Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses
मनोहर पर्रिकर रक्षा अध्ययन एवं विश्लेषण संस्थान

Publication

Legitimising Proactivity: Japan’s Use of the FOIP in Defence Export Policy

Japan’s security policy has transitioned through three distinct phases: passive, active and now proactive. Initially, Japan adhered to a defensive stance, avoiding active engagement beyond its borders. In the active phase, Japan began taking limited regional and global responsibilities, though its actions remained reactive. This period hinted at a move towards ‘normalisation’, yet significant limitations persisted. In the current proactive phase, Japan has adopted a leadership role in regional and global security, with the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) policy playing an important legitimising role as a source of widely accepted norms. This paper uses Japan’s Defence Export Policy as a case study to highlight its security evolution and the role of the FOIP narrative in legitimising its proactive stance.

Dual-Use Satellites and Strategic Ambiguity: Toward Robust Legal and Normative Frameworks

The increasing inability to distinguish between civilian and military uses of satellite systems has created a governance gap that undermines crisis stability and confidence-building measures. Dual-use satellites blur the line between peaceful and military space activities, complicating arms control and international security. This paper analyses the technological, strategic, and legal implications of such systems that heighten strategic ambiguity and instability. It qualitatively evaluates governance frameworks, including the Outer Space Treaty and recent non-binding measures. Findings show that current mechanisms are inadequate, exacerbating mistrust and risks of miscalculation, underscoring the need for adaptive legal tools and sustained international dialogue.

Saudi-Pakistan Defence Pact and India’s Evolving Engagement in West Asia

The Saudi-Pakistan Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA), signed on September 17,2025, is a dramatic development amidst a rapidly changing geopolitical landscape in West and South Asia. Pakistan’s strategic elite has once again shown itself adept at geopolitical rent-seeking by leveraging the country’s nuclear status, religious identity, and geographical proximity to the Arab World to cultivate partnerships that can bail out its crisis-ridden economy. However, Pakistan’s primary objective is to counter India’s new assertive deterrence posture in ‘Operation Sindoor’, which established new rules of engagement, challenging Pakistan’s policy of using terrorist groups to secure its geopolitical goals under its nuclear umbrella. Saudi Arabia, for its part, seeks to shore up flailing deterrence against Iran and Israel. By asserting an outsized security role in the Gulf region, Pakistan is also holding out the promise of burden-sharing to the United States, increasingly viewed as an unreliable security guarantor despite its longstanding military preponderance in the region.

India in SCO: India’s Diplomatic Balancing in a Constrained Multilateral Order

Given the continuing expansion of India’s multilateral experiments and engagements, now is an opportune time to ponder over how India reconciles its cosmopolitan moral principles with strategic pragmatism in multilateral forums often dominated by other great powers. To appreciate the above issue, this commentary focuses on India’s CT (counter-terrorism) diplomacy and strategy against the 25th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit at Tianjin in China from August 31 to September 1, 2025.

Shifting Dynamics: The Fraying Pakistan-Taliban Ties and the Contest for Strategic Influence

In a recent escalation, Pakistan conducted air strikes inside Afghanistan against what it claimed were terrorist hideouts on October 9, 2025. The attack marked a remarkable escalation in the souring relationship between the two neighbouring countries. Following this there was a heated exchange of fire along the Durand Line with the Afghan-Taliban forces attacking border outposts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. The retaliation from Pakistan, on the intervening night of October 11–12, was predictably disproportionate as its army claimed to have neutralised over 200 Taliban fighters and destroyed about 21 hostile positions including Afghan border check posts.

Indus Waters Treaty: Looking Back, Looking Ahead

On September 19, 1960, in Karachi, the bustling port city and economic hub of Pakistan, two political leaders and a distinguished international banker convened to sign a document that would define the political and hydrological landscape of the Indian subcontinent. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s Prime Minister; Field Marshal Ayub Khan, Pakistan’s military ruler; and William Illif, Vice President of the World Bank, affixed their signatures to what became the Indus Waters Treaty. The World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) was no mere bystander; it was the architect behind the scenes, lending its institutional weight to broker a deal that neither nation could have achieved alone.

Demanding an Inclusive Governance: Nepal’s 2025 Youth Uprising in Perspective

The youth uprising in Nepal in September 2025 must be understood not as an isolated incident but as a striking manifestation of a global trend of increasing visibility and influence of Generation Z (Gen Z; born between 1997 and 2012) in political and social discourse. Keeping the cases of Sri Lanka (2022) and Bangladesh (2024) aside in the South Asian region, there have been such youth-led movements in Indonesia (‘Peringatan Darurat’ in 2024 and ‘Indonesia Gelap’ or Dark Indonesia in 2025) and Madagascar (2025). Similar movements have also emerged elsewhere, such as in Morocco, where young people used TikTok, Instagram, and Discord to demand better education and healthcare, as well as in the Philippines, where student-led campaigns have increasingly challenged corruption and called for greater political accountability.

India’s Role as ‘Preferred Security Partner’ in the Indian Ocean Region: A Strategic Assessment of Maritime Leadership and Regional Cooperation

Over the last few years India has been progressively attempting to establish itself as a ‘preferred security partner’ in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). This transformation represents a fundamental shift from India’s historically passive maritime posture described by strategic thinkers as a manifestation of its ‘sea blindness’ to a robust maritime-oriented outlook characterised by proactive regional leadership, enhanced naval capabilities, multilateral security arrangements and comprehensive engagement with littoral states. This essay examines the evolution, mechanisms and implications of India’s emergence as a preferred security partner in the IOR.

The Nehru Years: An International History of Indian Non-Alignment

Originating in the wake of cold war bipolarity, non-alignment became the dominant approach under Nehru, until the early 1960s to navigate India’s engagement with the international system. Faced with volatility of superpower contestation, the policy of non-alignment described as ‘leading ourselves’Footnote1 served as the basis for India’s diplomatic interventions in addressing cold war politics around decolonisation, regional conflicts, disarmament and nuclear arms control. The military rout in the 1962 Sino-Indian war which knocked India out of the ‘world of its own making’, marked a major rupture point in the Indian strategic outlook. A re-evaluation of India’s foreign policy objectives and strategies in the aftermath of the conflict led to reduced enthusiasm for non-alignment as New Delhi engineered an insular foreign policy approach, with more focus towards its immediate periphery and regional interests and recalibrating ties with major powers like the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK) and the Soviet Union (SU).

China’s Air Power and Maritime Strategies Towards the Indian Ocean Region

Joshy M. Paul’s China’s Air Power and Maritime Strategies Towards the Indian Ocean Region offers a detailed account of Beijing’s evolving air and naval posture towards the wider Indo-Pacific region, with a keen focus on the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). As a distinguished researcher with immense experience in airpower and maritime security of the Indo-Pacific, Paul uses a comprehensive set of data, starting from the onset of China’s shift towards air and maritime power, to unpack the dynamics of the strategies Beijing formulated to address the Indian Ocean Region.

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