North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)

The much awaited NATO Russian Summit meeting is taking place on November 19-20, 2010 in Lisbon. Will it signify a major thaw in East-West relations, or will existing differences thwart a major rapprochement between the United States, Europe and Russia which could herald a new era in international relations.

• Arvind Gupta
• November 08, 2010
• IDSA Comments

India must stay engaged, keep a low profile, earn the goodwill of the Afghan people through its multifaceted assistance programme, and stay away from any costly misadventure in the security sector.

• Arvind Gupta
• October 18, 2010
• IDSA Comments

This paper seeks to understand the nature of cooperation between the UN and other IGOs in ongoing conflicts. It will examine the security framework in which these multilateral arrangements were created, the gaps they were trying to cover, and the problems and areas of opportunities.

• Mayank Bubna
• May 24, 2010
• Issue Brief

US calculation in backing Pakistani designs for controlling Afghanistan will bring even greater dangers to its own doorsteps.

• D. Padma Kumar Pillay
• March 03, 2010
• IDSA Comments

The Dutch withdrawal from Afghanistan may have cascading effects, as smaller European countries notwithstanding their importance in contribution or numerical strength, may also announce their exit citing their own national caveats in the months to come.

• Alok Rashmi Mukhopadhyay
• February 23, 2010
• IDSA Comments

Obama’s signal that the United States seeks to exit in 18 months will be viewed with scepticism by fence sitters in Afghanistan who will identify the victor as the one who endures.

• Shanthie Mariet D’Souza
• December 14, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Ideally, ISAF and NATO should concentrate on urban population centres along with the ANA, and the ANA should also deploy outside the towns and cities to dominate the hinterland and crack down on Taliban controlled areas.

• Harinder Singh
• December 11, 2009
• IDSA Comments

A new actor was inducted in the decades-old Afghan conflict when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) assumed command of the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in August 2003. NATO's entry into the Afghan theatre took place in the backdrop of the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003. With the United States diverting its resources and greater attention to Iraq, NATO was to expand its operations throughout Afghanistan in support of the US-led coalition force in a phased manner.

• Vishal Chandra
• September 2009
• Strategic Analysis

Eight winters since the launch of Enduring Freedom, the turmoil in Afghanistan continues. When contrasted with the progress in Iraqi Freedom, the gloom only deepens. Having applied the necessary mid- course corrections to the ‘ wrong war ’ (Iraq), there is hope on the horizon; despite the Obama administration’s shift of gaze and focus to the ‘ right war ’ (Afghanistan) to include a renewed and reworked military thrust, the initiative continues to rest with the Taliban.

• Raj Shukla
• August 17, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Nuclear weapons deter by the possibility of their use, and in no other way. Although US and Soviet arsenals became grotesquely excessive in both numbers and diversity in the late 1960s, by the later 1908s there had been very extensive reductions in both numbers and types. NATO's collective doctrine had accepted that the only sen-sible role for its nuclear weapons was for war-termination. Western governments had increasingly accepted the idea of sufficiency, recognizing that notions of nuclear supe-riority were vacuous.

• Michael Quinlan
• May 2009
• Strategic Analysis