Publication

Geopolitical Shifts in West Asia: Trends and Implications

  • Publisher: Pentagon Press

The West Asian region is undergoing a phase of massive turbulence since the outbreak of the Arab Spring. This period has been marked by popular protests, internal conflicts, civil wars, military interventions and involvement of external players. The regional security situation remains fragile with a new terrorist entity, the Islamic State, emerging to challenge the existing geographical boundaries of the region. There has been an enormous increase in terrorism and extremism, and the non-state actors have gained significant influence in regional politics.

  • ISBN 978-81-8274-877-4,
  • Price: ₹ 995.00
  • E-copy available

Securing Cyberspace: International and Asian Perspectives

  • Publisher: Pentagon Press

This edited volume contains the papers presented at the 18th Asian Security Conference at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses held in February 2016. The authors, drawn from government, law enforcement, diplomacy, private sector, armed forces and academia, examine a range of issues central to cybersecurity. The chapters in this volume not only provide an outline of the journey so far, but more importantly, give indicators of future trends in cybersecurity from the vantage point of the respective experts.

Contributions from Asia are particularly highlighted to promote and provoke greater discussion on perspective from within the region on cybersecurity issues.

  • ISBN 978-81-8274-918-4,
  • Price: ₹ 1295
  • E-copy available

Asian Strategic Review 2016 -Terrorism: Emerging Trends

  • Publisher: Pentagon Press

Under the US leadership, the international community has been fighting the war on global terrorism for the past decade and a half. Strategies and targets have undergone several changes in this war, but terrorism continues to show no signs of decline. It continues to pose a major security challenge to world order and stability. Concrete and chilling evidence for this was provided by the recent attacks in Paris, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria, Kunduz, Kabul, Peshawar and Pathankot. The list is indeed long and extensive to be fully recorded here. During the first 15 days of 2016, one website records 17 terrorist attacks in different parts of the world.
E-Copy available

  • ISBN 978-81-8274-885-9,
  • Price: ?. 1295.00
  • E-copy available

Even If It Ain’t Broke Yet, Do Fix It: Enhancing Effectiveness Through Military Change

  • Publisher: Pentagon Press

Bringing about change in any setup, especially major shifts, is a challenges. This challenges is accentuated further in a strictly hierarchical organisation like the army, presenting an unenviable contradiction to both senior military practitioner and the governing elite, wherein, change is inevitable, yet, it is most likely to be resisted.

  • ISBN 978-81-8274-919-1,
  • Price: ₹ 795
  • E-copy available

Indigenous Historical Knowledge: Kautilya and His Vocabulary (Volume III)

  • Publisher: Pentagon Press

This book is the third in a series of three volumes on "Kautilya and His Vocabulary" as a part of the "Indigenous Historical Knowledge" project undertaken by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi. The edited volumes contain select papers presented in a series of workshops, national and international seminars organised by the Institute. The project is an attempt to trace, look into, analyse and relate with the indigenous strategic thinking in India. These volumes aim at initiating the study, internalisation, spread and consolidation of Kautilya's Arthashastra in the strategic domain. The four focus themes in the three volumes are foreign policy, intelligence, war and internal security as they relate to contemporary times.

  • ISBN 978-81-8274-909-2,
  • Price: ?. 795
  • E-copy available

India–Myanmar Relations: Changing Contours by Rajiv Bhatia

Myanmar is an underrated neighbour with the potential to influence India’s vital strategic and economic interests. To keep track of the pulse of the mystic nation that is India’s closest Southeast Asian neighbour demands not just a scholarly approach but an empathy and an emotional connect. Rajiv Bhatia’s book, India–Myanmar Relations, is timely as it comes during a period when Myanmar is going through a significant phase of transition. Myanmar today stands at a crossroads confronted by a combination of developments on the domestic, regional and global planes.

Right Turn in Indian Polity: Modi on BJP’s Chariot by Yogesh Atal and Sunil K. Choudhary

Actors, events and processes that determine the characteristics of the political scene in contemporary India may rightly be understood via a number of tropes—all equally useful and deficient at the same time. This is especially true in case of the ongoing churning in Indian democracy. If for the decade of the 1990s the tropes were Mandal, Market and Mandir, the tropes to understand contemporary politics in India have acquired the shape of ‘Governance’ and ‘Development’.

Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years by A. S. Dulat and Aditya Sinha

Until recently, most top officials in India who had dealt with very sensitive issues in government refrained from writing about them. The adage they followed was that what everyone wanted to know could not be written, and what could be written was something that no one was interested in. Not surprisingly, even when former civil servants have written anything, it has generally been a self-serving swansong of their accomplishments, which other than them no one really considers accomplishments.

Dynamics of ‘Civil-Military’ Relations in India

The burgeoning scholarship on the army’s role in nation building, or the lack of it, is unsurprising. In the modern political order, a nation without its own army is hardly imaginable. A crucial relationship exists between the two, which is also a reason for the uneasiness about the army’s pro-active involvement in the nation-making process. Political sociologists have been uncovering striking causal relationships that demonstrate the crucial role of the army and its internal ‘organisation’, ‘control’ and ‘function’ for the subsisting units of the modern world system: nation-states.

Applying Human Security in the Indian Context

This article explores the concept of human security and examines the scope for its adoption as a normative and policy framework in India. Human security prioritises non-military methods as a means of achieving security without compromising the priorities accorded to traditional security threats. It requires the fulfilment of people’s basic needs and rights.