China’s Mediation Efforts in the Middle East and North Africa: Constructive Conflict Management Mediation diplomacy has emerged as one of the central pillars of China’s foreign policy objectives and practice, with Beijing deliberately positioning itself as a peacemaker in the MENA region. This study evaluates China’s role as a regional peacemaker by examining Beijing’s growing engagement with bringing about a peaceful resolution to the MENA disputes. Specifically, this study seeks to examine whether or not China’s mediation efforts in the MENA region augur a shift in China’s non-intervention principle and practice. Mordechai Chaziza | January 2018 | Strategic Analysis
India’s Bilateral Security Relationship in South Asia The article argues that the contours of a security architecture are becoming slowly visible in South Asia. This process is nurtured by two developments. First, since the 2000s, India has increased its security cooperation with nearly all its neighbours in South Asia. Second, since 2013 governments in New Delhi have promoted the concept of India as a security provider in the region and the Indian Ocean. Christian Wagner | January 2018 | Strategic Analysis
India–US Defence Cooperation: Assessing Strategic Imperatives Over the last decade or so, especially during much of Barack Obama’s presidential tenure, the defence sector has become the focus area of cooperation between India and the US. India’s engagement with the US in the area of defence is riding on a new-found realism that drives both countries’ strategic aspirations. Vivek Mishra | January 2018 | Strategic Analysis
Two standoffs and some nuclear lessons The standoffs in Doklam and North Korea offer insights on how crisis stability remains subject to the complexities of deterrence, especially in theatres with multiple nuclear-armed states, and what this entails for disarmament. A. Vinod Kumar | December 29, 2017 | IDSA Comments
Time is ripe to start bilateral talks between the US and North Korea The time is opportune now for the international community to press for the start of bilateral discussions between the US and North Korea leading to the full participation of the UNSC in the final negotiations. G. Balachandran | December 20, 2017 | IDSA Comments
India’s Relations with the Latin America-Caribbean Region: Prospects and Constraints This paper seeks, from a Latin American perspective, to examine India's relations with the Latin America-Caribbean region. It makes a distinction between the hesitant and somewhat apathetic approach of the Indian government towards enhanced ties with the region and the rather more proactive and enthusiastic approach by the Indian business sector which has seen Indian trade with the region growing many fold and increasing at the same rate as China's. Sanjay Badri-Maharaj | | Occasional Papers
Is it Jerusalem or Jerusalems? Jerusalem is a theological, geographical, historical, archaeological, political and emotional issue with contested claims and overlapping legacies. P. R. Kumaraswamy | December 15, 2017 | Issue Brief
The Contours of a Negotiated Nuclear-Missile Deal with North Korea Removing the Kim regime’s fears about regime change and reducing the insecurity caused by North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests to the US and its allies are the essentials that must be addressed in a UN-led multinational dialogue to forge a negotiated settlement. G. Balachandran | December 12, 2017 | IDSA Comments
To make Chabahar a ‘Game Changer’ Central Asian states need to be roped in India needs to rope in one or more of the Central Asian countries, preferably Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, in the Chabahar project, to fully exploit its potential. P. Stobdan | December 12, 2017 | IDSA Comments
Why disclaiming Pakistan occupied Kashmir is not prudent Prudent as it may have appeared to reconcile to the territorial status quo in the past, policy makers must ask themselves whether such an approach has really worked in India’s favour. Priyanka Singh | December 11, 2017 | IDSA Comments
