Trafalgar and Tsushima: Relevance for India

The one-armed picture of Lord Nelson, perhaps the most celebrated and eulogised of British seafarers, is synonymous with the victory at Trafalgar and the bicentennial celebrations of this famous sea battle began on June 28 with an International Fleet Review in the Solent off south England. India apart, the 35 participating navies include the French and Spanish navies who were defeated by Nelson’s superior skills in that decisive battle on October 21, 1805.

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The New US Agenda: Militarising Space

Space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of preeminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theatre of war.
President John F. Kennedy, Address to Rice University, September 12, 1962

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Vivek Chadha, Low Intensity Conflicts in India: An Analysis

Low intensity conflicts in India, despite a long history and a major threat to national security, have remained substantially under-researched. Though a number of books have been written on the various aspects of low intensity conflicts, one still finds gap in the scholarship, particularly in areas relating to its varied dimensions, factors that sustain them, extremist groups – their interests, leadership, mobilisation strategy, financial resources, and other dimension of state intervention, including the role of various security forces.

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Issues and Challenges in Modern Peace Operations

In the last decade, there have been fundamental changes in the nature, form and variety of peace operations. In fact, the very coining of a new term, ‘Peace Operations’ (PO), as distinct from the earlier ‘Peacekeeping Operations’ (PKOs), illustrates a new degree of diversity and complexity in these operations. India has been, and continues to be, a major player in UN Peacekeeping Operations (UNPKOs). It has participated in 41 of the 59 UN Missions established so far and has contributed more than 70,000 personnel.

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The Problem of Kashmir and the Problem in Kashmir: Divergence Demands Convergence

India and Pakistan have fought four wars over Kashmir and have held several rounds of talks to resolve the 57-year-old issue, but without any tangible success. The only progress thus far has been that India has agreed to discuss the issue as part of the composite dialogue process and Pakistan has shown willingness to explore options other than the UN resolutions on Kashmir. Although both India and Pakistan appear trying to breakaway from the past and think afresh on Kashmir, yet both fail to bring about any significant policy shifts.

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Travails of Intelligence Assessment: From Failed to Fertile Imagination

September 11, according to the Commission that investigated that catastrophic event, was a result of a failure of imagination. Iraq’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, on the other hand, could be characterised as a case of fertile imagination exhibited by US intelligence and the George W. Bush Administration. Intelligence failure is the facile answer given to describe what went wrong in both cases. This article offers a more nuanced answer that takes into account the political context in which the threat posed by Osama bin Laden was analysed and acted upon.

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Myth of the Monolith: The Challenge of Diversity in Pakistan

The paper seeks to study the challenges faced by the Pakistani state from the perspective of its vast ethno-cultural diversity which problematises the process of-nation building attempted by the Pakistani leadership since its very inception. The paper starts with a rudimentary definitional view of the concept of ethnicity and nationalism, and isolates the areas of friction in the way the Pakistani nation has been conceptualised and the way diverse ethno-cultural groups have evolved their identity through history

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India-US Relations: A Paradigm Shift

An attempt has been made in this article to assess the arguments in favour of a fundamental shift in Indo-US relations by revisiting the history of their bilateral relations since its formative period and comparing it with the present period. The paper strongly argues that the Indian decision to go nuclear in May 1998 played a catalytic role in bringing the two democracies together. It was Shakti 1998, which changed the entire scenario and augmented for a changed US policy towards South Asia, especially towards India.

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India-Pakistan: Nuclear Stability and Diplomacy

The conceptual discourse, contributed to in the main by Western scholars, on the security and strategic stability of new nuclear weapon states like India and Pakistan seems alarmist. In reality, however, India and Pakistan have been mutually deliberating on various aspects of nuclear confidence-building measures (CBMs). This article is an effort to identify the issues of nuclear security concerns in two spheres – academic and policy formulations. The emphasis is more on the nuclear thinking of the two countries and the diplomatic challenges ahead particularly on the nuclear CBMs.

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