Strategic Analysis

Australia and India in Asia: When ‘Look West’ Meets Act East

The recent Australian decision to extend civilian nuclear cooperation to India, overriding its own long-term principled position, is no ordinary development. Taking that as a starting point, this article seeks...

Vishal Ranjan |
September 2016 |
Strategic Analysis

India’s Decision Making on Cross-Border Natural Gas Pipelines (1989–2012)

In the last two decades, cross-border gas pipelines have become an integral part of discourse on India’s energy security. Successive reports from the government and the private sector have envisaged...

Assessing India’s Rise and the Road Ahead

This article analyses India’s economic, military and political rise in the international state system. It concludes that India is on the rise in all three power dimensions, underpinned by a...

Mass Media in Xi’s China: Markets Versus Control

Xi Jinping became the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China in November 2012 and the President of the People’s Republic of China in March 2013. Ever since, under...

Gunjan Singh |
September 2016 |
Strategic Analysis

The Roadmap for India’s Nuclear Security

A watershed moment for nuclear security was reached when global leaders from more than 50 countries including India and other organisations met successively over six years (2010–2016) to develop an...

Reshmi Kazi |
September 2016 |
Strategic Analysis

The Oil Market Challenge

Over the last few years, it has been a roller coaster ride for the oil markets. From $110 a barrel in 2010, prices began dropping from June 2014 and finally...

Importance of PM Modi’s Visit to Iran: Opportunities and Challenges for India

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Iran is important in many ways. It came at a time when India is seriously contemplating activation of its ‘Look West’ policy and banking...

M. Mahtab Alam Rizvi , Ashok K. Behuria |
September 2016 |
Strategic Analysis

India’s Foreign Policy Priorities and the Emergence of a Modi Doctrine

India’s current Prime Minister Narendra Modi is often touted as India’s Deng Xiaoping, expected to lead the country on a path of economic reform and accelerated growth.1 While Modi rose...

Aakriti Tandon |
September 2016 |
Strategic Analysis

Flimsy Reading of History Fails to Predict Tibet’s Future

Prof P. Stobdan (Senior Fellow, IDSA)’s reading of history fails to predict Tibet’s future from the beginning. The Dalai Lama has informed the Tibetan people about his thinking on the...

Tenzin Tsultrim |
September 2016 |
Strategic Analysis

Why India matters, by Maya Chadda

Few issues have drawn as much attention and have been debated as intensely as the rise of India. There has been a plethora of literature that almost dissects various factors...

India’s relations with Indonesia, by Navrekha Sharma and Baladas Ghoshal

The process of active collaboration between the practitioner and the scholar can sometimes result in desirable policy outcomes. The book under review is one such commendable initial attempt. Ambassador Navrekha...

Prisoners of geography: ten maps that explain everything about the world, by Tim Marshall

Maps, world atlases, and travel books have always been invaluable sources of geographic knowledge. These sources, and their pedagogical significance, are a powerful tool used by geopolitical actors to control...

The Decision to Intervene: First Steps in India’s Grand Strategy in the 1971 War

One of the most popular anecdotes of the 1971 war is Field Marshal Manekshaw’s tale of how he restrained an impatient Indira Gandhi from ordering an unprepared Indian army to...

The Role of India and China in South Asia

India is often perceived as a regional power, but a closer look reveals that it is in a disadvantageous position vis-à-vis China in South Asia. The first reason is that...

The International Community’s Intervention during the Conclusion of the War in Sri Lanka

This article explores the backdrop of the engagement between the International Community (IC) and the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) over the conduct of the military during the last stages...

A Failed US Peace Building Project in Afghanistan: Exploring Cause–Effect Relationship

This article argues that while the concept of peace building proved beneficial to Western society, it drew flak in pre-2014 Afghanistan for its inbuilt faults, the overarching US–Taliban conflict and...

The Emerging International Ideocracy and Russia’s Quest for Normal Politics

This article analyses modern Western society from the standpoint of the concept of ‘ideocracy’. The author suggests that the development of mass societies and mass ideologies—noted by a number of...

Sri Lanka after Rajapaksa: Can it Ignore China?

Since the fall of the Mahinda Rajapaksa government, there has been an apparent foreign policy shift in Sri Lanka. There is a growing view that the new National Unity Government...

Moderates Strike Back in Iran: Imperatives for the International Community

The results of the most recent Parliamentary and Assembly of Experts elections in Iran indicate that Iranians are increasingly unhappy with the conservative establishment in the country. The Reformists or...

Bose, beyond the ‘Mystery’

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose has featured prominently in the news—and hence the public consciousness—only from time to time. As was often the case earlier, the recent prominence he has been...