interlinked with how policymakers thought about India’s regional identity and the state’s economic capacity to release resources towards sea power. Today, there are three maritime role conceptions that are vying for the apex’s strategic attention, and they are reflective of a deeper role flux in India’s regional identity.

War from the Ground Up: Twenty-first-century Combat as Politics, by Emile Simpson

War from the Ground Up is not easy reading. The author’s erudition, bolstered by a wealth of detail and historical context, makes this one of the more serious studies on contemporary military conflict. Emile Simpson has attempted to arrive at an overall understanding of war in its contemporary and traditional forms by drawing on his experience of three tours as an infantry officer with the Royal Gurkha Rifles in Afghanistan.