Journal of Defence Studies

Directed Energy Weapons for the Indian Armed Forces

Military planners believe that the ‘blast and fragmentation’ type conventional weapons cannot advance much further technologically.The next chapter in weapons technology development is expected to be realized from Directed Energy...

Maritime Security in the Indian Ocean: An Indian Perspective

For a maritime nation like India, its conception of maritime security of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and, specifically, its approach to maritime security has a long historical legacy. The...

Border Defence Cooperation Agreement: The Icebreaker in Making?

The long expected Agreement on Border Defence Cooperation (BDCA) was signed between the governments of India and China on 23 October 2013 in Beijing, during the visit of the Indian...

Is the Submarine Arm Losing its Punch?

The explosions that gutted INS Sindhurakshak during the early hours of 14 August 2013 caught the imagination of an entire nation that watched the brief footage of the catastrophic event...

Assessing Modernization of the Indian Armed Forces through Budgetary Allocations

India’s quest for modernization of the armed forces is propelled by the persistent threat to its territorial integrity and the aspiration of becoming a great power. However, there is no...

Maritime Security in the Indian Ocean: A Changing Kaleidoscope

The Indian Ocean Region (IOR), though considered an important maritime region, has not yet been accorded the due importance of a geo-strategic entity. One attributable reason is the ‘sandwiching’ of...

China’s ‘Three Warfares’ and India

For the past decade, China is known to have actively used ‘three warfares’ (3Ws) strategy—media, psychological and legal warfare—to weaken its adversaries in regions constituting what it perceives to be...

The Rational Believer: Choices and Decisions in Madrasas of Pakistan, by Masooda Bano

The Rational Believer is a result of three years of research and field trips in Pakistan by the author and examines the post-9/11 image of madrasas in Pakistan. The findings...

Hinduism and the Ethics of Warfare in South Asia: From Antiquity to the Present, by Kaushik Roy

In the academic field of modern history studies, historians dealing with South Asia largely neglect the historical evolution of military–strategic thought on the Indian subcontinent. It is also true that,...

Samudra Manthan: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific, by C. Raja Mohan

Samudra Manthan is a book whose time has come. It brings to the table the other dimension of the Sino-Indian rivalry, which is often missed by the larger group of...

The Rise of the Indian Navy: Internal Vulnerabilities, External Challenges, edited by Harsh V. Pant

Since antiquity the Indian Ocean has been the centre of human progress, a great arena in which many civilizations have mingled, fought, and traded on important trade routes criss-crossing the...

Strategic Perspectives on Growth Phases and Long-term Techno-economic Performance of India’s DRDO

The future of an organization is less determined by outside forces than by its history and the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) is no exception. This article analyses the...

The Cholas: Some Enduring Issues of Statecraft, Military Matters and International Relations

The article addresses the deficit in the indigenous, rich historical knowledge of south India. It does this by examining the military and political activities of the Cholas to understand the...

Letter to the Editor

My overall impression is that the Army has been unduly harsh and self-deprecatory regarding the present state of its moral health. As against this, the Army’s track record has been...

Effective Underwater Weapon Systems and the Indian Ocean Region

The Indian Ocean Region (IOR) has profound strategic relevance not only for the nations in the region but also for other countries.1 The bulk of the world’s merchant fleets transit...

Political Abstention in War and the Influence of Nuclear Weapons: A New Research Puzzle

Clemenceau’s famous statement—‘War is too important to be left to the generals’—represents an essential conflict in civil?military relations during crisis situations, especially with regard to the demarcation of boundaries for...

India’s Geostrategy and China: Mackinder versus Mahan?

Two recent events exemplify India’s geopolitical dilemma. In early April 2013, it was reported that Chinese submarines had been conducting forays in the Indian Ocean that were apparently picked up...

Chinese Intrusion into Ladakh: An Analysis

The intrusion by the Chinese Army in the Ladakh sector of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) was first reported by the media on 15 April 2013. Initial reports indicated...

The Arrest of Argentine Warship ‘ARA Libertad’: Revisiting International Law Governing Warships, Sovereign Immunity, and Naval Diplomatic Roles

The ARA Libertad Case (Argentina v. Ghana) is the first instance where the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), Hamburg, Germany considered the issue of the release...

Restraining Kargil: Nuclear Caution in the Shadow of Kashmir

The debate surrounding the stability of nuclear weapons has been a critical issue for the last half century. On the one hand, realists like Kenneth Waltz argue that the proliferation...