Strategic Analysis

Australia in the Asian Century: Australian Government’s White Paper, Strong and Secure: A Strategy for Australia’s National Security

As Asia rises and the centre of gravity of strategic affairs shifts to the Asia Pacific, the Australian government is getting ready to exploit new opportunities and gear up to...

Indigenous Rights, Sovereignty and Resource Governance in the Arctic

While oil and gas industries are already well established in Siberia and Alaska, the melting of the Arctic ice cap is opening up new areas of the High North to...

Sailing through the Northern Sea Route: Opportunities and Challenges

Because of global warming, the thinning ice in the Arctic is opening up the region for navigation for a few months in the summer season. The Arctic littoral countries (Canada,...

Sovereignty is the Key to Russia’s Arctic Policy

It was the privately-sponsored Russian expedition to the North Pole in August 2007 that opened a new competitive era in Arctic geopolitics, and the technologically elegant PR-trick with planting the...

The Barents Cooperation: Region-Building and New Security Challenges

The Barents Euro–Arctic Region (BEAR), which in terms of land territory is one of the biggest international region-building projects in Europe, was established in 1993 to meet the new security...

The Arctic: Potential for Conflict amidst Cooperation

Changes in the Arctic topography due to climate change have resulted in the region, which erstwhile was remote with little accessibility, to being accessible with potential natural resources and attractive...

The Promise of Involvement: Asia in the Arctic

In late 2012, the first liquefied natural gas tanker to sail through the Northern Sea Route reached its destination in Japan, carrying gas from a Euro–Arctic offshore field. Only months...

Reincarnation Under Stress: The Dalai Lama’s Succession and India–China Relations

The article seeks to assess the evolution of the Tibet question against the backdrop of the problems associated with the succession of the Dalai Lama. It also discusses the implications...

Left-Wing Extremism and Counterinsurgency in India: The ‘Andhra Model’

India has a long history of left-wing extremism. The largest and most powerful left-wing extremist group today is the Communist Party of India (CPI) (Maoist), which is active in many...

Defence Offsets: A System-Level View

How effective are offsets as a means to boost a domestic defence industry? This article takes a novel approach to answering this question; examining global data on levels of defence...

Majoritarian State and the Marginalised Minorities: The Hindus in Bangladesh

The problem confronting the Hindu minority in Bangladesh is analysed in this article within the framework of a majoritarian state, which embodies the socio-cultural ethos of the majority community in...

Trilateral Security Cooperation: Nepal’s New Foreign Policy

Nepal's King Prithvi Narayan Shah's famous ‘Yam between two boulders’ quote reflects the great understanding of Nepal's security dilemma, even as far back as the 18th century. 1 This has...

How will India Respond to Civil War in Pakistan?

In 1971, India intervened militarily on behalf of Bengalis in the civil war in East Pakistan, dividing the country into two. The prospect of another civil war in Pakistan pitting...

Future of Golden BRICS

With the successful holding of the fifth summit of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) in Durban during March 26–27, 2013, this influential group of emerging economies completed...

President Obama’s New National Security Team

United States President Barack Obama's new national security team for his second term in office was finally put in place at the end of February. It is an impressive team...

Fear, Interest and Honour: The Thucydidean Trinity and India’s Asia Policy

Nearly 2,500 years ago the Greek historian Thucydides noted that the foreign policy of Athens was driven by fear, interest and honour.

The International Ambitions of Mao and Nehru: National Efficacy Beliefs and the Making of Foreign Policy by Andrew Bingham Kennedy

India and China represented two of the most dynamic anomalies within the international system during the height of the Cold War era in the 1950s. Both states were considered thus,...

Twenty-First Century Sea Power: Cooperation and Conflict at Sea by Peter Dutton, Robert S. Ross and Oystein Tunsjo (eds.)

The volume under review is part of the CASS Series on Naval Policy and History edited by the acclaimed maritime affairs expert Professor Geoffrey Till, and is also the 50th...

Sri Lanka and the Defeat of the LTTE by K.M. de Silva

The story of post-colonial Sri Lanka is, in large part, the story of how two groups have interlaced and, in the process, engaged in a 30-year war which saw its...

Return of a King by William Dalrymple

Imperialism never gives on its own will. The all-season historian, William Dalrymple, echoes this message throughout Return of a King. In comparison to his unwavering research on India, which is...