Journal of Defence Studies

Jihadist Radicalisation in India: Internal Challenges, External Threats

The Indian strategic community has for long debated aspects of jihadist radicalisation in the country—particularly over its origins, causes, extent, trajectory and possible counter-measures. This article posits that in the...

Inherent Structural Constraints Challenging India’s Internal Security

The words ‘internal security’ do not figure in the Constitution of India. At the time of the framing of the Indian Constitution, the lawmakers were more worried about preserving the...

Police and Counter-Insurgency: The Untold Story of Tripura’s COIN Campaign, by Kuldeep Kumar

The role of the state police in combating insurgencies has not been given due acknowledgement in India despite the success stories of Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal where police...

India’s National Security Annual Review 2016–17, edited by Satish Kumar

The volume under review is the sixteenth in the series of the project supported by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS). The series...

Keeping India Safe: The Dilemma of Internal Security, by Vappala Balachandran

The hedgehog’s or the porcupine’s dilemma is a metaphor about the challenges of coexistence. It describes a situation in which a group of hedgehogs seek to move close to one...

The CRPF and Internal Security: A Perspective Analysis

This article critically analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), as the prime agency of the Government of India, attending to manifold matters of internal...

The Quest for Nagalim: Fault Lines and Challenges

The Naga quest for independence is one of the longest-running struggles in the Indian subcontinent. Despite numerous attempts made in the past towards resolving the conflict, it continues to remain...

Decentralisation, Autonomy and Effective Governance: Policy Options for Resolving the Kashmir Imbroglio

This article looks at the essential conditions for a durable peace in Kashmir and argues that the Valley has been most peaceful only during an active, on-going peace process. The...

The Current Kashmir Imbroglio: Causes and the Way Ahead

On 8 July 2016, a group of soldiers and policemen surrounded a house in Bumdoora village of south Kashmir. As search of the house started, one policeman was fired at...

Additive Manufacturing in Aerospace and Defence Sector: Strategy of India

Additive manufacturing (AM), also popularly known as 3-D printing, is revolutionising the global manufacturing landscape. The proliferation of AM technology has had a huge impact on the design and production...

High Command: British Military Leadership in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, by Christopher L. Elliott

Defeats are orphans and very educative. Most defeats are, in fact, manifestation of erroneous judgments or equipment failure, or a combinations of the two. In case the defeats are of...

A Longue Durée Perspective on Military Science in India

This article posits that military science has been one of the most neglected subjects in Indian history in practice and in scholarship. Greater, popular scholarly focus tends to be mostly...

P. K. Gautam |
January-March 2018 |
Journal of Defence Studies

Faith, Unity, Discipline: The ISI of Pakistan by Hein G. Kiessling

The work of intelligence agencies is a grey area and any attempt to ‘lift the veil’ is an uphill task, shrouded in uncertainty and doubt, and suspect as to the...

India’s Pathways for Regional Prominence in Asia-Pacific: Prospects and Challenges

Asian geopolitics currently represents a complex blending of power and paradox, both stable and fluid, with change occurring against an unresolved tension between the direction of economic growth and that...

Balochistan, the British and the Great Game: The Struggle for the Bolan Pass, Gateway to India by T.A. Heathcote

The book traces the history and events of the nineteenth century in a sparsely populated desert area of Asia, Balochistan, an area (inhabited by the tribal Baloch people) and brings...

Y.M. Bammi |
January-March 2018 |
Journal of Defence Studies

Drones: An Emerging Terror Tool

From the days of their inception, remotely piloted aero models (known popularly as drones) have been feared as a means of spreading terror. Recently, the use of drones by terrorist...

Atul Pant |
January-March 2018 |
Journal of Defence Studies

Doklam and the Indo-China Boundary

On 19 December 2017, three days ahead of the scheduled 20th Round of Indo-China border talk between the Indian National Security Advisor (NSA), Ajit Doval, and China’s State Councillor, Yang...

A.K. Bardalai |
January-March 2018 |
Journal of Defence Studies

Inside the Enemy’s Computer: Identifying Cyber-Attackers, by Clement Guitton

Attribution of cyberattacks is an impending issue in enabling a credible deterrent against both state and non-state actors. It applies equally to cases of a criminal nature as well as...

Munish Sharma |
January-March 2018 |
Journal of Defence Studies

South Asian Geopolitics: Has Pakistan Lost its Plot?

Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War, by C. Christine Fair, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 343, £27.99 Defeat is an Orphan: How Pakistan Lost...

High End in the Pacific: Envisioning the Upper Limits of India-US Naval Cooperation in Pacific-Asia

The article argues that India and the United States are poised to strengthen their bilateral strategic convergences, not only in the Indian Ocean but also in Pacific-Asia that lies eastwards...