
INDIA'S EVOLVING COASTAL SECURITY ARCHITECTURE: A CASE FOR A NEW CENTRAL FORCE
It has now been over a decade since the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 2008 (26/11) undertaken by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tohiba (LeT) group. Since then, considerable efforts have been made to streamline India’s coastal security,…

INDIA AS A CHALLENGE TO CHINA'S BRI
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was announced by President Xi Jinping in 2013, comprising both the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt (launched in August 2013) and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (introduced…

BIMSTEC AND MARITIME SECURITY: ISSUES, IMPERATIVES AND WAY AHEAD
Oddly, the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is a sub-regional grouping named after a sea body, but the graphics in its logo are devoid of blue colour. Of course, the etymology of BIMSTEC…

RELEVANCE OF AIRCRAFT CARRIERS FOR INDIA: AN ASSESSMENT
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…

THE FOCUS IS ON INDO-PACIFIC
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…

MARITIME DIMENSION OF HYBRID WARFARE – THE INDIAN CONTEXT
(This is a revised extract of chapter titled “India’s Strategic Landscape, Hybrid Threats and Likely Operational Scenarios” jointly authored by Gurmeet Kanwal, Syed Ata Hasnain, Gurpreet S Khurana and Manmohan Bahadur, in Satish Kumar…

‘BEYOND HARDWARE AND TECHNOLOGY’: THE INTANGIBLES OF CHINA’S NAVAL POWER (PART 3)
This is part three of a three-part series on China's naval power
(PART 3: TACTICAL LEVEL)
As introduced in the Part 1, so far, most analysis of China’s naval power worldwide has focused on the PLA Navy’s existing and projected…

A NEW BEGINNING FOR ‘CODE OF CONDUCT’ IN SOUTH CHINA SEA: IS ONE REQUIRED FOR THE INDIAN OCEAN?
On 06 August 2017, the foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China met in Manila, The Philippines, and adopted the "Framework of the code of conduct (CoC) in the South China Sea (SCS)”. The framework…

‘BEYOND HARDWARE AND TECHNOLOGY’: THE INTANGIBLES OF CHINA’S NAVAL POWER (PART 2)
This is part two of a three-part series on China's naval power
(PART 2: OPERATIONAL LEVEL)
As introduced in Part 1, so far, most analyses of China’s naval power worldwide have examined the PLA Navy’s existing and projected…

CHINA’S AIRCRAFT CARRIER: ‘DREADNOUGHT’ OR ‘DOCTRINAL DILEMMA’?
Within five years after the China commissioned its first Soviet-origin aircraft carrier Liaoning in September 2012, it launched its first-ever domestic carrier – the Type 001A – on 26 April 2017. The new carrier is likely to be commissioned…

THE ‘INDO-PACIFIC’ CONCEPT: RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT
Since 2010, the concept of ‘Indo-Pacific’ has gained increasing prevalence in the geopolitical/ strategic discourse, and is now being used increasingly by policy-makers, analysts and academics in Asia and beyond.[1] It is now precisely a…

WILL DONALD TRUMP REBALANCE THE ‘REBALANCE’?
On 20 January 2017, Mr Donald Trump assumes office as the 45th President of the United States (U.S.). Six years ago in 2011, his predecessor, President Barak Obama launched the ‘Rebalance to Asia’. Among the key objectives of the…