Shorn of its rhetoric, the only tangible outcome discernible from the joint statement is the agreement on staging two flag meetings at the LoC. In fact, there are some questions that need to be asked, for example, why did the situation worsen to the extent that the DGsMO had to meet to affirm their commitment to maintain the sanctity of, and the ceasefire on, the LOC?

• Amit Cowshish
• January 02, 2014
• IDSA Comments

It has been a year of unstable regional security with the endless conflict in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s half-hearted struggle against the remnants of the al Qaeda, Sri Lanka’s inability to find a lasting solution to its ethnic problems and Nepal’s new found inclination to seek neutrality between India and China.

• Gurmeet Kanwal
• December 31, 2013
• IDSA Comments

While Choudhary’s judicial activism did restore a degree of sanity to Pakistan, it came at the expense of other institutions and created an imbalance of power. Pakistan, to become a normal state, at peace with itself and the world at large, may not need institutional tinkering but a wholesale rejigging of its institutional superstructure and substructure.

• Wajahat Qazi
• December 18, 2013
• IDSA Comments

A lot has being made of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif taking his time to select the next army chief and signalling civilian supremacy by picking the number three in the seniority list. Whether Gen Raheel Sharif will remain subservient to civilian authority because ‘Pakistan has changed’ and ‘democracy is here to stay’ remains to be seen.

• Sushant Sareen
• December 03, 2013
• IDSA Comments

In this final part of the Policy Paper series, P Stobdan deliberates that if India and China make a calibrated move for working together in Afghanistan, the outcome could be more harmonizing than conflicting. So when India reviews its post-2014 Afghan policy, the China factor should not be seen in a zero-sum perception for many in the West may press India playing a countervailing role to China.

• P. Stobdan
• December 02, 2013
• Policy Brief

In this third part of the Policy Paper series, P Stobdan argues that India should continue to remain engaged in Asia-Pacific for reasons not only confined to mercantile interest but also because it is an arena shaping the major powers behaviour. At the same, a regional rebalancing and attention to equally critical Central and West Asia will broaden India’s prospects for shaping the global order.

• P. Stobdan
• November 30, 2013
• Policy Brief

In this second-part of the Policy Paper series, P Stobdan suggests that in the recent Indian strategic discourse, commentators have been exulting the US ‘Asia Pivot’ and seriously hoped that the idea will offset China’s regional outreach, for it also appeared similar to India’s own ‘Look East’ policy, which to an extent enabled New Delhi to ruffle a few feathers in the East Asian region.

• P. Stobdan
• November 28, 2013
• Policy Brief

In a 4-part series of Policy Papers, P Stobdan analyses India's response to the global shifts and how India’s strategic perception seems to have altered dramatically in the recent years. What it essentially means is that embracing the cold-war perception or adopting any containment strategy is unlikely to be enduring in the longer run.

• P. Stobdan
• November 26, 2013
• Policy Brief

The Awami League government may not have done everything right in the last five years, but it has done commendable work by South Asian standards. The Bangladesh economy has grown consistently at about six per cent and the government has done well to contain the extremist forces.

• Anand Kumar
• November 22, 2013
• IDSA Comments

India’s interests lie in a peaceful and stable Afghanistan and one of its major policy objectives would be to see the elimination of terrorism from Afghanistan and the destruction of all sanctuaries of the Taliban and the Al Qaeda.

• Gurmeet Kanwal
• November 21, 2013
• IDSA Comments