Almost every new technology developed has brought great benefits attached with some risks. To each ‘technology’, there is an ‘antitechnology’, making it a double edged weapon. But whatever be the risks, the progress just carries on, and new methods are found to tackle the risks. The phenomenal growth of computer and communication technologies, or ICT, is no exception and the main risk it has brought along with its benefits is that it has provided terrorist organisations great advantage in their nefarious activities.

• Authors: Shitanshu Mishra
• July 2003
• Strategic Analysis

The Baltic States’ search for security became a major issue after their independence in 1991. Since then these States have been trying to establish links with Europe and perceive Russia as a major threat. Their aspirations for the NATO membership are based on their security perspective. Baltic States are engaged in trying to upgrade their armed forces, solve their territorial and ethnic disputes to meet the NATO membership criteria.

• Authors: Nivedita Das Kundu
• July 2003
• Strategic Analysis

• Authors: Sumita Kumar
• July 2003
• Strategic Analysis

This paper is part of an international collaborative research project involving researchers from India, England, Japan and the United States. International terrorism has emerged as a major human concern after September 11, 2001 and an understanding of this against the backdrop of related security problems has emerged as a priority research area.

• Authors: Mohammed Badrul Alam
• April 2003
• Strategic Analysis

During the latest war in Iraq, which has now come to an end, there has been a persistent debate on why Europe and the US are not seeing eye-to-eye on the question of war and a host of issues pertaining to it. The discourse so far has speculatively tried to probe whether the whole mismatch is about culture, history or about the power game in the post-Cold War world.

• Authors: Ajai K. Rai
• April 2003
• Strategic Analysis

American security policy towards South Asia can basically be divided into three stages: balance of power in the Cold War era, beyond balance of power after the end of Cold War, and new balance of power after September 11.

• Authors: Zhang Guihong
• April 2003
• Strategic Analysis

Guerrilla warfare is not a new phenomenon and history is witness to its repeated occurrence. In the modern era, it acquired prominence during the Napoleonic Wars which led to an examination of its role by leading nineteenth-century thinkers including Clausewitz, Jomini, Marx and Engels. Over the course of the subsequent century, the concept and practice of guerrilla warfare was integrated within social, economic and political programmes that aimed to overthrow established authority and transform society through an armed struggle.

• Authors: S. Kalyanaraman
• April 2003
• Strategic Analysis

Pakistan’s political climate has always been polarized between the civil and the military leaders, with balance of political fortunes tilting in favour of one or the other, from time to time. With the overthrow of Nawaz Sharif in a bloodless coup in October 1999, the military marched out of the barracks after more than a decade.

• Authors: Ashutosh Misra
• April 2003
• Strategic Analysis

In the post-Cold War era, with the emergence of an independent Namibia and a democratic South Africa, the main agenda that had brought India and Africa together—the fight against colonialism and institutionalised racialism—has disappeared. India’s Africa policy indicates a slight change as also some consistency in the post-Cold War era. It appears to be composed of five mantras: promoting economic cooperation, engaging the people of Indian origin, preventing and combating terrorism, preserving peace and assisting the African defence forces.

• Authors: Ruchita Beri
• April 2003
• Strategic Analysis

Unlike many Third World countries, Bangladesh has remained relatively stable and peaceful and escaped from major internal upheavals. While the democratic transition in 1991 was slow and painful, democratic change of governments has become the norm. Leaders are changed through ballots and not bullets and power oscillates between the two principal parties.

• Authors: Sreeradha Datta
• April 2003
• Strategic Analysis