A scan of recent conflicts indicates blurring lines between war and peace, state and non-state, regular and irregular and conventional and unconventional. The prevailing security environment is radically different from what it was even a decade ago. The probability of conventional conflict between states or groups of states has been steadily declining while, at the same time, sub-conventional conflict is gaining prominence. These small wars, or niggling wars as some have called it, have also been called hybrid, non-linear, gray zone, unrestricted and a plethora of such names. The ontological and epistemological enquiry of these terms is essential to understand if they allude to the same phenomenon through different frames. Are they the convention or an aberration? The book tries to fill this crucial research gap related to the changing character of conflicts in the strategic discourse in India.

This book debates and discusses the present and future of Disruptive Technologies in general and military Disruptive Technologies in particular. Its primary goal is to discuss various critical and advanced elucidations on strategic technologies. The focus is less on extrapolating the future of technology in a strict sense, and more on understanding the Disruptive Technology paradigm. It is widely accepted that technology alone cannot win any military campaign or war. However, technological superiority always offers militaries an advantage. More importantly, technology also has a great deterrent value. Hence, on occasion, technology can help to avoid wars. Accordingly, it is important to effectively manage new technologies by identifying their strategic utility and role in existing military architectures and the possible contributions they could make towards improving overall military capabilities. This can also entail doctrinal changes, so as to translate these new technologies into concrete advantages.

In recent years, there has been growing interest in deciphering the nature and contours of bilateral dynamics between India and China, since the contours bilateral dynamics between the two rising powers have potential implications for the evolving geopolitical order in the region and even beyond. This book is not about understanding the nature of rivalry dynamics between India and China but prominently focuses on China’s mental and emotional image of India, which has remained an underexplored dimension in contemporary scholarship.

The aim of the book is two-fold. First, this book is an effort to analyse China’s contemporary perceptual image about India primarily through the analysis of Chinese publications on the subject. Second, this book questions the prevalent notion of characterising India-China rivalry as ‘one-sided’ or ‘asymmetric.’

Unarguably, power asymmetry, with substantial Chinese advantage, has been a persistent characteristic of India-China relations and is likely to remain or even grow further. India, being weaker in this dyad, naturally has a greater threat perception vis-à-vis China. However, this apparent power asymmetry does not provide China with an overwhelming advantage over India.

The book argues that India has been and continues to be a ‘strategic rival’ in Chinese perception even though it is not categorised by China as its ‘principal rival.’ In the contemporary period, as India expands its defence capabilities, extends its regional outreach and deepens its engagement with major powers, Beijing has begun to factor New Delhi into its strategic calculus even more seriously.

This volume is an outcome of the conference that the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) in collaboration with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center (TECC) held in New Delhi on 8 December 2015 at IDSA. The conference was organised in New Delhi to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the establishment of their respective Representative Offices in Taipei and New Delhi by India and Taiwan.

The book attempts to study the defence industrialisation process that has been adopted by the militarily developed and developing nations to analyse, orient and adapt their best practices to the Indian defence industry and technological base. The analysis reveals that there is a requirement to re-assess, re-align & re-model the Indian defence industry apparatus in line with the vision of accelerating indigenisation, self-sufficiency and strategic capability, as pertaining to military systems.

Central Asia is the northern frontier of the Islamic world hitherto unaffected by fundamentalist wave. The Soviet developmental legacy still remains as a bulwark against potential extremist threats emanating from Pakistan and Afghanistan. However, behind the secular settings a major shift to a far more religious pattern of society is underway in the region.

Over the years, India has been taking renewed interest in enhancing its strategic presence in Central Asia, but it is yet to capitalise on various opportunities and potentials. India's full membership into the SCO now opens up an opportunity for a closer engagement with region but New Delhi still lacks a political-strategic clarity.

This book is an attempt to provide an overview of the political and strategic process at work in Central Asia since its emergence in 1991 and the intricate issues that impinge on India. The book is mostly about identifying critical points that are important for evolving a sound Central Asia policy in India.

The book does not in any sense purport to be an academic endeavour on Central Asian studies but merely a narrative, as well as, an analytical account and a result of author's own self-education and understanding gathered through extensive interactions with wide sections of people in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, especially with the think tanks, academia, government officials and the diplomatic community. The chapters in book are capsulated to provide analyses of the impinging issues that shape the dynamic interplay between Central Asia's internal polity and its external outlook. The book contains aspects critical for enhancing India's strategic presence in the region.

This book analyses the competing power politics that exists between the three major Asian powers - China, India, and Japan - on infrastructural development across the Indo-Pacific. It examines the competing policies and perspectives of these Asian powers on infrastructure development initiatives and explores the commonalities and contradictions between them that shape their ideas and interests. In brief, the volume looks into the strategic contention that exists between China's "Belt and Road Initiative" (BRI; earlier officially known as "One Belt, One Road" - OBOR) and Japan's "Expanded Partnership for Quality Infrastructure" (PQI) and initiatives like the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC) and position India's geostrategic and geo-economic interests in between these two competing powers and their mammoth infrastructural initiatives.

The book is structured to perform a role both as a primer to those who wish to understand the strategic issues and key concepts in cyberspace, as well as to provide sufficient pointers to those who wish to have an in-depth understanding on specific issues.

Among the major issues examined are the efficacy of the concept of cyber deterrence, the troubled history of norm-making in cyberspace, protecting critical infrastructure from crippling cyber attacks, the viability of Active Cyber Defence as a means of responding to the sheer scale of attacks, and its attendant legal and ethical issues. Emerging technologies and their potential impact on an already dynamic domain are also the subject to scrutiny, as also the various models of public-Private Partnership in cybersecurity around the world.

Defence reforms are a challenge for most countries. The lessons from India’s experience suggest that major change has almost always been mandated from the very top. The ongoing structural changes are also being driven by the highest political office in a bid to seek integration, indigenisation and greater effectiveness of the armed forces.

The ongoing military reforms began with the appointment of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) and creation of the Department of Military Affairs. Future changes are likely to include the creation of theatre commands, functional commands, restructuring of Army Headquarters and a number of other associated shifts in conjunction with these big bang reforms.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that these changes are perhaps the most far-reaching military reforms in India’s post-independence history.

The book undertakes a focussed assessment of the changes that commenced with the appointment of CDS. This includes the role and inter-se co-relation between major stake holders and defence departments. Keeping in view the need to enhance operational effectiveness, recommendations regarding the chain of command, rank structures and role of service chiefs have been made. The book will also analyse the structure and role of the future Air Defence and Logistics Command.

Maldives is the smallest country of South Asia. But its significance is no less because of its crucial geo-strategic location in the Indian Ocean. It sits astride on major sea lanes of communications (SLOCs). However, the crucial geo-strategic location of the Maldives has also caused problems for the country as it has aroused interests of major world powers.