President Obama’s Policy on Syria This is the right time to raise a fundamental question about Obama’s policy towards Syria: Is there a coherent, consistent policy, based on a reasonably accurate assessment of the ground realities in Syria? The answer is a definite no. K. P. Fabian November 18, 2014 IDSA Comments
Modi’s Mission Downunder India-Australia relation is entering a new orbit and setting a path of strategic convergence. But there are equally other significant issues of cooperation that can bolster Modi’s vision for inclusive development and better governance including Australia’s successes at preserving its ecosystem, water resources distribution and renewable energy. Ashutosh Misra November 14, 2014 IDSA Comments
Modi’s Australia visit: Maritime Cooperation in Focus The government’s ‘Act East Policy’ needs to legitimise the ‘Indo-Pacific’ concept. Interestingly, only a few months after the release of the 2013 White Paper, Australia released a Country Strategy Document on India which identified the Indian Navy as possessing the most potential for a close maritime partnership Abhijit Singh November 13, 2014 IDSA Comments
ISIS on backfoot: Coalition gets al-Baghdadi Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death will be a serious setback to Daesh as it is different from Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups that did not proclaim a ‘caliphate’. As the history of Islam shows, the proclamation of a new ‘caliph’ can be problematic. Sandhya Jain November 11, 2014 IDSA Comments
Things that Modi should do in Myanmar The Prime Minister must reach out to Myanmar in unconventional ways and remove any antipathy among the people who once, like other neighbours, had began to perceive India as a big military threat. P. Stobdan November 10, 2014 IDSA Comments
Fall of the Berlin Wall: Marking 25 years The fall of the wall also coincided with the collapse of the USSR and end of the Cold War. Theoverall changes since 1989 have been largely a remarkable success with the majority of citizens in the former socialist countries not wanting to go back to the earlier economic and political system. Gulshan Sachdeva November 10, 2014 IDSA Comments
“Make In India” in Defence: Embedding Industry-wide Dialogue and Consultation For the mantra to become an all-pervasive reality in defence acquisitions in India will be to multiply manifold the onset, frequency, range and depthof its industry engagements. Sandeep Verma November 07, 2014 IDSA Comments
Why India is getting Wagah all wrong The Wagah incident is not going to wake-up Pakistan to the existential threat posed by jihadist terror groups. There is neither going to be any change in its attitude towards using terrorism as an instrument of state policy, nor its inimical attitude towards India. Sushant Sareen November 05, 2014 IDSA Comments
Dysfunctional Operating Environment in Defence: Removing the Cobwebs The effort to set right the operating environment has to start with creating a mechanism to review the existing devolution of power comprehensively based on clearly defined principles and not in an ad hoc manner. Amit Cowshish November 05, 2014 IDSA Comments
Overview of Korea’s Arctic Policy Development In his Murmansk speech in 1987, Gorbachev proposed the Arctic as the shortest sea route linking Europe to the Far East and the Pacific Ocean, triggering a new perspective on the region.1 Since then, the 1991 Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS), referred to as the Finnish Initiative, has been created as a multilateral, non-binding agreement among Arctic states to protect the environment by monitoring, assessment, emergency preparedness/response, and conservation of the Arctic zone. Jong Deog Kim November 2014 Strategic Analysis