Role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Afghanistan: Scope and Limitations Today, the situation in Afghanistan is mired with the geopolitics of regional and extra-regional players. Bringing stability to the country is a major challenge for the international community. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has the potential to play an important role, provided it is able to make some adjustments in its policy. Given its strengths and weaknesses, it is likely to focus more on economic, trade and security related issues within the Eurasian region rather than in Afghanistan. Meena Singh Roy | July 2010 | Strategic Analysis
Water a Pre-eminent Political Issue between India and Pakistan Like in the 1950s, the word ‘riparian’ is back again in the India–Pakistan lexicon, becoming this time intensely political, emotional and divisive. This development is both instructive and unsettling. It is instructive to note how the current water realties of the two countries, which have changed significantly since the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) in 1960, will now determine the treaty's future. With growing populations, inadequate water management techniques and the impact of global warming, water resources are under pressure. Uttam Kumar Sinha | July 2010 | Strategic Analysis
War and Peace in Modern India: A Strategic History of Nehru Years by Srinath Raghavan Medha Bisht | July 2010 | Strategic Analysis
Pakistani Nuclear Use and Implications for India The robustness of India's nuclear doctrine would face a severe challenge in the case of conventional military offensives into Pakistan in a future Indo-Pak conflict. Such offensives are possible in case Pakistan's nuclear threshold is taken as high and its doctrine one of 'last resort'. However, Pakistani nuclear use options may include lower order nuclear use. In light of this, it recommends that India take a serious look at the Limited War concept as well as revise its nuclear doctrine to 'flexible nuclear retaliation'. Ali Ahmed | July 2010 | Strategic Analysis
When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World by Martin Jacques Gunjan Singh | July 2010 | Strategic Analysis
Name of the Game is Interdependence: A Comment Bharat Wariavwalla's ‘Name of the Game is Interdependence’ is a thoughtful and elegantly written essay that has insights for both the theoretically inclined academic as well as the policy wonk. The essay can almost neatly be divided into three parts. The first part focuses on the constraints that are imposed on contemporary great power relations (especially between China and the United States) because of multiple levels of interdependence. Amitabh Matto | July 2010 | Strategic Analysis
Maintaining Strategic Autonomy in an Interdependent World As I have understood Bharat Wariavwalla's thoughtful article, and from the current discourse on geostrategic global balance, three central issues can be raised. First, we live in an interdependent world that is the outcome of a globalised economy. Therefore, no country can expect to wield unconstrained power or strategic hegemony, which allows it to disregard either universally accepted behavioural norms or even national sovereignty. Therefore, it is irrelevant to talk of a unipolar world. Rajiv Kumar | July 2010 | Strategic Analysis
Realism Drives India’s Foreign Policy India’s Foreign Policy: The Democracy Dimension by S.D. Muni Ashok K. Behuria | July 2010 | Strategic Analysis
