Strategic Analysis

Indo-US Defence Cooperation and the Emerging Strategic Relationship

The most visible manifestation of a strategic relationship between two countries is cooperation in the defence sphere. When the Defence Framework Agreement was signed in June 2005, it was widely assumed that the Agreement provided a skeleton that would be fleshed out over a period of time.

India and the Proliferation Security Initiative: A US Perspective

The article considers why New Delhi has shied away from full participation in the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative despite compelling national interests in improving Indian maritime forces and cooperating with the United States at sea. Some factors examined are polarized domestic politics, Indians' ambivalence about non-proliferation arrangements that formerly targeted them, and New Delhi's desire for regional primacy. Until Indian leaders come to believe that the benefits of PSI participation outweigh its drawbacks, they will continue to hold the initiative at arm's length.

Navigational Freedoms in a Time of Insecurity

Navigational freedoms have increasingly come under restrictions because of ecological, economic and security concerns of coastal states. Fishing vessels, oil tankers, ships carrying ultra-hazardous nuclear cargoes and even military vessels have to conform to stringent international, regional and national regulations. Often there is a conflict of interest as maritime activities of one state can interfere with the efforts of others to utilise the sea. The Law of the Sea Convention was adopted to provide a balance among these competing interests.

Geopolitics of Power Trading in South Asia: Opportunities and Challenges

It is now generally accepted that energy security could be significantly enhanced through sustained cross-border exchanges in many regions. In South Asia, however, regional energy security cooperation has seriously remained entangled in geopolitics. The possibility of overexploitation of natural resources such as coal, natural gas and oil reserves and the low level of political confidence in sharing hydro resources have placed serious obstacles to enhancing the level of energy security in the region.

Ballistic Missile Defence: Perspectives on India-Japan Cooperation

Both India and Japan have evinced interest in deploying defences against ballistic missiles because of the threat they pose. Significantly, both have shifted their stance on US Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD), from previous opposition to active support. Notwithstanding certain basic differences between India and Japan on the nature and degree of interest and participation at present, shared interests offer an opportunity for them to cooperate with each other on the BMD issue to further consolidate the 'strategic partnership' understanding they have evolved.

The General’s Delusion

Sumita Kumar |
January 2007 |
Strategic Analysis

Understanding How Religion Becomes Evil

Soft Borders and Cooperative Frontiers: India’s Changing Territorial Diplomacy Towards Pakistan and China

For decades, the dominant sense in the foreign policy establishment of India was that neither the Kashmir question nor the boundary dispute with China was ripe for resolution. Yet, in defiance of this received wisdom, two very different political coalitions have opened and sustained substantive negotiations on Jammu and Kashmir and the boundary dispute with China. Forward movement in both negotiations has also been premised on opening the closed frontiers with China and Pakistan.

Counterproliferation: India’s New Imperatives and Options

Despite its excellent record in the field of non-proliferation of technologies, know-how and equipment related to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to other states, India has been essentially a passive actor in global non-proliferation initiatives. As a result, it does not as yet have a comprehensive framework or strategy within which it defines its anti-proliferation objectives.

Who Won the Second Israel-Lebanon War?

In the immediate aftermath of the Second Israel-Lebanon War, most observers have concluded that Israel lost its war against Hezbollah. Although at the end of 34 days of violent engagement there is no clear victor or loser, this article, on the contrary, argues that Israel succeeded in achieving the most important among its political and strategic objectives.