India’s Act East policy is delivering results its approach towards Southeast Asia. India’s improving stature in the region along with other key geopolitical players has heralded its arrival as a major regional power in the power matrix. In fact, India is in a unique position in the region in terms of defence and military engagement and must explore this potential further. India satisfies all the attributes needed for robust interaction in the military sphere.

• Authors: Vignesh Ram
• July-September 2018
• Journal of Defence Studies

The utility of the theory of strategic culture to explain the choices nation-states make is still to be convincingly proven. Alastair Iain Johnston has provided a viable notion of strategic culture that is falsifiable, its formation traced empirically, and its effect on state behaviour differentiated from other non-ideational variables. Following his methodological framework, Kautilya’s Arthashastra is identified as the ‘formative’ ideational strategic text which is assessed to illuminate Indian strategic culture.

• Authors: Kajari Kamal
• July-September 2018
• Journal of Defence Studies

Steven I. Wilkinson’s work on the Indian Army and its relationship to Indian democracy is mandatory reading for scholars interested in civil-military relations. Ironically, despite the voluminous literature on civil-military relations in the Subcontinent, it is still an understudied subject. Wilkinson’s book breaks new ground by giving the reader a distinct assessment of the evolution of civil-military relations in India vis-à-vis those in Pakistan.

• Authors: Kartik Bommakanti
• July-September 2018
• Journal of Defence Studies

India and Indonesia recently upgraded bilateral ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, a move that comes on the eve of 70 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. This deeper engagement serves to highlight the importance of the Indo-Pacific for both countries. India and Indonesia have recently witnessed some intensive engagement in the political, strategic, defence, security, and economic spheres.

• Authors: Udai Bhanu Singh
• July-September 2018
• Journal of Defence Studies

Military history has four main genres. The first is the ‘official’ military history, or a military historian’s narrative. It is a narration of facts given as accurately as possible, written in an academic manner with maps and sketches. These are difficult to follow by non-military readers and, for that reason, are almost never read by them. The second category are reminiscences (autobiographies or biographies) of those who took part in wars—mostly in important and commanding positions.

• Authors: Ghanshyam Katoch
• July-September 2018
• Journal of Defence Studies

In 2013, in a poll on ‘Britain’s Greatest Battle’, the twin victories at Imphal–Kohima during the Second World War were voted as the winner of the poll. If one recalls popular representations of World War II in this part of the world, what comes to mind immediately is the film The Bridge on the River Kwai, starring Alec Guinness. That the Japanese had reached the eastern borders of British India and posed a great threat to the war effort is something that people may take time to recollect.

• Authors: Y.M. Bammi
• July-September 2018
• Journal of Defence Studies

This article shows that the Maoists have been collecting not less than Rs 140 crore annually from a variety of sources: businesses—big and small—industry; contractors engaged in various trades; corrupt government officials; and political leaders. The largest and principal sources of income for the Maoists are the mining industry, PWD works, and collection of tendu leaves. They have been able to put in place a well-organised mechanism to extort money on a regular basis. Besides, they have conceived ingenious ways to store money and ensure its safety.

• Authors: P. V. Ramana
• April-June 2018
• Journal of Defence Studies

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 unity and sovereignty of the new nation. The world was in a far more peaceful environment and issues like terrorism and cybersecurity were far from their minds. Their outlook was conditioned by the constitutions then in existence.

• Authors: G.K. Pillai
• April-June 2018
• Journal of Defence Studies

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 absence of clear perspectives, the incipient threat of jihadist radicalisation has the potential to metastasise and snowball quickly, as has been witnessed in other parts of the world in recent times.

• Authors: Adil Rasheed
• April-June 2018
• Journal of Defence Studies

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 has occupied an important niche over the past many years in catering to the significant need for quality analyses on issues of national security. The contributions in the volume, specifically those by the editor, continue to exhibit the same high standards and rigour that have characterised it since its inception.

• Authors: S. Samuel C. Rajiv
• April-June 2018
• Journal of Defence Studies