Strategic Analysis


Military Innovation: Hurdles, Bumps and Jumps

Military innovation is peculiar and distinctive, and has no direct parallels. The military environment itself, with focus on hierachy, discipline and tradition makes innovation a daunting challenge. The process is further influenced by civil-military relations and metrics used for measuring effectiveness of innovative efforts. Factors influencing the process of military innovation vary when examining innovation at the policy and strategy level, at the doctrinal level, during peacetime and under conditions of war.

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From Central to Peripheral: The United Nations and the Recent Iraq Crisis

The United Nations was founded on the principles of sovereign equality of its member states. The sovereignty exercised by states in their domestic jurisdiction and external relations was to be upheld in the conduct of international relations especially through the UN. However, the recent developments culminating in the United States-led war in Iraq have raised several doubts about the efficacy of the UN in preserving the sovereignty of its member-states while maintaining international peace and security.

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Ballistic Missile Defence: Likely Meaningful Completion or Irrational Indulgence?

The demand for an infallible missile and homeland defence against anticipatory threats from adversarial state actors as well as amorphous non-state actors has become accentuated in the US in the post-9/11 era. In consonance, the importance of anti-missile defence shield has grown in primacy and has witnessed a changing orientation to an amalgamation of an integrated Layered Defence System. However, the two main question on the development of such a system are whether it will reach a meaningful completion and whether such a system will be cost-effectived.

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3rd India-Central Asia Regional Conference

The 3rd India-Central Asia Regional Conference was jointly organised by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi and the Institute for Strategic and Regional Studies (ISRS) at Tashkent during November 6-8, 2003. Fifty participants from about 20 countries participated in the Conference. Representatives from organisations like the World Bank (WB), European Union (EU), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) also participated. Uzbek Foreign Minister Mr.

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Prem Shankar Jha, The End of Saddam Hussein, History Through the Eyes of the Victims

Events in Iraq in the last decade, especially the invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies (the so-called Coalition of the Willing) in 2003, have shaken the basis of the international system which has governed interstate relations since the end of the Second World War in 1945. In the Middle East, the lack of faith in the multilateral institutions set up after that War, has intensified.

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US and the Asia-Pacific: Future of the Alliance System and Regional Security

The article critically looks at relevance of the US alliance system in the Asia-Pacific in the context of the changing nature of threats and challenges that the U.S. is confronted with in the light of American military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq. The paper argues that the American policy in Asia, which so far has been premised on bilateral alliances and forward deployment, is likely to undergo fundamental changes because the principal partners, South Korea and Japan, may not be very useful either in counter-terrorism efforts or low-intensity wars.

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Bodo Insurgency in Assam: New Accord and New Problems

Assam, one of the seven states of the northeastern region of India, has long remained one of the most volatile and sensitive regions in the country because of the problems of insurgency, ethnic conflict, pressure of migration, underdevelopment etc. Bodos, the largest plains tribe of Assam started an armed struggle for a separate state in the mid-1980s. This armed struggle led to ethnic cleansing of the non-Bodos along the north bank of the Brahmaputra.

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Terrorists’ Modus Operandi in Jammu and Kashmir

Terrorism in the state of Jammu and Kashmir has completed almost 15 years. It marked its arrival with blasts in Srinagar city in 1988 and subsequently expanded to other parts in a well-planned and organised manner. It has the ingredients of a professionally run movement. Initially, majority of the terrorists were locals who had crossed over to Pakistan in large groups in 1987 and returned after obtaining training, but gradually the foreigners, mostly Pakistanis, replaced them. Locals or foreigners, terrorists depend fully on the public support—obtained voluntarily or through coercion.

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