Spilling of gas from a chemical factory can happen either because of accidental release or sabotage. In this era of terrorism such threats need to be reviewed on a much broader canvas.
As long as nuclear weapons determine a nation’s power and capability, India must have no hesitation in strengthening its nuclear capability and learn to ‘live with the bomb’.
The serial financial crises have exposed deep fault lines in the international financial system, and have prompted a search for a better and more stable global financial structure.
The Grid-Guard-Govern strategy would do away with the sequential application of socio-economic solutions by undertaking security-led governance cum development action.
Only social cohesion and determination by local communities to bring about peace can realistically tide over vested political interests and narrow destructive narratives that seem to be informing the present crisis between Manipur and Nagaland.
Not only would the presence of Chinese vessels present no real existential threat to Indian naval dominance in the region, it would also, paradoxically, provide the Indian Navy with a far greater degree of tactical flexibility in the event of a future conflict with China, be it on land or at sea.
Peacekeeping is India’s forte, not only because of its military’s professionalism but also due to its political acceptability globally. India’s image as a benign rising power can be exploited and enhanced in raising its peacekeeping profile.
India's relationship with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has been primarily based on mutual trade and business. GCC countries are the main source of energy for India and a market for Indian commodities. India's five-million-strong workforce forms a natural linkage between India and the GCC. But despite such strong trade linkages, which are still growing, political and strategic relations between India and the GCC have been found lacking. Recent years have witnessed signing of defence and security agreements between India and some of the GCC countries.
Command and control of nuclear weapons was the edifice upon which great power nuclear strategy was based. Empirical Cold War research later proved that this edifice was, in fact, only a power keg. Therefore, US non-proliferation-minded analysts propounded logical reasons for their claim that new nuclear nations will be unable to demonstrate prudence in nuclear weapons management. The unique Indian case, pronounced from the organisation theory perspective, proves to the contrary.
AFRICOM is a new institution representing the new manner of US engagement. This is different from the EU model of engagement and comes at a time when India and China are seen as important partners of Africa. This paper is written to provide an insight into AFRICOM from an Indian perspective of Africa. This differs from the EU view and also from Africa's own response. US policy towards Africa consists of African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) + AFRICOM; whereas AGOA is better understood, AFRICOM is not. This paper proposes to fill some of the gaps in its understanding.
