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Cooperative Security in South Asia: A Mirage?

South Asia has a common history and celebrates its great cultural and linguistic overlap. However, the South Asian experience in building cooperative security architecture has been mixed. India on its part remains committed to strengthening cooperative security in the region.

A Conceptual Framework for Assessing Traditional Peace Operations

Despite decades of experience in peace operations, most United Nations (UN) operations have faced serious criticism for being unable to implement the mandate. At the same time, while the UN is in the process of establishing a clear framework for performance evaluation, as of now, there are no standard criteria to judge the performance of a peace operation. Therefore, it will be unfair to make only the peace operation missions accountable because of their inability to implement the mandate.

Is Imran Khan’s Luck Running Out?

With a failing foreign policy and a crippling economy, and growing domestic opposition as well as criticism within the army, Imran Khan and his government is clearly caught between the devil and the deep sea.

Zainab Akhter
October 17, 2019
IDSA Comments

Why We Fight, by Mike Martin

Desire (kama), anger (krodha), greed (lobha), attachment (moha) and ego (ahankar) are the five basic causes of human irrationality. In violence, one of the most significant human irrationality, intertwined strands of all these five factors can be seen. In Why We Fight, Mike Martin, a soldier and scholar, goes beyond these five tenets to look at the root cause of violence in societies. He attempts to describe connections between individuals and their social behaviour.

Understanding Ethical Behaviour towards Better Institutional Functioning in the Armed Forces

At the heart of ethical choices lies the complex interplay between individual intentions and environmental vectors. Factors such as stress, misguided motivations and the failure to handle positional power make the issue so very intriguing. Further, ethical dilemmas are often laden with inherent individual subjectivities, making it difficult to arrive at a singularly agreeable distinction between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Why do individuals transgress? Why do individuals give and take bribes? Why is it so difficult to report a course mate?

The Long-term Effects of UK Defence Privatisation: Lessons for India?

This article argues that privatisation of defence has failed to achieve the objectives of increased competition (between producers) leading to increased choice and reduced costs (to purchasers). Instead, costs have increased, choice has decreased and much of the equipment supplied to the United Kingdom (UK) Armed Forces is now sourced wholly or partially from foreign suppliers—leaving the nation dangerously exposed to potential interferences in the supply (and replacement) of weaponry and munitions for political reasons.

Gilgit-Baltistan and its Saga of Unending Human Rights Violations, by Alok Bansal

In general, the contemporary and historical narrative of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) is mostly woven through the prism of Kashmir issue, disregarding comprehensive information about strategically important regions like Ladakh and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB). In the study of India–Pakistan relations, most scholars and analysts tend to overlook GB, which explains the sparse literature on and information about the region.

Guardians of God: Inside the Religious Mind of Pakistani Taliban, by Mona Kanwal Sheikh

In the recent past, several Islamist movements promising to re-establish the pristine political system dating back to the days of the Prophet have captured the mind of believers. Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is one such movement that grew out of the resentment against the established religious parties’ failure to implement sharia, coupled with Pakistan’s decision to join the war on terror which fuelled religious anxiety that this war was aimed against Islam.

The McMahon Line: A Century of Discord, by J.J. Singh

The Sino-Indian boundary dispute remains the most enduring and challenging problem that bedevils relations between India and China. With a history of well over a century of differences on the border alignment, and a war that represented its lowest point in their relations, the two countries remain suspicious of each other’s motives, actions and statements emanating from them and their possible implications.

China’s DF-41 Ballistic Missile Deployment and the Impact on its Nuclear Deterrence

The deployment of the DF-41 ballistic missile in China shows that the nature of its nuclear posture is at a critical stage of evolution. On the one hand, the deployment illustrates the achievements in Chinese missile modernisation, which poses a threat to the US deterrence capacity. On other hand, it exposes the limitations in its deployment patterns.