Strategic Analysis

The article reviews the Cold Start doctrine in light of the limited war doctrine. It argues that the launch of strike corps entails a risk prone war expansion. War termination should therefore be short of the launch of strike corps offensives. It suggests a 'Cold Start and Stop' strategy with limited offensives by integrated battle groups being used to coerce Pakistan. Pakistani amenability to Indian war aims would be dependent on India offering incentives diplomatically alongside. India's limited war doctrine, currently not articulated, must be informed by such a war waging strategy.

• Ali Ahmed
• May 2011
• Strategic Analysis

During the entire post-World War II period Japan isolated itself from the ongoing power struggle. Even during the height of the Cold War when its two neighbours – the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China – went nuclear, Japan followed the three principles of ‘not possessing’, ‘not introducing’ and ‘not manufacturing’ nuclear weapons. Successive Japanese parliaments also passed resolutions putting a one per cent GDP cap on defence spending and imposed a blanket ban on arms exports and arms-related technologies.

• Shamshad A. Khan
• May 2011
• Strategic Analysis

Various reports on ‘Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan’ produced by the US Department of Defense, 2010 (in coordination with some other departments) have struggled to paint an optimistic picture of the Afghan situation, to maintain the morale of the troops. However, a tacit admission that the Afghan War is not going anywhere can be deciphered from the cautious language used in these reports.

• Ashok K. Behuria
• May 2011
• Strategic Analysis

The role of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has come under an increasing spotlight in recent years. This scrutiny has intensified in the wake of the controversial June 2009 presidential elections and the unrest which followed. Western governments, in tandem with the more radical sections of the Iranian opposition, appear keen to construct a narrative wherein the IRGC steadily displaces the ruling clergy as Iran's political masters. Fears of a growing political role for the IRGC – let alone a full-blown military takeover – are overstated.

• Mahan Abedin
• May 2011
• Strategic Analysis

India has announced ambitious plans to expand its nuclear energy programme nearly 15 fold in the next 20 years, from the current 4,500 MWe to about 62,000 MWe by 2032. By 2020, India's Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) plans to install 20,000 MWe of nuclear power generation capacity (the fifth largest in the world). The department has plans beyond 2030 too. According to these plans India will have the capacity to produce 275 GWe (Giga Watt of electricity) of nuclear power by the year 2052.

• Arvind Gupta
• May 2011
• Strategic Analysis

On March 23 every year a ritual is performed in Pakistan: observation of Pakistan Day. Forty-two years ago on this day, the Muslim League, which then was 34 years old, adopted a resolution in Lahore demanding separation of Muslims from India. The president of the League, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, expounded a theory that Hindus and Muslims were two different nations.

• Samuel Baid
• March 2011
• Strategic Analysis

Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2009, pp. 256, $35, ISBN 978-0-8014-4768-6

• Monalisa Joshi
• March 2011
• Strategic Analysis

Penguin Viking, New Delhi, 2010, Rs. 799, ISBN 9780670083855

• Priyanka Singh
• March 2011
• Strategic Analysis

(ed.), HarperCollins, India 2010, Rs. 699, ISBN 978-81-72223-960-2

• Gunjan Singh
• March 2011
• Strategic Analysis

PublicAffairs, New York, 2010, pp. 213, ISBN 978-1-58648-916-8

• Peter Maher
• March 2011
• Strategic Analysis