Strategic Analysis

Deep State Continuum in Pakistan and Implications for India: Jyoti M. Pathania, New Delhi, KW Publishers, 2022

In a country like Pakistan, where none of its Prime Ministers could ever complete a full five-year term in office, the role of the so-called ‘deep State’ — a term used as a euphemism for its Army—in exercising disproportionate control over the affairs of the country—has often been highlighted.

Adil Rasheed
January-February 2023
Strategic Analysis

India as Kingmaker: Status Quo or Revisionist Power: Michael O. Slobodchikoff and Aakriti A. Tandon, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2022

The two authors of the book under review are academics at separate campuses in the United States, with the first having to his credit previously published books in international and strategic affairs. In their collaborative effort, the authors have chosen to draw attention to the perceived challenge being posed to the existing world order—a creation of the Western alliance led by the United States. Important members of the alliance—Britain, France, Germany and Japan—favour continuity of the existing order. They have been labelled as status quo powers.

Sunil Khatri
January-February 2023
Strategic Analysis

Innovate to Dominate: The Rise of the Chinese Techno-Security State: Tai Ming Cheung, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 2022

The outcome of the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, held in October 2022, was on predictable lines. It was no surprise that President Xi Jinping was chosen CPC supremo for an unprecedented third time, defying the two-term limit set by Deng Xiaoping to prevent a single person from gaining absolute and autocratic power like Mao Zedong. Xi, considered the most powerful leader in China since Mao, is determined to put China on the ‘rejuvenation’ path and attain superpower status for the Middle Kingdom by mid-century.

Laxman Kumar Behera
January-February 2023
Strategic Analysis

China’s South Asia Policy

The first half of 1971 witnessed some significant developments in South Asia: the emergence of a liberation movement for an independent Bangla Desh, the Janata Vimukti Peramuna (JVP) insurgency in Ceylon and the landslide electoral victory of Smt. Gandhi in India. These developments came at a time when China, in the aftermath of the decisions taken at the Ninth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, had begun implementing a reactivated tactical line in foreign policy.

‘Strategising’ the India-EU Partnership

India’s foreign policy, as in the case of any other sovereign state, aims at protecting and promoting the country’s ‘national interest.’ Strategic autonomy, which has been its defining value and goal, remains at the core of India’s global engagements. India maintains political, diplomatic, economic, strategic, science and technological, and cultural relations to achieve a stable, secure, peaceful, and prosperous India. The largest ‘democracy’ in the world, India, joins hands with the EU, the largest cluster of ‘democracies’ in the world.

Quad and the Indo-Pacific: Examining the Balance of Interest Theory in Quad Coalition

In light of China’s rise, the Quad coalition has gained momentum in its efforts to maintain a Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP). While scholars have discussed the relevance of Quad, little work has been done to theorize the balancing behaviour of individual Quad countries. This article examines Randall Schweller’s Balance of Interest theory—which emphasizes the underlying ‘profit motives’ in alliance formations—in the Quad coalition.

Colonialism Matters: Benefits of Metropoles with a Focus on India and Great Britain

The history of colonialism normally focusses on the socio-economic losses of colonies, and the benefits of metropoles are a much less-studied field. Our study indicates that the flow of resources, rent and personal wealth should not be downplayed as factors of economic growth in the key Empires, although information on most subjects is limited. This importance could be demonstrated (although not fully quantitatively evaluated) by India–United Kingdom relations before 1913.

New Russia-West Confrontation: War of Attrition or Escalation?

The article analyses the ongoing Russia-West confrontation manifested mainly in the armed conflict in Ukraine, the world’s largest war of sanctions, a growing confrontation in cyberspace and politics, the erosion of the system of arms control treaties and a sharp reduction of cooperation in the humanitarian sphere. Russia and the West are fighting not only for influence in Ukraine but also over the future of international relations on a global scale in the coming decades.

The Comrades and the Mullahs: China, Afghanistan and the New Asian Geopolitics: Ananth Krishnan and Stanly Johny, HarperCollins, Gurugram

The conspicuous US withdrawal from Afghanistan has resulted in a political vacuum, garnering immediate attention of regional and great powers alike. In The Comrades and the Mullahs, presenting Afghanistan’s long history of foreign invasions and resistance, journalists Ananth Krishnan and Stanly Johny show how the country was a theatre for the Great Game between the British and Russian Empires, and later got caught in Cold War rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union. The return of the Taliban in Afghanistan has certainly become a diplomatic predicament for India.

The False Promise of Liberal Order: Nostalgia, Delusion and the Rise of Trump: Patrick Porter, Polity Press, Cambridge and Medford

The coming of Donald Trump to power as the 45th President of the United States amounted to a moment of reckoning for the American foreign policy establishment. With his unconventional posturing and populist moorings, the Trump presidency seemed antithetical to Washington DC’s ‘Blob’ worldview that guided American foreign policy in the post-Cold War years.