Strategic Analysis

What are India, Iran, and Afghanistan’s Benefits from the Chabahar Port Agreement?

Over the last decade we have seen a race to build ports in the Indian Ocean as the two Asian powerhouses, China and India, compete to assert their regional influence. The newest addition to this power struggle is the Chabahar Port, located in Chabahar, a coastal town in the Sistan–Baluchistan region in south-eastern Iran, next to the Gulf of Oman, and at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz (Figure 1). Its strategic importance and economic value have drawn attention from many countries; however, India was the quickest to secure a deal to develop the port.

Subsystemic Unipolarities? Power Distribution and State Behaviour in South America and Southern Africa

This article explores the possibility of conceiving South America and Southern Africa as subsystemic unipolarities under Brazilian and South African primacy, respectively. It argues that this concept, when applied to these regions, sheds light not only on the long-term strategies behind the Brazilian and South African foreign policies towards their neighbourhood, but also on the behaviour of secondary regional powers and small states. This hypothesis questions the maxim that considerations related to polarity affect great powers only.

Has Nigeria Defeated Boko Haram? An Appraisal of the Counter-Terrorism Approach under the Buhari Administration

One of the campaign promises of President Muhammadu Buhari was that he would eliminate Boko Haram six months after assumption of office. By December 2015, the Buhari-led government gave itself a pass mark for countering the terrorists. The government declared that the group had been ‘technically defeated’. This declaration has led to debates in the public space as to the veracity of this claim. This article aims to critically appraise the on-going attempt to eliminate the Boko Haram threat under the Buhari administration.

Preventive Diplomacy and the Role of Civil Maritime Security Cooperation in Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia’s international shipping lanes (ISL) are essential to the economic security of the Asia-Pacific region. Maintaining good order at sea serves to protect regional trade and can be achieved through collaboration between civil maritime security agencies (coast guards). Japan and China both have significant coast guard capabilities and diplomatic influence in the region that could be harnessed to promote civil maritime security cooperation with the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Insurgency, Drugs and Small Arms in Myanmar

The many links between drugs, small arms and insurgency have been widely discussed and addressed by scholars. The literature in particular has convincingly shown how several insurgent groups in Myanmar have used the drug business to finance and sustain their violent movements. Funds generated from drug production and circulation help the insurgent groups to procure arms, and are widely believed to be supporting the protracted nature of these movements.

US Security Strategy of Asian Rebalance: India’s Role and Concerns

China’s aggressive rise and strained relations with its Asia-Pacific neighbours—a region with immense economic and strategic potential—have forced the US to forge a strategy of Asian rebalance. Besides making China suspicious, this strategy has aroused the possibility of a new cold war. In contrast, though India’s relations with China have improved considerably since the 1962 War, the unresolved border issue and the threatening Chinese attitude do not allow India to trust China.

Sub-Regionalism in South Asia: A Case Study of the Bangladesh–Bhutan–Nepal–India Motor Vehicles Agreement

This article has two parts. The first part aims at analysing why nations are increasingly going beyond their multilateral and regional moorings to secure and advance their national interests. In doing so, why and how do they indulge in sub-regional engagements? It has been empirically seen across the board in almost every part of the world that sub-regional growth initiatives play a significant role in regional integration.

The Evolution of National Security Thinking in Post-Soviet Russia

This article contributes to the rich body of literature on Russian security perceptions and analyses how Russian security thinking evolved over the last 20 years. The focus of the article is on how Russian security perspective shifted from the goal of assuring Russian security by integration and cooperation with the West to the idea of Russia’s own separate geo-economic project and the goal of reducing the country’s dependencies on the West. Security in this article is understood both as a military-political and as an economic phenomenon.

The Contemporary World between Integration and Secession: A Challenge for Russia

The article discusses two major trends in contemporary world politics—the disintegration of the nation-state and supranational integration—and analyses their nature, causes and significance.

Russia’s Participation in International Environmental Cooperation

While environmental issues attract growing interest all over the world Russia has kept aside from this trend for a long time. Its participation in international environmental cooperation has always been determined primarily by the external policy’s objectives. In Soviet times, participation in global environmental initiatives was a channel of collaboration with the West. In the 1990s, it was a means of integration into the international community and one of the major areas of cooperation with the US.