Afghanistan: A Firewall is Better than Partition India has been fairly successful in firewalling the radical blowback emanating from Pakistan in the past and need not be overly worried about the impending US withdrawal. Harinder Singh , Sushant Sareen October 07, 2010 Issue Brief
The Second US-ASEAN Leaders’ Meeting in New York The second US-ASEAN Leaders’ Meeting in New York hints at concerns about China’s assertiveness and acknowledges a role for US balancing. Udai Bhanu Singh October 07, 2010 IDSA Comments
18th Amendment: Making a Mockery of Democracy in Sri Lanka The Sri Lankan government seems to be in a desperate hurry to bring about all the necessary revisions in the constitution to strengthen the Executive Presidency without any provision of checks and balances. Sri Lanka, under Rajapaksa, is headed towards nepotism and dictatorship as the 18th amendment suggests. Gulbin Sultana October 07, 2010 IDSA Comments
The Ghost of September 12 in Turkey From a broader perspective, the referendum and the debates around it should be seen as the latest example of the domestic transformation of Turkish politics especially since the AKP came to power in 2002. Mehmet Ozkan October 07, 2010 IDSA Comments
Cold Start and ‘The Sehjra Option’ The Cold Start doctrine is an innovative exercise. While Cold Start discusses how to start the campaign, equal thinking needs to attend how to end it. On the conventional level, the learning is that the Cold Start offensives of the integrated battle groups need to be delinked from those of the strike corps. Plausible political aims cannot be visualised that make nuclear risk of launch of strike corps offensives worth running. On the nuclear front, fallout of the scenario considered is on the doctrine of ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation. Ali Ahmed October 2010 Journal of Defence Studies
Salient Issues Affecting Defence Manpower in India Manpower costs are increasingly becoming unmanageable and are driving national security planners towards thinking creatively about what used to be called ‘affordable defence’. Despite leap-frogging from third to fourth generation weapons technologies in the short span of about two decades, modern armed forces are still far from being able to effect substantive reductions in manpower by substituting fighting personnel with innovative technologies while ensuring operational effectiveness. Gurmeet Kanwal October 2010 Journal of Defence Studies
Social Networking: Boon or Bane for the Armed Forces The social networking sites can be exploited by the cyber operators by infiltration and influencing the opinion where feasible. Cyber espionage has already became the cornerstone of some nations, where international cyber security agencies have reasons to believe, of state complicity in major hacking, denial of service attacks in the last couple of years. Since social networks become easy prey to such agencies, there is a need to increase awareness of defence personal about their vulnerabilities. Suyash Sharma October 2010 Journal of Defence Studies
India, Israel, and the Defence Taboo Cutting off defence ties with Israel will not in any way be the ‘magic’ bullet that will lead to the resolution of the intractable Palestine conflict. S. Samuel C. Rajiv September 30, 2010 IDSA Comments
Contest and Cooperation in the Arctic Global warming-induced accessibility has drawn many actors to the Arctic zone, seeking to establish exclusive sovereign rights over its many natural endowments. Kalyani Unkule September 28, 2010 IDSA Comments
The ‘Cold Start and Stop’ strategy The strategy helps sensitise Pakistan to India’s tolerance threshold and reinforces deterrence by bringing home unambiguously to Pakistan that things could get out of hand. Ali Ahmed September 28, 2010 IDSA Comments
