Through the Gender Lens: A Feminist Analysis of ‘Security’ Nicole Detraz, International Security and Gender (Dimensions of Security), Polity, UK, 2012, 168 pp., $21.39 (trade paperback), ISBN 978-0745651170 Chayanika Saxena | January 2014 | Strategic Analysis
Digital Public Diplomacy and a Strategic Narrative for India States articulate their identity and foreign policy interests in the international system, seeking to influence the perceptions of others and to create an environment in which their goals and efficacy as an actor are viewed as legitimate. In the age of mass communication technologies and new media, the public diplomacy initiatives utilised to communicate these narratives have gone digital. Kalathmika Natarajan | January 2014 | Strategic Analysis
Malaysia–India Defence Cooperation: Need for a Paradigm Shift before Strategic Partnership The objective of this article is to discuss defence cooperation between Malaysia and India in the post-Cold War era (1991–2012), mainly from Malaysia’s perspective. The article is divided into four parts. First, the historical background of Malaysia–India defence cooperation during the colonial period until the Cold War is discussed briefly. Second, defence cooperation in the post-Cold War period involving the three services (air force, navy and army) is examined. Third, certain issues in Malaysia–India defence cooperation are analysed. Suseela Devi Chandran | January 2014 | Strategic Analysis
India’s South Asia Dilemma and Regional Cooperation: Relevance of Cultural Diplomacy This article highlights the current relevance of cultural diplomacy not as a panacea for the problems in India’s relations with its South Asian neighbours but as a way of dealing with the dilemma it faces. Against the backdrop of India’s position in South Asia and the importance of the region, the article makes an estimate of cultural diplomacy. Rabindra Sen | January 2014 | Strategic Analysis
The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East by Marc Lynch Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was the first to fall to the thundering protests in that country in early 2010. Within a month, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak was forced out of office by masses of protesters chanting against an authoritarian government that had closed its people off from every possible political avenue available to push for greater democratisation. The slogans Irhal [Leave!] and Al-Shaab Yureed Isqat al-Nizam [The People Want to Overthrow the Regime] reverberated from a tiny town on the periphery of the Arab world in Tunisia, to as far away as Yemen. Princy Marin George | January 2014 | Strategic Analysis
Factoring the RCEP and the TPP: China, India and the Politics of Regional Integration The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are not necessarily two contending trade liberalising models, but their import and arrival have posed stiff political challenges for many countries, including China and India, Asia’s two heavyweights. With these two initiatives, the regional trade of Asia is entering an interesting phase of liberalisation and integration. Jagannath P. Panda | January 2014 | Strategic Analysis
China’s Nightmare, America’s Dream: India as the Next Global Power by William H. Avery The rise of Asia, particularly China and India, is a significant development in the early 21st century. In the last three decades, China has transformed itself from an agricultural economy to a manufacturing economy. While China’s growing economic power has lifted more than 500 million people out of poverty, it has also modernised its defence sector. China is now playing an increasingly assertive role on the world stage. During the same period, India also registered significant progress in the economic and defence sectors. Saroj Bishoyi | January 2014 | Strategic Analysis
Federalising India’s Neighbourhood Policy: Making the States Stakeholders The politics of coalition has posed new challenges to India’s foreign policy. This problem becomes particularly evident in India’s neighbourhood, which inevitably becomes intertwined with domestic politics. The rise of regional political parties and their role as coalition partners makes it more difficult for the union government to ignore provincial sentiments. Competitive politics featuring both national and regional political parties provides primacy to local interest as this is linked to the vote bank politics. Smruti S. Pattanaik | January 2014 | Strategic Analysis
Confronting the Bomb: Pakistani and Indian Scientists Speak Out by Pervez Hoodbhoy (ed.) Eminent nuclear physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy and his co-authors in the seminal volume Confronting the Bomb: Pakistani and Indian Scientists Speak Out have defied the age-old perspective that nuclear weapons are the ultimate armaments of security. While courting controversy, the authors have presented nuclear issues considered taboo and yet critical. This is a bold attempt by a group of eminent scientists who ‘reject nuclear patriotism’ (p. xxii) and have delved into issues of ‘nuclear weapons, war, strategy and politics’ (p. Reshmi Kazi | January 2014 | Strategic Analysis
Beyond the Indo-Naga Talks: Some Reflections More than 16 years have passed since the government and the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah faction, or NSCN(IM)) Thangkhanlal Ngaihte | January 2014 | Strategic Analysis
