Gilgit Baltistan: Neither ‘in’ Pakistan Nor ‘of’ it? Pakistan has failed to address the aspirations of the people under subjugation in PoK leading to frequent political outbursts as being witnessed now, outbursts that are only likely to grow given Pakistan’s indifference towards the region as well as its internal security dynamics and external preoccupations. Priyanka Singh | March 06, 2012 | IDSA Comments
A Critique of MoD’s Joint Venture Guidelines The intention of the JV guidelines notwithstanding, the policy document suffers from certain weaknesses which may impact its objective of enhancing national defence industrial capability. Laxman Kumar Behera | March 05, 2012 | IDSA Comments
A Critique of MoD’s Joint Venture Guidelines The intention of the JV guidelines notwithstanding, the policy document suffers from certain weaknesses which may impact its objective of enhancing national defence industrial capability. Laxman Kumar Behera | March 05, 2012 | IDSA Comments
Political Islam: A Critical Reader by Frederic Volpi At the dawn of the 21st century, political Islam has become an influential religious and social force in many post-colonial states, from North Africa to South East Asia. In the context of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the ‘War on Terror’, much has been written. Little has been written, however, to enable a holistic understanding of political Islam. Though some work has been done by Western scholars like Olivier Roy, the post-9/11 world has a different dynamic in which political Islam is used by terrorists to set the global discourse on the West's treatment of Muslims. Babjee Pothuraju | March 2012 | Strategic Analysis
Vision for a Secular Pakistan? This article will bring to light the transformation of the Pakistani state from a relatively tolerant to an unstable state dominated by militancy and violence. In the formative phase of Pakistan, the notion of religious extremism was almost non-existent as the founder of the country, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, made it clear that the new state would not be theocratic in nature. Moonis Ahmar | March 2012 | Strategic Analysis
Maoist and Other Armed Conflicts by Anuradha Mitra Chenoy and Kamal Mitra Chenoy In one of the most well-written and extensively researched books on the subject, Anuradha Chenoy and Kamal Mitra Chenoy attempt to holistically examine the state of armed conflicts in India. In their own words, the book has the modest aim of understanding the roots, the nature and the impact of the armed conflicts in India. However, the title gives the reader the erroneous impression that the Maoist conflict will be the central theme while other conflicts will be peripheral. Vineet Thakur | March 2012 | Strategic Analysis
Pakistan’s Pashtun Challenge: Moving from Confrontation to Integration The Pashtun populations of Afghanistan and Pakistan have long been a source of bilateral contention, with each government inciting Pashtun tribals against the other. Now that the majority of Pashtuns live in Pakistan, Islamabad is using its Pashtun connections to project influence into Afghanistan. As a result, both Afghanistan and Pakistan are threatened by runaway Pashtun militancy. Peace and stability in both countries will be impossible until political reforms have been implemented in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. Robert Boggs | March 2012 | Strategic Analysis
A Metahistory of the Clash of Civilisations: Us and Them Beyond Orientalism by Arshin Adib-Moghaddam Arshin Adib-Moghaddam is Reader in Comparative Politics and International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Born to Iranian parents in Istanbul, he grew up in Hamburg. He later obtained his doctorate from Cambridge University. His personal and academic background are recounted here to show that he has a deep knowledge of the two civilisations that are supposedly in ‘clash’. Ali Ahmed | March 2012 | Strategic Analysis
India amidst Increased Activity in the Security Council: A Few Observations Article 1 of the United Nations Charter declares the maintenance of international peace and security to be the primary function of the United Nations. This makes the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) the most important organ of the whole establishment. All other functions and engagements of the United Nations are in support of the primary cause. Saurabh Mishra | March 2012 | Strategic Analysis
Underdogs End Empires: A Memoir by I.P. Khosla Ambassador I.P. Khosla, the author of the book Underdogs End Empires: A Memoir, started his career in the Indian Foreign Service in 1960 and retired in 1996. Holding important positions, he witnessed at first hand the historic events that unfolded during this period and in the book under review he narrates all these experiences. The canvas of the book is large in terms of the geography as well as the time period it covers. Padmaja Murthy | March 2012 | Strategic Analysis