This article is an attempt to understand India's concerns over the Diamer Bhasha dam project within the overall ambit of India's approach towards Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). It makes a holistic assessment of the feasibility of the project, the political and technical issues involved in it, the long-term strategy of Pakistan and China in the region, and the local reactions, which must inform India's future policy preferences regarding PoK. The article is divided into three parts.

• Priyanka Singh
• July 2012
• Strategic Analysis

Maritime strategy is playing an ever greater role in Indian strategic thinking. As India reaches for great power status, it is increasingly turning to the Indian Ocean to expand its strategic space. Although it currently operates in co-operation with the United States, India has long-term aspirations towards attaining naval predominance throughout much of the Indian Ocean. In conjunction with an expansion of India's naval capabilities, there has been a significant strengthening of India's maritime security relationships throughout the region.

• S. Kulshrestha
• May 2012
• Strategic Analysis

The objectives of this article are, firstly, to identify the place occupied by the Indian Ocean and South Asia in China's maritime strategy, and secondly, to identify the appropriate means of dealing with the global and regional maritime security concerns arising from China's maritime strategy as far as the Indian Ocean and South Asia are concerned.

• Sithara Fernando
• May 2012
• Strategic Analysis

There are many volumes on conflict resolution and nuclear proliferation. While the conflict scholarship focuses on management, resolution and transformation of conflicts, the proliferation scholarship examines why states acquire nuclear weapons in the first place and whether or not these have any deterrent value. The book under review goes beyond these two prospects by questioning what happens when a state, in protracted conflicts, acquires nuclear weapons.

• Zafar Khan
• March 2012
• Strategic Analysis

This article explores the objectives of China's engagement in the Maldives and how the current administration of the country is responding to it. The article also looks at how the Maldives has been used by major powers in the past. On the basis of these analyses, it envisages the path that Maldivian foreign policy is likely to follow in the future and its likely impact on the security environment in the Indian Ocean region.

• Anand Kumar
• March 2012
• Strategic Analysis

This article will bring to light the transformation of the Pakistani state from a relatively tolerant to an unstable state dominated by militancy and violence. In the formative phase of Pakistan, the notion of religious extremism was almost non-existent as the founder of the country, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, made it clear that the new state would not be theocratic in nature.

• Moonis Ahmar
• March 2012
• Strategic Analysis

The Pashtun populations of Afghanistan and Pakistan have long been a source of bilateral contention, with each government inciting Pashtun tribals against the other. Now that the majority of Pashtuns live in Pakistan, Islamabad is using its Pashtun connections to project influence into Afghanistan. As a result, both Afghanistan and Pakistan are threatened by runaway Pashtun militancy. Peace and stability in both countries will be impossible until political reforms have been implemented in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan.

• Robert Boggs
• March 2012
• Strategic Analysis

This article assesses the shifting preferences of Bhutan towards the foreign policy determinants. Three determinants (national security, political culture and economic engagement) have been studied as they play a significant role in shaping Bhutan's policy behaviour. These determinants have been analysed with respect to India, Nepal and China, three countries that have been of critical interest to Bhutan's foreign policy.

• Medha Bisht
• January 2012
• Strategic Analysis

It is now commonly accepted that small island countries are facing an existential threat because of global warming and the consequent rise in the level of the oceans.

• P. K. Gautam
• January 2012
• Strategic Analysis

For a long time, it was common practice to term the rate of economic growth in India the ‘Hindu rate of growth’—a derogatory term for the low growth rate of the economy.

• Hari Bansh Jha
• January 2012
• Strategic Analysis

With the ever increasing support and swelling number of protesters, Pashteen changed the name of the organisation from the Mehsud Tahafuz Movement to Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, a Movement for the Protection of Pashtuns.

• Zainab Akhter , Yaqoob-ul-Hassan
• May 04, 2018
• IDSA Comments

The purposes of the visit have been achieved and a new phase of relationship has begun with India acknowledging Nepal as an ‘equal partner’.

• Nihar R. Nayak
• April 11, 2018
• IDSA Comments

The current policy is premised on the understanding that unless India hurts the principal architect of Pakistan’s Kashmir policy, that is, the Army, terrorism would continue unabated.

• Vivek Chadha
• March 22, 2018
• Policy Brief

The four conditions for acquiring Indian citizenship and new regulations to ease the travel abroad of Tibetan refugees could cause the dismantling of Tibetan settlements which are the nerve centres of the preservation and promotion of Tibetan civilization.

• Yeshi Choedon
• February 23, 2018
• Policy Brief

Political instability in the wake of the arrest of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia in a corruption case will not portend well for Bangladesh and the region.

• Smruti S. Pattanaik
• February 15, 2018
• IDSA Comments

Not intervening at this stage would be viewed by the people of Maldives as an abdication of responsibility by India.

• Rumel Dahiya
• February 09, 2018
• IDSA Comments

Pakistan’s determination to build the Diamer Basha Dam (DBD) project with indigenous funding may prove even more difficult than obtaining foreign funding.

• Priyanka Singh
• January 23, 2018
• IDSA Comments

Doklam brought into perspective the fractured relationship between India and China on the global stage and increased fears of China’s growing unilateralism as it inexorably broadens its interests and sphere of influence, especially in South Asia.

• Shruti Pandalai
• January 01, 2018
• Issue Brief

Prudent as it may have appeared to reconcile to the territorial status quo in the past, policy makers must ask themselves whether such an approach has really worked in India’s favour.

• Priyanka Singh
• December 11, 2017
• IDSA Comments

The various connectivity projects put forward by India show its involvement as an investor in capacity-building efforts in the recipient countries across sectors of their particular needs and choices, not as an overarching and imposing economic power.

• Sreemati Ganguli
• October 23, 2017
• IDSA Comments