Nuclear Disarmament and Proliferation: Two Sides of the Same Coin Disarmament, especially nuclear disarmament, has long been a dream of world ever since it witnessed the horrors of the effects of its use in the Second World War. Nuclear disarmament is likely to be the centre of debate at the forthcoming NPT Review Conference. G. Balachandran March 2010 Strategic Analysis
The Realist Case Against Nuclear Disarmament Nuclear disarmament is once again fashionable. If rhetoric was sufficient, nuclear disarmament should be easily achievable. But what the rhetoric hides is not only the difficulty of achieving nuclear disarmament, but also the instrumental manner in which that rhetoric is being deployed. At the height of the Cold War, the two superpowers traded a number of detailed proposals for controlling the atom. Rajesh Rajagopalan March 2010 Strategic Analysis
The Importance of 2010 In international relations, the more powerful have a way of underplaying history or overemphasising it, depending on how helpful or otherwise it may be in promoting their immediate objectives. It is interesting to note that even a country like India, which is beginning to sense the stirrings of power, is tending to fall into the same pattern. Arundhati Ghose March 2010 Strategic Analysis
Special Editor’s Introduction The failure of the 2005 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference (RevCon) almost signalled doom for the treaty. The NPT, since it came into force, has always travelled a slippery slope encountering various hurdles on the way. Its problem did not end even after it acquired the ‘near universal’ status. With the exception of India, Pakistan and Israel, all countries have joined the treaty, though North Korea withdrew from it and later conducted a couple of nuclear tests. Rajiv Nayan March 2010 Strategic Analysis
Cyber Wars: A Paradigm Shift from Means to Ends The last couple of decades have seen a colossal change in terms of the influence that computers can have on the battlefield, with defence pundits claiming it to be the dawn of a new era in warfare. Under these circumstances, there has been a gradual paradigm shift in military thinking and strategies from the strategic aspect to the tactical aspect of cyber warfare, laying more emphasis on it being a potent force multiplier. The author believes this is wrong and rather than cyber warfare being an enhancement of traditional operations, the latter will be force multipliers of cyber warfare. Amit Sharma March 2010 Strategic Analysis
The Urumqi Crisis: Effect of China’s Ethno-national Politics Experts are still searching for a settled answer to the causes and aftermath of the violent unrest between the Han and Uyghurs in China's Xinjiang province that erupted on July 5, 2009. The long-simmering resentment of the native Uyghurs against the Han-dominated groups coupled with the deepening economic crisis is believed to have been the major reason for the ethnic riots. The questions being asked now are: Was it a crisis of ethnicity or economy? Why did the crisis manifest itself this way? And was the crisis a prelude to China's terrorism problem? Jagannath P. Panda March 2010 Strategic Analysis
The Political Factor in Nuclear Retaliation That a nuclear taboo exists indicates the divide between conventional and nuclear war. It is no wonder then that India – though a nuclear weapons power – deems nuclear weapons not for military use but for deterrence purposes. These are, therefore, taken as political weapons. Seeking to deter use of nuclear weapons against India or its forces anywhere, India's nuclear doctrine promises ‘massive’ punitive retaliatory strike in case of nuclear use by its enemy. This is evidence that the Indian leadership is cognizant of the special status of nuclear weapons. Ali Ahmed March 2010 Strategic Analysis
EU-India Counter-Terrorism Cooperation: Post-Lisbon Prospects Since both India and EU face the same threat of religious radicalism at home and from across the border, focused cooperation on this issue must be given serious thought. Alok Rashmi Mukhopadhyay February 26, 2010 IDSA Comments
The military intelligence function in future war To prevent intelligence failures there is a need to incorporate the additional and fresh areas of intelligence interest brought on by the asymmetric and nuclear dimensions of future conflict. Ali Ahmed February 26, 2010 IDSA Comments
The Dragon’s Shield: Intricacies of China’s BMD Capability China undertook a BMD test on January 11, 2010, which it claimed was an exoatmospheric interception. Though Beijing was known to be developing missile defence systems for long, there were very few indicators on how far it has gone in terms of technological prowess. A. Vinod Kumar February 25, 2010 Issue Brief
