Can War be Eliminated?, by Christopher Coker Imagine a book that talks of war, of all wars that have been fought in all of human history. One could be forgiven for assuming that such a volume would run into hundreds of volumes and hundreds of thousands of pages. On the contrary, Christopher Coker’s Can War be Eliminated? is probably the slimmest volume on the shelf on the subject of war. That is because in this book, Coker is not interested in engaging into a conversation about specific wars. He instead speaks of war as a phenomenon in itself, a phenomenon whose military nature is only an aspect and not the core. Vikas Jain | April 2015 | Journal of Defence Studies
Designing Sound Defence Offset Policies Policymakers need to ask themselves ‘What Really Makes Offsets Tick?’ in order to develop an objective framework based on sound principles repeatedly noticed in the offset regulations of ‘The Smarter Lot’ of countries and in the process avoid committing the seven ‘original sins’ that a poorly-designed offset policy may entail. Sandeep Verma | April 17, 2015 | IDSA Comments
Using Temple Gold for Shoring up the Economy: Learning from Kautilya’s Arthashastra Kautilya argues that when the treasury gets depleted, concerted efforts become necessary for its replenishment and even recommends extraordinary measures in emergency situations. But the guiding principle should be what the people consider as beneficial to themselves. P. K. Gautam | April 17, 2015 | IDSA Comments
China’s Biological Warfare Programme: An Integrative Study with Special Reference to Biological Weapons Capabilities This study attempts to profile China’s biological warfare programme (BWP), with special reference to biological weapons (BW) capabilities that exist in facilities affiliated with the defence establishment and the military. For that purpose, a wide variety of facilities affiliated with the defence establishment and with the military are reviewed and profiled. The outcome of that analysis points at 12 facilities affiliated with the defence establishment, plus 30 facilities affiliated with the PLA, that are involved in research, development, production, testing or storage of BW. Dany Shoham | April 2015 | Journal of Defence Studies
Russia’s New Military Doctrine: An Overview The new military doctrine reflects Russia’s views on the changing geo-political order. It perceives key military risks as emanating primarily from the ‘West’ and dwells on measures to counter them. Rajorshi Roy | April 16, 2015 | IDSA Comments
Standing Committee on Defence (16th Lok Sabha): Striking Old Notes on Debut Three months after the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was swept to power at the centre in the general elections held in April–May 2014 to the 16th Lok Sabha (the lower house of the Indian Parliament), the Standing Committee on Defence was constituted under the chairmanship of Major General B.C. Khanduri (Retd.), former Chief Minister of the northern state of Uttarakhand and a prominent member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is the main constituent of the NDA. Amit Cowshish | April 2015 | Journal of Defence Studies
The Rise of the Bengal Tigers: The Growing Strategic Importance of the Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal region is now growing in economic and strategic importance. The good economic prospects of many Bay of Bengal states are making the region a cockpit for Asian growth and a key economic connector between East and South Asia. This article looks at strategic developments in the Bay of Bengal and their implications for our understanding of the Indo-Pacific. It argues that the Bay of Bengal needs to be understood as a region with its own particular strategic dynamics and issues. David Brewster | April 2015 | Journal of Defence Studies
India’s Doctrine Puzzle: Limiting War in South Asia, by Ali Ahmed India has often been accused of not having a strategic culture and, more recently, of not clearly enunciating its strategic and doctrinal thought. More often than not, this has led to interpolation of brief statements, actions and speeches in public domain that create more doubts than answer questions regarding the country’s strategic formulations. Ali Ahmed attempts to dig deeper into India’s doctrinal underpinnings in light of nuclearization in the operational domain, a field that remains limited to patchy assessments in the past. Vivek Chadha | April 2015 | Journal of Defence Studies
New Twist in the MMRCA Tail MoD will do well to set up a crack team of experts from all fields to work out the terms of the proposed IGA keeping in view the larger picture of what happens after these 36 aircraft are inducted. Amit Cowshish | April 15, 2015 | IDSA Comments
Libyan Chaos Reaches European Shores The paucity of options for a solution will lead to increasing securitisation of migration in Europe. Meanwhile, the African Union should recognise that the migrant problem is as much theirs as of Europe. After all, the migrants perishing in the sea are not Europeans, but Sub-Saharan Africans. Nachiket Khadkiwala | April-June 2015 | Africa Trends
