India’s tryst with its destiny for the twenty-first century will greatly depend upon how it prioritises its strategic necessities in the face of current Covid-19-induced economic crisis. While still on course to be the third largest world economy by 2050, India will need to ensure it has the essential tools—economic, military and diplomatic—by then to provide the necessary leverage as a great world power. Great thinkers have stressed and history has shown that maritime power is one such leverage.

• Roby Thomas |
• October-December 2020 |
• Journal of Defence Studies

The ISPR was founded in 1949 as the public relations wing of the Pakistan Armed Forces. However, its role, responsibilities and activities have expanded notably over the last three decades. This article evaluates the role of the ISPR in cyber propaganda via print and electronic media after 1990s. It also sheds light on the ISPR’s youth-internship scheme and its plausible role in digital espionage. The main arguments in this article are derived from information available on official websites of Pakistan military, their local newspapers, and relevant social media platforms.

• Divya Malhotra |
• October-December 2020 |
• Journal of Defence Studies

China has had a chequered relationship with India since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. Beijing views India as a strategic rival and appears to consider India’s rise as an impediment to its own. The narratives, especially, convey or hint at India’s gain being China’s loss. Even though bilateral trade between the two countries has become substantial over the years and multiple linkages have been established post the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict, China still keeps India discomfited with its various overtures.

• Atul Pant |
• July-September 2020 |
• Journal of Defence Studies

This article explores the position of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) under the existing rules of international humanitarian law (IHL). It argues that though the existing rules of IHL are sufficient for certain weapons systems, there is a need to develop new rules for fully autonomous weapons systems. The author makes a case that the call for a blanket ban on LAWS in general is premature and the expected use of such weapons must be acknowledged before such a ban is considered.

• Bashir Ali Abbas |
• July-September 2020 |
• Journal of Defence Studies

The armed forces are one of the most powerful tools to ensure safety and security of the state from external aggressions. This duty may call upon armed forces personnel to undertake missions with a very high risk to life. To motivate a human being to perform the allocated duty even at the peril of his/her life is an art that armed forces across the globe have mastered. For sustaining such a high level of motivation and to undertake missions in a very organised fashion, military discipline is a key attribute.

• Kishore Kumar Khera |
• July-September 2020 |
• Journal of Defence Studies

It would have been difficult to visualise the current scenario in Sino-Indian relations just before COVID-19 overtook the world narrative. This was considering the immense political capital poured into the relationship by the Indian government, first at Wuhan in 2017 and then in Mamallapuram in 2019. It might be argued by some that the Doklam incident of 2017 should have been enough for India to wake up and smell the coffee.

• Roby Thomas |
• July-September 2020 |
• Journal of Defence Studies

The Russo-Japanese War was fought well over a hundred years ago and symbolised the rise of Japan, as it defeated Russia by executing a near-perfect limited war strategy. Japan incisively defined limited political objectives and calibrated its war strategy accordingly.

• Himadri Bose |
• July-September 2020 |
• Journal of Defence Studies

Since the Cold War, United Nations peacekeeping has evolved from monitoring peace treaties to multidimensional peacekeeping operations tasked with rebuilding states and their institutions during and after conflict. In June 2014, An Expert Panel on Technology and Innovation in UN Peacekeeping recommended investigating how innovative technology can strengthen peacekeeping missions.

• Swaim Prakash Singh |
• July-September 2020 |
• Journal of Defence Studies

Realpolitik and its terminology have dominated the discourse on the conduct and behaviour of states in ‘anarchical’ international environment. Concepts like balance of power (BoP) and security dilemma continue to draw the attention of students of international politics. It has been argued, or presumed, that in the security-driven environment of the international system, foreign policies of individual states are externally driven.

• Nazir Ahmad Mir |
• January-June 2020 |
• Journal of Defence Studies

Defence, a subset of national security, is an intricate subject. Primarily, defence policy and plans of a state emerge from its national security strategy to achieve its national goals. What happens when a state does not have a declared national security strategy? All stakeholders interpret the security scenario in their way and invariably pull defence policy and plans in multiple directions. Such has been the tale of Indian defence policy and plans since independence.

• Kishore Kumar Khera |
• January-June 2020 |
• Journal of Defence Studies