While the agreement remains controversial, China is likely to consolidate its presence and Sri Lanka likely to get deeper into the Chinese debt trap even though it has gained temporary relief through the equity for debt swap.

The Doklam standoff has emerged as a litmus test for India in terms of how resolutely it can stand up against an increasingly hegemonic China to protect the interests of Bhutan as well as its own interests.

To effectively cope with the PRC’s hostile attitude, India needs to reduce the power asymmetry, articulate a clear security policy based on a realistic threat assessment, reorganise the military, and revamp the border management mechanism.

While decades of counterinsurgency operations and peace processes have taken the sting out of the region’s major insurgencies, collaboration between groups continues to pose security challenges, particularly in the exploitable border areas adjacent to the upper Sagaing Region of Northwest Myanmar.

In December 2015, the Russian Foreign Ministry revealed that Russia was engaging in intelligence sharing with the Taliban to counter the growing presence of the Islamic State in Afghanistan.

The growing vilification of the Kashmiri movement by Salafi-Jihadi terror groups is a part of their overt radicalization attempts aimed at hijacking the sub-nationalist insurgency.

The revival of Jaish indicates that Pakistan will continue to utilise terrorism as an instrument to advance its geo-strategic agenda in South Asia.