In his recent article published by the Lowy Institute, titled “Glug, Glug, Glug: India’s interest in unsinkable Aircraft Carriers”, David Brewster[1], probes India’s medium term plan to develop into a three carrier fleet. Brewster cites huge costs (acquisition, maintenance and operational) and vulnerability issues attached with the Carrier Task Force (CTFs) in support of his […]
Introduction The epic sea battles between aircraft carriers never recurred after the Second World War. In the post-war period, most carriers began to retire without even having participated in battle. Many countries that possessed carriers or were aspiring to do so thus began to re-assess the military-strategic utility of such platforms in the radically altered […]
The spillover of India’s determination to counter US trade threats could endanger nascent security dialogues in the Indo-Pacific. The idea of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad, as it is often called, was mooted by Japanese premier Shinzo Abe in 2007. The officials of the four countries in Abe’s proposal – India, US, Australia and […]
In the taxonomy of ‘Geopolitics’ and ‘Geo-strategy’, the prefix ‘geo’ refers to a country’s strategic geography, which is the core underpinning of its national-strategy. Geopolitics involves the satiation of the country’s geo-economic and other objectives, which are sought to be met through coherent geo-strategies in various domains. The military domain merely represents an ‘assurance’ and […]
India and Indonesia are maritime neighbours with a symbiotic relationship which can be utilised towards developing maritime cooperation in the region. The distance between India’s Andaman Islands and Indonesia’s Aceh is not more than 80 nautical miles. Additionally, the fact that the Indian naval ships have been making visits to Indonesia ports and coordinated patrolling […]
The United States has been prodding India to sign the communications, compatibility and security agreement, better known as COMCASA, for more than a decade. COMCASA is a version of CISMOA (Communication interoperability and Security memorandum Agreement) tailored specifically for India. CISMOA is considered to be one of the three foundational agreements that the United States […]
In March 2018, as per media reports, Neil Basu, the Scotland Yard’s newly appointed Indian-origin Assistant Commissioner of Police responsible for counter-terrorism, launched a new campaign to urge the public to fight terrorism. According the report, of the nearly 31,000 reports made by the public in 2017, more than 6,600 (21.3 percent) resulted in ‘useful’ […]
The upcoming visit of Indian Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, to Indonesia (later this month),is reflective of the strong desire of both the countries to work more closely together, in the face of the ‘rapidly evolving strategic realities’ in the Indo-Pacific region, after years of mutual neglect. During this visit, the Prime Minister is expected […]
Introduction Torturous negotiations, involving much bargaining and several compromises, characterised the multiple sessions of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. Although the Conference eventually succeeded in formulating what is now known as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS), the consequences of these compromises continue to […]