Strategic Analysis

Challenges to the Revision of the Nepal–India 1950 Peace and Friendship Treaty

The contemporary strategic and political environment has gone through tremendous changes in comparison to the context in which the 1950 treaty was signed. The Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s August...

Nuclear Security in Asia: Problems and Challenges

The importance of nuclear security in Asia needs to be focused upon in view of the emerging challenges of nuclear proliferation, growing nuclear arsenals, expanding civilian nuclear energy programmes, weak...

South China Sea: India’s Maritime Gateway to the Pacific

This article looks at India’s interests and strategy in the South China Sea (SCS). First, it highlights India’s maritime interests and discusses the relevance of the SCS to these interests....

National Security: Concept, Measurement and Management

The concept of national security has often been taken to merely connote the preservation of sovereignty, territorial integrity and internal stability with the focus on the coercive power of the...

Diverging Australian and Indian Views on the Indo-Pacific

Australia has a vital interest in preventing the Indian Ocean Region from becoming an arena of great power rivalry, including between India and China. The 2013 Defence White Paper clearly...

Melissa H. Conley Tyler , Aakriti Bhutoria |
May 2015 |
Strategic Analysis

Impossible Devolution? The Failure of Power-Sharing Attempts in Sri Lanka

The concept of a ‘primordial homeland’ has been at the centre of Sri Lanka’s armed struggle, in which both Sinhalese and Tamil nationalisms have used claims of ancient and ethnically...

Can Taiwan Talk ‘Political’ with the Mainland?

An investigation into the prospects for including political talks in the cross-strait dialogue enables a better assessment of cross-strait relations. China’s push for political talks and Taiwan’s resistance to them...

An Assessment of the Chinese Dream: 2015

In November 2012, soon after the conclusion of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), President Xi Jinping put forward for the first time the idea...

Saudi Arabia: King Salman Faces the 21st Century

Since assuming the throne on January 23, 2015 following the death of King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia’s new monarch, King Salman, seems to have set about the task of shaking up...

Future of India–China Boundary: Leadership Holds the Key?

Will India and China resolve their boundary dispute during the tenure of Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping? The strategic communities in both countries are optimistic, particularly after the high tension...

China’s ‘Maritime Bases’ in the IOR: A Chronicle of Dominance Foretold

After a successful visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Colombo in March, Indian policy elite are hopeful that the new Sri Lankan government will roll-back some of the geopolitical...

China’s Asia Strategy under President Xi Jinping

China has reoriented its foreign policy strategy since Xi Jinping became president. This could significantly recast China’s relations with Asian countries. The process that began with Xi Jinping’s coming to...

Visas: How They Work—An India–Bangladesh Case Study

A visa is issued to facilitate an individual’s travel to another country in a regulated way. There are agreements between some countries on a no-visa regime; however, most countries do...

Sandeep Chakravorty , Sumit Chaturvedi |
May 2015 |
Strategic Analysis

Army: The Be-All or End-All of Pakistan Politics?

Witness to three fully fledged coups, Pakistan’s beleaguered political history has been consistently punctured with prolonged stints of military rule. Although a democratic state in principle, it is the episodic...

Jonathan Matusitz, Symbolism in Terrorism: Motivation, Communication, and Behavior, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Maryland, 2014

Symbolism in Terrorism: Motivation, Communication, and Behavior explores an important but under-represented aspect of terrorism: the meanings of both physical and non-physical symbols in terrorism, and how culture, belief systems...

Vanda Felbab-Brown, Aspiration and Ambivalence: Strategies and Realities of Counterinsurgency and State Building in Afghanistan, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, DC

After 13 years of international engagement, political and security scenarios appear to be uncertain in Afghanistan. The unity government formed through a power-sharing agreement between Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah...

Rajat Kathuria and Sanjana Joshi (eds.), Forty Years of India–Korea Relations and Looking Ahead, Academic Foundation, New Delhi, 2014

The year 2013 marked the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relationship between India and South Korea. Even though during the Cold War, India–South Korea relations had to...

Alan J. Kuperman, Nuclear Terrorism and Global Nuclear Security: The Challenge of Phasing out Highly Enriched Uranium, Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon, 2013

Alan J. Kuperman’s edited volume Nuclear Terrorism and Global Nuclear Security: The Challenge of Phasing out Highly Enriched Uranium explores the prospects and challenges involved in the process of global...

Difficulties of Regional Cooperation for Afghanistan: An Alternative Interpretation

This article addresses the question of why regional cooperation among Afghanistan’s neighbours has been so difficult despite these countries’ common concerns. To answer this question, Afghanistan is conceptualised as placed...

Russia, Turkey, and Iran: Moving Towards Strategic Synergy in the Middle East?

This article aims to delve into the patterns of convergence and divergence of interests among three key regional players in the Middle East: the Russian Federation, Turkey and Iran.

Hossein Aghaie Joobani , Mostafa Mousavipour |
March 2015 |
Strategic Analysis