Strategic Analysis

State Sovereignty to Sovereignty of Individuals: Evolution of R2P

Intervention across borders of other states with the intention of protecting the civilian population from atrocities committed against them is not a new phenomenon. According to Thomas Weiss, 1 the...

The Emerging Principle of the Responsibility to Protect: An Asian Perspective

In the aftermath of the Second World War and the horrors of the Holocaust, during which war crimes were committed on an unprecedented scale, the international community came together to...

The Role of UNHCR and Afghan Refugees in Pakistan

The protection and shelter of millions of Afghans on Pakistan soil for over three decades has amplified the image of UNHCR as a humanitarian institution, which has worked along with...

UN’s Role in South Asia: The Case of Nepal

Nepal has conducted a slew of political experiments since 2006. By inviting the Maoists into the mainstream and collectively deciding to dump the Constitution of 1990, there was hope that...

Scaling the Nuclear Abolition Mountain: Is the United Nations up to the Task?

Strong motivation is the most important factor in getting you to the top. Edmund Hillary (on scaling Mt Everest) Some have compared the goal of a nuclear weapons free world...

Alyn Ware |
November 2011 |
Strategic Analysis

India’s PKOs: A Historic Perspective and the Way Forward

As a founding member, India has been a firm supporter of the principles and purposes of the United Nations. Enshrined as its central aim, the UN Charter states that the...

The Protection of Civilians and the United Nations

The world has changed significantly since the founding of the United Nations and so have its conflicts. During the mid-twentieth century, the pre-eminent challenge for multilateral cooperation was the awesome...

Vijay Nambiar |
November 2011 |
Strategic Analysis

Universality, Multilateralism and Many-Lateralism

Does the changing nature of the international order in the 21st century influence the nature and forms of multilateralism? And if yes, how does it impact the United Nations, an...

B.S. Prakash |
November 2011 |
Strategic Analysis

Reforming the United Nations

Any organisation established in the aftermath of the Second World War obviously cannot fulfil its functions, in a world that has changed so dramatically, without adapting itself to the contemporary...

Prakash Shah |
November 2011 |
Strategic Analysis

Towards a World Community: Thoughts on India and the Idea of United Nations Reform

The title of this article is derived from a famous speech made by Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, at the United Nations in December 1956. Over the previous decade,...

Manu Bhagavan |
November 2011 |
Strategic Analysis

India and the United Nations

To paraphrase the mantra of realism—international politics, like all politics, is a struggle for normative ascendancy: the establishment and maintenance of the dominant normative architecture of international order created and...

Ramesh Thakur |
November 2011 |
Strategic Analysis

The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers by Richard McGregor Harper Collins, New York, 2010, pp. xvii+302, US$ 27.99, ISBN 9780061708770

Rukmani Gupta |
September 2011 |
Strategic Analysis

India’s International Relations: A Systems Approach

The national security of India rests on two basic and mutually supporting premises. The first, of course, is the internal strength, cohesiveness, and firmness of purpose of the nation. The...

K. Saigal |
September 2011 |
Strategic Analysis

The Asian Balance of Power in the Seventies: An Indian View

There is general agreement among those concerned with international relations and strategy that for the next fifteen years Asia is more likely to be an area of tension and conflict...

K. Subrahmanyam |
September 2011 |
Strategic Analysis

India and Pakistan: Continued Conflict or Cooperation? by Stanley Wolpert University of California Press, 2010

Beginning with partition of the subcontinent in 1947, this book by renowned scholar Stanley Wolpert provides an account of one of the oldest political crisis/conflicts in the world. He simplifies...

Mawlana Mawdudi and Political Islam: Authority and the Islamic State by Roy Jackson Routledge, New York, 2011, 202 pp.

The religious and political ideas of Sayyid Abdul A'la Mawdudi (Mawlana Mawdudi) provide the ideological current to groups contending for the supremacy of Islam (rather than Islamic Revivalism). Mawdudi's brand...

Anshuman Behera |
September 2011 |
Strategic Analysis

India, Pakistan, and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia by Sumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur Columbia University Press, New York, 2010, 152 pp., Rs 325, ISBN 0-2311-4374-5

India, Pakistan and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia is a strategic debate between the optimists and pessimists on whether the nuclearisation of South Asia has stabilised the...

Reshmi Kazi |
September 2011 |
Strategic Analysis

Interrogating International Relations: India’s Strategic Practice and the Return of History by Jayashree Vivekanandan Routledge, London/New York/New Delhi: 2011

Does India have a strategic culture? The conventional answer is ‘no’, especially since George Tanham said so. Jayashree Vivekanandan contests this view, the roots of which she traces to the...

S. Kalyanaraman |
September 2011 |
Strategic Analysis

First Draft: Witness to the Making of Modern India by B.G. Verghese Westland, 2010, 573 pp., Rs. 695, ISBN 9-7893-8028-3760

Verghese, B.G. has written several books in his multifaceted career, spanning over six decades. His latest work First Draft: Witness to the Making of Modern India is somewhat unique and...

Priyanka Singh |
September 2011 |
Strategic Analysis

Children of Abraham at War: Clash of Messianic Militarisms, by Talmiz Ahmad Delhi, Aakar Books, 2010, 475 pp., Rs 1250, ISBN 978-93-5002-080-7

Talmiz Ahmad is an Indian Foreign Service officer who has seen extensive service in West Asia. It is apparent his long stint there gave him an opportunity to observe, learn...

Ali Ahmed |
September 2011 |
Strategic Analysis