The 11 September 2001 attacks in the US changed the course of world history and made Al-Qaeda a state-like actor in international affairs, thereby confounding a core Realist idea. The event also increased interest in terrorism studies, creating two competing schools of thought within it, the classical and the critical school. The debates between these two broad perspectives have led to many fruitful advances and insights concerning the motivations, methods, and impact of both terrorism and counter-terrorism.

• Authors: Georgi Asatryan
• March 2022
• Strategic Analysis

This article deals with the Russian Revisionist Strategy, the redistribution of power and the changes that this policy might bring. Accordingly, it examines whether this hypothesis is correct. NATO’s policy and the wars in Crimea, Georgia, Syria and the current one in Ukraine are the case studies that the article analyses. It discusses how Russia aims to restructure the regional and global system by forming strategic arcs and ‘pincer movements’ from the North Sea to the Middle East via the Caucasus Region. The war in Ukraine is at the epicentre of the Russian revisionist strategy.

• Authors: Yiannos Charalambides
• March 2022
• Strategic Analysis

Despite being a key stakeholder in the emerging regional order, South Korea’s approach to the Indo-Pacific has been a policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’. It entails a cautious engagement with Indo-Pacific initiatives of different countries under the ambit of ‘New Southern Policy’ without endorsing the concept or articulating the Korean position on the Indo-Pacific regional construct.

• Authors: Jojin John
• March 2022
• Strategic Analysis

The debate on the epistemological significance of leadership versus domestic politics or strategic culture remains fervent in modern International Relations. We suggest that there is a consensus found in classical Greek and Chinese texts about the core elements of realism and the consequentiality of political leadership on strategic choice.

• Authors: Athanasios Platias , Vasilis Trigkas
• March 2022
• Strategic Analysis

A major irritant in Indo-Bangladesh relations has been the question of sharing Ganga waters between the two countries. Though negotiations for the settlement of the problem have been going on for the last five-and-a-half years, a final agreement is still elusive. At times, it appeared that the two countries would not reach any agreement and the issue would affect their relations. Fortunately, the deadlock, which persisted for some time, was broken in April last. Now it appears that India and Bangladesh have been negotiating satisfactorily and a final agreement would be signed soon.

• Authors: O.N. Mehrotra
• January 2022
• Strategic Analysis

It is necessary to have a detached and realistic assessment of the military situation in Bangla Desh. During the last one week, our press reports were over-optimistic and these reports need careful reassessment now.

• Authors: K. Subrahmanyam
• January 2022
• Strategic Analysis

‘We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow’, thus spoke Lord Palmerston in 1848, then still the foreign minister of the United Kingdom.1 ‘Nations neither have enemies nor friends but only interests, the national interest’ is an aphorism which has been subsequently attributed from Winston Churchill to Henry Kissinger.

• Authors: Masih Ullah Khan
• January 2022
• Strategic Analysis

Sri Lanka, one of the most strategic islands in the Indian Ocean, is mired in several domestic political, security and strategic challenges since the end of the armed ethnic conflict in May 2009. However, with the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and the post-war economic boom, it was largely believed that no one would shed tears anymore in the teardrop island. Such hopes and expectations were belied when the country witnessed multiple terror attacks in different locations in Colombo on 21 April 2019.

• Authors: Gulbin Sultana
• January 2022
• Strategic Analysis

Turkey’s desire to be part of the European state system goes back to the Ottoman era. The Ottoman elites began to recognize the need for military, technological and administrative modernization towards the late eighteenth century, setting the tone for future relations with Europe. Notwithstanding Turkey’s search for a European identity, the European elites always hesitated in accepting Turkey as part of the European civilization.

• Authors: Yatharth Kachiar
• January 2022
• Strategic Analysis

Irrawaddy Imperatives has hit the stands at a time when one needs to remind Indian policy planners—now wholly focused west on Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover—that Myanmar is an equally, if not more important, neighbour saddled with an equally serious crisis, which may have a much more adverse impact on India’s ‘Act East’ policy.

• Authors: Subir Bhaumik
• January 2022
• Strategic Analysis