Rajesh Rajagopalan

India and the Great Powers

Six propositions drive this article. First, Indias relations with the great powers as they evolve over the next two decades are going to be conditioned by Indias own emergence as a great power. Second, it will take at least 15 to 20 years for a balance to re-emerge in the contemporary hegemonic system; hence, Indias emergence will be simultaneous with the relative decline of the United States (US). Third, Indian policy makers and analysts need to think structurally about Indias external relations, especially with the US and China. Fourth, Indias relations with the great powers are inseparable from the broader issue of emerging Asian balances and security architectures. Fifth, India needs to keep a keen eye on other major powers, among whom Russia, Japan, the European Union (EU) and Brazil will be particularly important. Finally, while building its capabilities along a broad spectrum, India must not lose sight of the normative component that is inherent in great power status.

‘Restoring normalcy’: The evolution of the Indian army's counterinsurgency doctrine

The Indian Army has a uniquely political approach to counterinsurgency that has had great success. This essay examines the development of this doctrine over the last five decades, and the political and operational factors that influenced its development. The most important of these factors was, and remains, the Armys positional‐war orientation, which puts great emphasis on the need to prepare for conventional war. Though the doctrine has undergone some evolution, such changes have been constrained by the positional‐war orientation.

Innovations in counterinsurgency: the Indian Army's Rashtriya Rifles

Although the Indian Army has been engaged in counterinsurgency operations for over 50 years, it continues to see such campaigns as secondary to its primary task of defending Indias frontiers. This has limited the armys capacity to innovate and modify its doctrines and force structures to deal with internal insurgencies. This article examines the origins and evolution of the Rashtriya Rifles, a force that the Indian Army created to fight insurgencies. However, the Rashtriya Rifles remains primarily an organisational innovation rather than a doctrinal one. Therefore, the Rashtriya Rifles has neither reduced the armys exposure to counterinsurgency operations, nor improved the armys capacity to fight insurgencies.

Force and Compromise: India's Counter-Insurgency Grand Strategy

The Indian Union has one of the world’s most successful records in fighting insurgencies. It has not yet lost a counter-insurgency campaign within the country; its only unsuccessful campaign was the one it fought against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) guerrillas in Sri Lanka in the late 1980s. Victory and loss in insurgency campaigns is, of course, relative, as expressed in the general belief among military professionals that a counter-insurgency campaign can only be lost, not won. This would find support in the Indian record: most of India’s domestic insurgencies continue, though the Indian Army and other security forces have managed to contain their intensity to very low levels. Only the Mizo insurgency can be considered to have been resolved (though even in Mizoram some insurgent activity does continue). Punjab, which can be seen as one major victory, is not considered here because it never managed to progress from a terrorist movement to a fully-fledged insurgency—and the Punjab Police rather than the Indian Army was the primary force fighting it.

Deterrence and nuclear confrontations: The Cuban missile crisis and the Sino‐soviet border war

The first part of this study on the deterrent capabilities of Small Nuclear Forces (SNFs) had examined nuclear deterrence theory. As had been suggested in that paper, there are obvious limitations to drawing conclusions about deterrence policies based purely on theories of deterrence. It is equally important to examine the validity of these theories on the basis of actual experience. Thus, the paper focuses on operation of deterrence, taking nuclear crises as examples of such an operation. Specifically, this paper focuses on the Cuban Missile crisis and the SinoSoviet border skirmishes to see if any useful lessons might be drawn about the operation of nuclear deterrence with Small Nuclear Forces (SNFs).

India and South Asian security

The South Asian region has witnessed a high level of insecurity ever since the region became independent from colonial rule. This condition has persisted even after the end of the cold war. Our paper looks at the Indian threat perceptions, the Indian responses to such threat perceptions, and, the effects of the Indian response. The three principal sources of Indian threat perceptions have been Pakistan, China, and domestic insurgent groups. This paper con tends that the principle problem in Indo-Pakistan relations has been the problem of security dilemma, a condition where the increase in the security of a country, arouses fear in the hearts of its adversaries, thereby leading to a reduction in its security.

In the Hegemon’s Shadow: Leading States and the Rise of Regional Powers by Evan Braden Montgomery

Much of the focus of Realist theories on international politics has been on politics between the great powers. Most Realists are quite explicit about this bias. Both Kenneth N. Waltz, the father of Neorealism, and John J. Mearsheimer, the leading proponent of offensive Realism, have argued that a theory of international politics has to be written concentrating on the great powers because they affect other states and the international system far more than any other actors in the system. This utilitarian bias may have been understandable for their purpose, which was to write a general theory of international politics, but it is not particularly useful in trying to explain international politics within regions. This problem with general Realist theory has gained increasing visibility as international politics moved away from bipolar great power politics to more regional politics, partly because the dominance of the United States since the end of the Cold War reduced the relevance of great power politics, but also, paradoxically, as the relative decline of the US revealed a world of not global great powers but one dominated by regions and regional powers. As the Cold War ended, Aaron Friedman had pointed out that the trend of international politics was towards regionalisation and regional international politics, something that Barry Buzan and Ole Weaver have also stressed. This increasing attention to regional international politics should be welcome because there is only so far that a general international political theory based on global powers can go, especially when the future of international politics is likely to be dominated by regional powers rather than global ones. Still, a focus solely on regional powers is also likely to be only half the story because great powers beyond the region also have influence in regional politics. The question then is how to integrate both: regional politics, as well as how great powers respond to such regional politics. This is what Evan Braden Montgomery does in this excellent new work. Using several historical cases, he outlines how decision-makers in the capitals of great powers consider how to respond to changes taking place within regional international orders, when they decide to intervene within such politics, and what determines their choices when they do decide to intervene. This is written from an explicitly Realist perspective, with an emphasis on the changing regional balance of power and how that influences the choices that external great powers make. It is also written in quite general terms; but that is unavoidable when seeking general Strategic Analysis, 2017 Vol. 41, No. 5, 525–527, https://doi.org/10.1080/09700161.2017.1343264

Chinese and Indian Strategic Behavior: Growing Power and Alarm

ation of the two offices was completed in September 2011, p. 196). As to readership, the book is probably best appreciated by cognoscenti and those who want to turn themselves into one, as it delves deeply into the nitty-gritty of the politics of CSDP impact. To conclude, Ginsberg and Penksa have produced a study that sets a new quality standard in CSDP analysis. The book’s limitations do not invalidate this assessment.

India: Largest democracy and smallest debate?

Over the past decade, India has been actively pursuing a Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) programme. This programme has been little debated publicly, despite the fact that it could potentially have quite dramatic consequences for the country’s security and nuclear stability in the region. Nor is there any evidence that the democratic polity has in any way influenced Indian decisionmaking about missile defences (MD). Indeed, despite several changes of government since the mid-1990s, New Delhi’s pursuit of MD has not wavered, though it has also not progressed very far. It is also unclear how this programme fits with India’s nuclear doctrine or its general nuclear arms control and disarmament policies. There are two drivers to this programme. First are New Delhi’s concerns about Pakistan’s missile acquisitions, going back to the early 1990s. This is the primary factor, though it is unclear how the Indian MD project will deal with this menace. Indeed, the past several military crises with Pakistan appear to have strengthened Indian determination to pursue activities in this military area. Second, the international context of MD, in particular the American stress on this option, has also significantly influenced and legitimized New Delhi’s intention to acquire similar systems. Though India’s pursuit of MD appears to predate the new American emphasis on such systems demanded by US President George W. Bush in May 2001, India’s plans have been given a significant push by the change in American policy. Two determinants which are often mentioned when it comes to India’s military activities in general do not seem to be important for the country’s MD activities: one is India’s ‘strategic enclave’, that is, its research and development (R&D) establishment, which aims at pushing the country to the forefront of the international scientific advances. The second one is the country’s global strategic standing or position. The first section of this article looks at how the Indian MD programme has evolved. The empirical evidence on this score is thin, as is the case with many

The Evolution of Pakistan's Nuclear Policy, 1999-2001

Rajesh Rajagopalan is Senior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi, India. IN THE YEARS since the Kargil War, Pakistan’s nuclear policy has shown signs of both continuity and change. Many aspects of Pakistan’s nuclear policy remain the same, but it is possible that Pakistan is rethinking at least one way in which nuclear weapons fit into its larger national goals. In particular, the use of Pakistan’s nuclear capability to raise global concerns about nuclear stability in South Asia-which was seen as