This volume is based on the proceedings of Delhi Dialogue VII held in March 2015. It epitomizes the growing dialogue between India and ASEAN at all levels. Delhi Dialogue brings together practitioners, corporate leaders, opinion makers, academics and journalists, every year, to discuss a wide range of issues of common interest and concern that animate the India - ASEAN relationship. Discussions held at the Delhi Dialogue, subsequent to ASEAN Commemorative Summit issuing the ‘Vision Statement’ in 2012, provide a good insight into the likely scenarios and possible trends in the post-2015 era.

In over a century since the first manned flight, air power has made spectacular progress. Every conflict since World War II has seen an increasingly bigger role of air power, but despite this, to a general reader, air power continues to be esoteric. The study highlights major air power lessons of all the major conflicts, and explains air power roles and missions. It frankly yet fairly discusses the somewhat contentious subject of air power in support of surface forces and traces the IAF’s contribution in war and peace in the last 68 years since independence. It critically examines if use of air power in the Indian subcontinent is indeed escalatory.

This book is the first in a series of three volumes on “Kautilya and His Vocabulary” as a part of the “Indigenous Historical Knowledge” project undertaken by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi. The edited volumes contain select papers presented in a series of workshop, national and international seminars organised by the institute. The project is an attempt to trace, look into, analyse and relate with the indigenous strategic thinking in India. These volumes aim at initiating the study, internalisation, spread and consolidation of Kautilya’s Arthashastra in the strategic domain. The four focus themes in the three volumes are foreign policy, intelligence, war and internal security as they relate to contemporary times.

This book offers wide ranging divergent perspectives on India's role in managing and shaping Asian Security. The book offers important ideas on how Asian security will shape up in the future by utilizing the method of scenarios. It is an important contribution to the field of Asian and regional security and India's role in it.

Since the outbreak of the Arab unrest, sectarian politics has become more pronounced throughout the West Asian region which is reflected in the growing polarisation of society and politics on narrow sectarian lines. Rulers have adopted sectarian approaches as a measure to secure their regimes.

The world is entering an era with increased global demand for energy, price volatility, and rising concerns about environmental burdens and the global impact of climate change. Directly or indirectly, these factors have given rise to related concerns such as deregulation and geopolitical uncertainties. Moreover, the challenges related to the energy issue go beyond scientific or technological aspects and extend to access to resources, regional conflicts, pricing and energy infrastructure management.

Despite being faced with myriad and complex challenges to national security, India's defence structures have not kept pace with changing times. The defence reforms that were undertaken periodically were reactive in nature and, in many cases, responses to crises as well as being sporadic, piecemeal and often ad hoc. The most recent review of security challenges undertaken occurred close to two decades ago, in the aftermath of the Kargil conflict of 1999.

The book traces India’s Saudi Policy and locates the current state of bilateral relations and the challenges it faces. It argues that during the Cold War the relations were largely shaped by the Pakistan factor which in turn inhibited both sides from exploring the importance and value of one another. As a result, the relations were largely transactional and marginal. The end of the Cold War coincided with two interesting developments, namely, significant growth in India’s economic power and influence and the de-hyphenation of Pakistan from its Middle East policy. This resulted in greater political engagements between India and Saudi Arabia and was strengthened by the growing energy trade ties. For long expatiate population and haj have been the backbone of the relations, and they have been new instruments as India looks to enhance its engagements with the Kingdom through investments opportunities, political contacts, shared security concerns and strategic cooperation. India’s Saudi policy, however, face many challenges most importantly the regional instability, the Iran factor, low oil price and the international dynamics. The book will be the first comprehensive work on the India-Saudi relations. Though targeting a wider audience, it will be academically grounded and based on primary sources collected from India and Saudi Arabia.

This anthology of essays traverses a wide range of issues exploring the inconsistencies in the global war on terror, and brings together diverse perspectives from eminent academia, practitioners, technologists and civil society from Asia. It takes the conversation beyond the academic realm by delving into first person accounts from authors who are living and fighting terrorism in the heart of conflict zones in the region.

This book analyses the structure of the India–China relationship and the two prominent powers’ positions with and against each other, bilaterally and globally, in a complex Asian environment and beyond. India and China’s perceptions of one another are evaluated to reveal how the order of Asia is influenced by engaging in different power equations that affect equilibrium and disequilibrium.

Contributors address three critical perspectives of India and China in Asia which are increasingly shaping the future of Asia and impacting the Indo-Pacific power balance. First, they examine the mutual perceptions of India and China as an integral part of Asia’s evolving politics and the impact of this on the emerging Asian order and disorder. Second, they assess how classical and contemporary characteristics of the India–China boundary and beyond-border disputes or conflicts are shaping Asia’s political trajectory and leaving an impact on the Indo-Pacific region. Additionally, contributors observe the prevailing power equations in which India and China are currently engaged to reveal that they are not only geographically limited to the Asian region. Instead, having a strong global or intercontinental character attached to it, the India–China relationship involves extra-territorial powers and extra-territorial regions.

This book will be of interest to academics, students and policymakers working on Asian studies, international relations, area studies, emerging powers studies, strategic studies, security studies and conflict studies.