Strategic Analysis

Assessing US Influence over India–Israel Relations: A Difficult Equation to Balance?

As India’s Israel policy evolved over time, the US involvement in this bilateral relationship has been constant, albeit neither consistent nor direct. Breaking with traditional state-centric approaches, this article focuses on the key role played in shaping the nature of India–Israel ties by non-state and sub-state actors such as specific political personalities, for example Congressmen Emmanuel Celler in the 1940s and Stephen Solarz in the 1980s, as well as of pro-Israel interest groups based in the US, like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

Israel and India: Looking Back and Ahead

The article begins by reviewing the Zionist attempts to turn India into a friend. The Zionist movement viewed India as important almost from its formation. Attitudes shaping behaviour prior to the formation of both the states are assessed, as is the icy relationship that prevailed between the two states prior to January 1992. The factors that brought about the change in the relationship to ambassadorial status are analysed, along with the two countries’ burgeoning strategic partnership. Finally, a few thoughts are offered concerning the future of the relationship.

Redefining ‘Strategic’ Cooperation

A quarter century after normalisation of relations, India and Israel have shown considerable maturity in handling bilateral relations and dexterity in managing their occasional differing worldviews. Relations have weathered political changes within India as well as periodic upheavals in West Asia and the stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Military-security cooperation played a pivotal role in carrying forward relations even when political contacts were minimal, as was the case during the decade-long United Progressive Alliance (UPA) rule.

India–Israel: The View from West Asia

The view from West Asia of India–Israel ties has been interlinked not only with the region’s negative perception of Israel but also with Israel’s evolving position in the West Asian geo-political framework. The growing economic and political power of India in the last two decades and its deepening economic ties with countries in West Asia, however, have brought new factors into play. This perspective, along with the promise of the positive role India can play in West Asian affairs, now colours the Arab appreciation of India–Israel ties as well.

India–Israel Defence Engagement: A Naval Perspective

P. V. Narasimha Rao took over as the ninth Prime Minister of India on June 21, 1991. Rao, a reluctant prime minister, presided over a period that witnessed the most defining events in modern history, both within India and across the world. He charted an unprecedented course for the Indian economy, bringing the country back from the edge of bankruptcy to a period of sustained economic growth that continues even today. The Soviet flag was lowered forever on Christmas day of 1991, bringing the Cold War to an anti-climactic end.

India’s look east to act east policy: tracking the opportunities and challenges in the Indo-Pacific

The 21st century is known as the Asian Century, and the Indo-Pacific is the most dynamic region of this century in terms of economics, security challenges and demographics. Against this backdrop, the book is a timely publication that focuses on the issues that are relevant to this region and analyses as well as proposes Indian policy responses to these emerging challenges. The book is divided into four themes: dynamics of India’s engagement with the Indo-Pacific region; key regional developments in the Indo-Pacific; maritime security challenges and cooperation; and conflict resolution.

India’s war: the making of modern south Asia (1939–1945)

Srinath Raghavan’s India’s War: The Making of Modern South Asia (1939–1945) is a welcome addition to his previous volumes on South Asia, in particular on Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, in War and Peace in Modern India (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), and the struggle on the creation of Bangladesh and sub-continental historiography in 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh (Harvard University Press, 2013). This book has captured the fundamental elements of India under British colonial rule, and the extraordinary changes that occurred during the Second World War.

India–China relations: politics of resources, identity and authority in a multipolar world order

Jagannath P. Panda’s India–China Relations: Politics of Resources, Identity and Authority in a Multipolar World Order is a welcome addition among the plethora of scholarship available on India–China relations, by bringing analysis of the bilateral relationship into the second decade of the 21st century.

Neoclassical realist theory of international politics

In the mid-1990s, Colin Elman cited a maxim horses for courses meaning ‘every horse is suited to a particular course’ to underscore the inherent weakness of neorealist theories in that they ‘cannot be used as theories of foreign policy’. In response, Kenneth Waltz had unequivocally admitted the weakness: ‘My old horse (Neorealism) cannot run the course and will lose if it tries.’ But since then, discourse in International Relations (IR) theory has entered a new phase.

Conflicts in Sunni Political Islam and Their Implications

Traditionally, the Shi’a–Sunni divide and the associated dynamics of the geopolitical struggle for power and dominance, between the minority Shi’as and the majority Sunnis, have defined intra-Islamic relations. Often sidelined were the political differences between and among groups and movements within Shi’a as well as Sunni Islam.