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    • Rajapaksa's Sri Lanka: Time to Move Beyond Complacency

    Much water has flown down the Mahaveli since the elimination of V. Prabhakaran and decimation of LTTE, the terror outfit he led, in Sri Lanka in May 2009. President Mahinda Rajapaksa cashed in on the situation well; he called for a new presidential election two years before expiration of his term and won it convincingly in January 2010. His party secured an easy and emphatic victory in the subsequent parliamentary elections, short of a two-thirds majority, in April 2010.

    Ashok K. Behuria
    September 2011

    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 declare ‘never again’ and set up the United Nations. Governments agreed that they would cooperate to prevent the commission of genocide and punish the perpetrators.

    Satish Nambiar
    November 2011

    Pakistan's Strategic Thinking

    The strategic outlook of the political, bureaucratic and military elites in Pakistan was shaped by historical exigencies, geopolitical location, Pakistan's self-perception, and its Islamic credentials. Pakistan's military-dominated leadership formulated strategies towards regional and extra-regional powers based on its threat perceptions. The strategies adopted have not necessarily resulted in fully achieving the objectives for which they were formulated.

    Sumita Kumar
    May 2011

    Afghan Reconciliation Falling Through

    Various reports on ‘Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan’ produced by the US Department of Defense, 2010 (in coordination with some other departments) have struggled to paint an optimistic picture of the Afghan situation, to maintain the morale of the troops. However, a tacit admission that the Afghan War is not going anywhere can be deciphered from the cautious language used in these reports.

    Ashok K. Behuria
    May 2011

    Public Diplomacy in India's Foreign Policy

    The last few years have witnessed an incredible change in global communications as well as politics. The proliferation of 24/7 news channels, the spread of the Internet and the ready availability of mobile phones with digital cameras are having a profound impact on the international media and on the manner in which governments formulate their media strategies. At the same time, global issues like terrorism, climate change or even multilateral trade negotiations have come to be closely intertwined with the domestic political agenda.

    Navdeep Suri
    March 2011

    Energy Crisis and Potential in Bangladesh

    The present energy crisis in Bangladesh is partly due to over-dependence on gas which fulfils more than 70 per cent of its energy needs. The present gas deficit against the national demand on a daily basis is expected to increase further in the future. The crisis will deepen unless a greater share of indigenous coal is included in the energy mix. The geological and social constraints of an over-populated fertile agricultural land area remain an obstacle to large-scale coal mining and this has to be addressed rationally.

    Badrul Imam
    March 2011

    The United States in South Asia: An Unending Quest for Stability

    Seth G. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2010, pp. 430, ISBN 978-0-393-33851-5 (paperback

    Forrest E. Morgan, C. Christine Fair, Keith Crane, Christopher S. Chivvis, Samir Puri, and Michael Spirtas, Can United States Secure an Insecure State , RAND Corporation, US, 2010, pp. 232, ISBN 978-0-8330-4807-3 (paperback)

    Priyanka Singh
    January 2011

    India's Options within the Afghan Maze

    Although General David Petraeus emphatically stated that the United States of America is not in Afghanistan to lose the war, the fact remains that the decade-long war on terror against the Taliban and shadow boxing the al Qaida has lost its aim and purpose, reaching levels of absurdity at a cost of over a trillion dollars and yet the US will not win the war! Every effort of General Petraeus to win will only escalate the conflict and that is not in the best interests of Afghanistan and the US.

    B. R. Muthu Kumar
    January 2011

    In the Wake of the US Withdrawal

    As the United States seeks to draw down its security forces in Afghanistan, India faces a serious policy conundrum. It has made, as Vishal Chandra argues, significant developmental and infrastructural investments in the country. If the US military withdrawal is significant, even if not precipitate, it may leave the field open to a reconstitution of the Taliban within the country. Such an outcome will dramatically enhance Pakistani influence in the country and thereby place India's very substantial commitments to date at risk.

    Sumit Ganguly
    January 2011

    India's Options in Afghanistan

    The prognoses that it will be long before Afghanistan will be at peace with itself; that the Taliban have raised the cost of the Afghan war for the West; that the growing differences between the West and Kabul have aggravated the prevailing uncertainty over the future of the war; and that the US-led Afghan mission appears unwinnable are all unexceptionable.

    Satish Chandra
    January 2011

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