India shares 4096 km (Assam-262 km, Tripura-856 km, Mizoram- 18 km, Meghalaya-443 km, West Bengal-2,217 km) long land boundary with Bangladesh (earlier East Pakistan). The Indo-Bangladesh border, which came into existence after India’s partition in 1947 gave rise to many questions as to the interpretation and implementation of the boundary so drawn. An effort was made to solve the outstanding border disputes with erstwhile East Pakistan and the Nehru-Noon Accord was signed in 1958. While some of the disputes were solved, many continued to haunt even after Bangladesh came into existence.
The paper looks at various dimensions of management of the Indo- Bangladesh border including, challenges to its management and, the internal political and security environment of Bangladesh and recommends measures to improve the border management.
The paper takes a critical look at various issues connected with India’s acquisition of the Russian aircraft carrier, the Admiral Gorshkov. It examines India’s choice of fighter and various problems it is likely to face in making the carrier operational and fully effective for its task. It recommends the early acquisition of aerial refuelling and early warning systems by the Navy. The paper also argues for greater jointmanship among the services and an increase in specialist cross-postings in order to improve inter-service rapport and the pool of trained manpower.
The paper attempts to analyse the issues in Central Asia in the context of India’s security. The paper poses a question as to what the region of Central Asia means for India today. The author argues that international attention is being focused on redefining the importance of Central Asian in the changing regional and international context. Since its reappearance, many suitors have been seeking affinity, proximity and legitimacy with the region on political, strategic, cultural and economic grounds.
The paper notes that Central Asia still holds importance to those around it and beyond — compelling everyone to think in a zero-sum game of who will control the region next, following Makinder’s thesis of “he who controls the heartland controls the world”. The paper says that there are already signs of geopolitical actions being applied in this direction, though the stage is not yet getting set for a clash of major power interests. But owing to the persisting rhetoric, probably intended, perhaps its inevitability cannot be just wished away. In this context, the paper deals with the current debate on Central Asia, which involves complex issues and the answers are ambiguous, often linked to events in Russia and elsewhere. The dynamisms evolving in the region would inevitably have implications far beyond what one might have imagined a decade ago.
The author emphasises that Central Asia, in its reordered geopolitical form, has emerged as a field of continuing interest and concern in India, particularly in the context of its strategic relevance to India’s security. Not only does the paper analyse the issues in a historical perspective, it also evaluates the current trends and interests that are at stake for India. The conclusion offers some suggestions for India’s policy options with regard to Central Asia.
The paper presents initial results from a limited exercise to apply Social Network Analysis (SNA) methodology to the database on terrorism created in IDSA called Terrorism Tracker (or T2).
T2 has been developed in-house. It uses systematic search for information on terrorist events from open sources including cyberspace, newswires and print reportage. This is followed by application of filters. It interfaces with standard commercial packages for data extraction from cyberspace as well as text mining from both structured and un-structured data. Classification of data into sub-groups for organisation-to- organisation, person-to-organisation and person-to-person network links has been automated. The present paper addresses organisation-to-organisation links of terrorist organisations operating in the Indian State of Jammu & Kashmir, through SNA.
The SNA software package, Visone, developed in Germany, has been used with the T2 generation of “co-occurrence” pairs where organisations are cited together in an event during the period 2000 – 2003. This output was converted into an adjacency matrix to form the input to Visone for analysis and generation of linkage graphs. Among the number of network parameters in the Visone suite, we have studied Degree which is defined as the number of direct connections that a node in the network has with other nodes.
We are of the view that the analysis performed by SNA is in line with our understanding of the phenomenon of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. These techniques, additionally, offer effective graphic visualisation of the network. In some cases, e.g., Umma Tameer-e-Nau (a Pak NGO), the Visone output has revealed linkages which have existed in T2 but were not easily obvious in poring over the large volume of data.
These initial findings appear to indicate that SNA or more broadly Graph Theoretic methods could be utilised in understanding terrorist networks. They appear, also, to provide a theoretical framework for understanding such networks. We believe that SNA application to terrorism is likely to be of utility to strategic analysts and information scientists; and, possibly, to agencies dealing with national security.
Washington-Tehran relations have come to occupy centrestage in the recent months given the United States’ current preoccupation with the Middle East. The US-Iran association can be traced back to 1953, when the CIA organised a coup to oust the elected government of Mohammed Mossadeq. Since then, the US has never really disengaged itself from the one of the most strategically important Middle East nations. This paper attempts to identify current US concerns regarding Iran and explores the possibility of a US offensive against Iran similar to that in Iraq. The US-Iran relations have the potential of transforming into better, long-lasting ties provided the US takes into account some critical issues.
The paper discusses Track II Diplomacy between India and the United States with a special focus on the post-1998 period. Its scope is limited to Track II deliberations that have relevance to foreign policy issues. An effort has been made to assess the efficacy of Track II exercises on the basis of certain parameters developed for this study.
The findings of the study are based on the responses received from some experts in this field in India during direct interviews with them. Thus, the paper provides an Indian perspective.
The 9/11 attacks on the US have forced the Americans to believe that the US secret service agencies are helpless against the attacks of the committed suicide squads. These attacks and the subsequent happenings in Afghanistan and Iraq have not only removed the illusion of post-Cold War peace, but also heightened uncertainty and insecurity in the world. ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ has given a clear message to the countries of the world that the US can go to any extent to protect its national interests even if the mandate of the world community is against such actions. The principles of sovereignty and the right of choosing one’s own government are not significant in the new US strategy, and it would have serious repercussions for all the states. These developments have forced scholars to explore the emerging trends of US foreign policy. As the US policies affect the foreign policies of almost all the other countries, an attempt has been made in this paper to provide an Indian perspective of the US foreign policy objectives, strategies and its role in the post-Cold War era.
The sectarian divide between the Sunnis and Shias in Pakistan has widened since the 1980s. The rising tide of sectarian violence during Musharraf’s rule (October 1999-till date), in spite of bans and restrictions imposed on sectarian outfits and elements by the administration, suggests that the two sects have drifted further apart. This paper seeks to trace the origin of the divide, dwell upon the sectarian politics in recent months and study the role of ideological and fiscal support from outside, the influence of the radical sectarian politics of the Taliban in the neighbourhood and the propensity of the security agencies to establish links with sectarian elements and divert them towards Kashmir, in contributing to this divide.
The psychological dimension of a conflict is as important as its physical dimension and psychological Operations (PSYOPs) have become even more relevant in this age of information, especially for a nation-state where the threat in the socio-psychological domain is more pronounced. While combating the menace of terrorism, the psychological dimension assumes great significance, as terrorists use violence as a psychological weapon by terrorising the multitude, rather than physically affect a few, and in this sense, they fight a psychological war also. The relevance of psychological operations is much greater than the successful conduct of tactical operations. This article is an attempt to conceptualise the term PSYOPs in the Indian context.
The changed dynamics of international relations following the end of the Cold War and changes in the South Asian strategic landscape, post- September 11, have made PSYOPs more relevant for the region. It is also important to know that differences between various related concepts like Propaganda, Information Warfare, and Perception Management are waferthin, and may lead to contested perceptions amongst various agencies working under the overall ambit of national security, if not viewed in the current perspective.
Therefore, clarity of the concept will set the stage for an effective implementation of policies and help in setting up of a policy structure in India (which does exist today in loosely knit shape) for national level coordination of PSYOPs. Alongside the need for a disciplined, trained, and well-equipped manpower to combat national security challenges, it is also essential to have a comprehensive and effective machinery to conduct psychological operations. Such a machinery must then cover the entire spectrum of the socio-psychological threat in all its varied forms without losing sight of the emerging global trends.
The essay defines Pakistan’s brazen retailing of sensitive nuclear technologies as Bomb Process Outsourcing (BPO) and places it in a larger perspective. It offers a short retrospective of the development and manufacture of nuclear weapons by the P-5 in which significant manpower and materials were ‘foreign’. This is true of the programmes of Israel, Iraq, South Africa, Argentina and Brazil as well. Pakistan, has now, contributed to North Korea, Libya and Iran.
The essay is skeptical about claims made about the ‘successes’ posted under the non-proliferation or counter-proliferation regime and argues that Libya and Iran making a clean breast is due to economic-political-security accommodation between them and USA.
It contends that the Pakistani BPO poses nuclear dangers more to Europe and Asia than USA. However, the establishment and the electoral system are fanning the BPO flames for short-term sectoral and political gains.
The Pak BPO constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security. To reduce the nuclear dangers posed by the Pak BPO, the essay recommends immediate consideration by the Security Council and collective action under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. If the Council is deadlocked, an emergency session of the UNGAT could be convened. Additionally, an international conference needs to be convened as soon as possible on ‘Reducing the Nuclear Danger’. This was accepted at the Millennium Summit in September 2000.
