Strategic Analysis

Transforming Eastern South Asia: Relevance of BIMSTEC

Of late the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is receiving sincere attention from its member countries as an organisation that has the potential to...

Human Security Approach to Internal Security: Case Study of Reconciliation and Insurgency in Tamenglong, Manipur

Human security as a concept contends that the appropriate referent for peace and security should be the individual instead of the state. This Essay explores whether a human security-centred approach,...

Indian Diaspora in Reunion Island: A Strategic Asset

Wherever Indians have migrated, they have carried with them their culture, which has subsequently served to build multi-layered bridges with their country of origin. The article studies the Indian migration...

Securing Peace? Regime Types and Security Sector Reform in the Patani (Thailand) and Bangsamoro (the Philippines) Peace Processes, 2011–2016

This article examines how regime types shape security sector reforms, that are integral to the peace processes in Thailand’s Patani and the Philippines’ Mindanao.

AKP, the Arab Spring and the Unravelling of the Turkey ‘Model’

The rise of the Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi (AKP), its domestic and foreign policy successes and its early response to the Arab Spring made it popular in the Arab world....

The Evolution of China’s Southern Frontier: Cartographical Encroachments on Indian Territory, 1922–1960

The People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s case on the Sino–Indian boundary question has not received the sort of attention it deserves with the result very little is known about it....

China’s Belt and Road Initiative and India’s Concerns

The successful conclusion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Summit in Beijing recently has raised a number of questions about India’s strategy to counter the Chinese project. The One...

Indian Nuclear Policy—1964–98 (A Personal Recollection)

This is a personal recollection of the author on the evolution of the Indian nuclear policy and developments leading to the Shakti tests. Since it draws solely upon the author’s...

Nuclear Arms Race in South Asia? – An Analysis

Ever since India and Pakistan conducted their nuclear tests in 1998, it has been the favourite pastime of many analysts writing on nuclear issues to cast the strategic stability in...

India’s Deterrence and Disarmament: The Impact of Pokhran-II

After the nuclear weapons tests of May 11, 1998, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee made a matter-of-fact statement: “I have an announcement to make: today at 3:45 p.m., India conducted...

US–Soviet/Russian Dialogue on the Nuclear Weapons Programme of India

The history of the US–Soviet and US–Russian dialogues on the nuclear weapons programme of India can be divided into two major periods: First, from Pokhran I up to the end...

Nuclear Armed for Uncertain Times

India can look back with more than a fair measure of satisfaction on the past two decades since its nuclear weapon tests of May 1998. Those tests signalled a strategic...

Nuclear India and the Global Nuclear Order

The 1998 nuclear tests conducted by India heralded yet another nuclear age. The instant response of a section of the international community was highly pessimistic. It foresaw regional instability, collapse...

Post-Pokhran II: Emerging Global Nuclear Order and India’s Nuclear Challenge

Post-Pokhran II the global nuclear environment has changed both in terms of developing niche technologies as also the nuclear strategies. Apart from the traditional challenges, there are new threats emerging...

Military Dimensions of a Multipolar World: Implications for Global Governance

For a decade after the Cold War it seemed that multilateral governance might take root under US leadership, including a reinvigorated United Nations and a strengthened international legal framework. The...

Pokhran 20 Years After: Did the World Change?

Was the 1998 Pokhran test a historical watershed as many contemporary observers believed? This article looks at its impact on the nuclear non-proliferation regime, regional security, India’s position in global...

Walking Back Delusional Nuclear Policies

India’s ‘dual use’ nuclear policy has been strung out from the beginning between the peaceful atom and military atom as illustrated in Jawaharlal Nehru’s use of the phrase for the...

How Sri Lanka Walked into a Debt Trap, and the Way Out

Sri Lankans love to project their country as the land of serendipity. So, when the island country saw the back of a four-decade-old violent Tamil insurgency in 2009, it was...

The Unlikely Friends: Iranian–Latin American Relations and Washington’s Anxiety

Although Iran and the Latin American states appear to be unlikely allies when considering the vast distances and the religious, cultural and demographic differences between these regions, their shared experience...

Putin’s Political Regime and Its Alternatives

The article analyses the current Russian regime and its possible alternatives, both nationalist and pro-Western, from the viewpoint of various theoretical approaches. It argues that applying the criteria and terminology...