In recent years, transfer of defence technology to India, as an alternate route to indigenous development, has been frequently brought up with widely varying views from the Indian defence technology fraternity. Some lament its failure to help India achieve self-reliance, while others suggest it can enable India to leapfrog ahead. While it has been paradoxically found to be more expensive than outright purchase of defence systems, there are indications that countries such as Israel, South Korea and China have gained immensely from it. While there has been a flood of ToT proposals from foreign OEMs after the launch of the Make in India initiative, there have been few proposals which have materialised and a miniscule number successfully implemented. Acknowledging the need to unravel these mysteries, this book attempts to throw light on the entire range of connected aspects from a brief historical perspective to an understanding of its fundamentals and nuances, to how ToT should be aligned with national goals and there on to its implementation issues. Initially addressing the conventional mode and its complexities, it expands to touch upon the others, then the unconventional ones, the facilitators such as offsets and the transaction in its widest sense. Thus enveloping the complete spectrum, it brings its insights together to converge on a possibly successful arrangement for India. Written in an explorative, questioning style, this book will intrigue interested readers and propel the Indian defence technology community to dwell on its findings and suggestions for the formulation of a cogent way forward.

The Korean Peninsula, which constitutes one of the strategic pivots of Northeast Asian security, has remained a contested theatre for major powers. Denuclearisation of the Peninsula is unfolding as one of the most defining challenges in shaping regional security. The end state in the Peninsula and how it is to be realised is debated amongst the stakeholders. This book aims to situate some of the critical issues in the Korean theatre within the competing geopolitical interests, strategic choices and policy debates among the major powers. This volume is an endeavour to bring together leading Indian experts including former Indian ambassadors to the Republic of Korea, senior members from the defence and strategic community to analyse the developing situation in the Korean Peninsula.

The Kargil conflict was fought 20 years ago. However, it continues to remain relevant for strategic analysts, military historians, academics, armed forces personnel and diplomats. This book, delves into the structures, planning processes and procedures adopted while pursuing diplomacy, higher direction of war and strategic communications, on both sides of the Line of Control during the Kargil conflict. In doing so, existing arguments are challenged and alternative conclusions drawn. This includes the debate around the decision not to cross the LoC during operations, the decision making process involved with the employment of air power and limitations of existing strategic communication structures of the armed forces, as observed during the conflict.

The second part of the book employs Kargil and the succeeding 20 years, as the basis for analysing the changing character of war. This includes a study of its implications on the notion of victory and shifts needed while pursuing diplomacy, higher direction of war and strategic communications. It also introduces the concept of finite and infinite game theory to conflicts in the sub-continental context, in an attempt to contextualise it through a fresh perspective.

This book analyses the structure of the India–China relationship and the two prominent powers’ positions with and against each other, bilaterally and globally, in a complex Asian environment and beyond. India and China’s perceptions of one another are evaluated to reveal how the order of Asia is influenced by engaging in different power equations that affect equilibrium and disequilibrium.

Contributors address three critical perspectives of India and China in Asia which are increasingly shaping the future of Asia and impacting the Indo-Pacific power balance. First, they examine the mutual perceptions of India and China as an integral part of Asia’s evolving politics and the impact of this on the emerging Asian order and disorder. Second, they assess how classical and contemporary characteristics of the India–China boundary and beyond-border disputes or conflicts are shaping Asia’s political trajectory and leaving an impact on the Indo-Pacific region. Additionally, contributors observe the prevailing power equations in which India and China are currently engaged to reveal that they are not only geographically limited to the Asian region. Instead, having a strong global or intercontinental character attached to it, the India–China relationship involves extra-territorial powers and extra-territorial regions.

This book will be of interest to academics, students and policymakers working on Asian studies, international relations, area studies, emerging powers studies, strategic studies, security studies and conflict studies.

This book is a rersult of research undertaken on the subject by the scholars associated with the IDSA project on Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) - also known as Pakistan Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (PoJK) - Which includes both the so-called "Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK)" and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), was legally a part of the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kahmir, which acceded to India in October 1947. The authors of this book seek to provide a critical analysis of the politics of the above mentioned two regions within PoK; throw light on the genesis and evolution of various political parties and interest groups, and acquaint the readers with different pesonalities playing important role in politics therein. The main aim of the publication is to help the scholars, analysts, and policy-makers to understand the dynamics of the political systems in PoK, the complex interaction of these systems with the government in Islamabad and the responses of the local leadership to Pakistan's strateghy of keeping them under strict control in the name of representative governance over the last 70 years.

This anthology of essays traverses a wide range of issues exploring the inconsistencies in the global war on terror, and brings together diverse perspectives from eminent academia, practitioners, technologists and civil society from Asia. It takes the conversation beyond the academic realm by delving into first person accounts from authors who are living and fighting terrorism in the heart of conflict zones in the region.

This book explores what military strategy is and how it is interconnected with policy on one hand and military operations on the other. In the process, it traces the transformation of the notion of strategy from its original military moorings to a more policy-oriented and-influenced conception and elaborates upon a tripartite framework of policy, strategy and doctrine to think about, understand, and analyse the use of force. The book explores the politics of India-Pakistan conflict in order to root the study of Indian military strategy in the political sphere. It discusses three main issues that have ensured the persistence of conflict: incompatible national identities, Pakistan's congenital quest for parity with and compulsion to challenge India, and irreconcilable positions on the Kashmir issue. The book argues that India has invariably pursued limited political aims that did not threaten Pakistan's survival or form of government or regime in power albeit containing a counter offensive elements. It states that India employed the strategy of exhaustion during the Indian Army's campaigns in the 1947-48 conflict and 1965 war, which made way to strategy of annihilation during the 1971 war (East Pakistan), but after Pakistan's acquisition of nuclear weapons capability the strategy is back to exhaustion. The book highlights the importance of designing an overall military strategy for waging limited war and pursuing carefully calibrated political and military objectives by creatively combining the individual doctrines of the three services by establishing a Chief of Defence Staff system.

The East Asia Strategic Review is the publication form the East Asia Centre, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi. The volume entitled, China's Rising Strategic Ambitions in Asia is intended to bring out Indian perspectives on the growing influence of China in Asia. These perspectives are particularly seen in the light of expanding Chinese political and economic engagement in Asia. As a major country in Asia, the Indian perspectives contribute the necessary input towards the ongoing debate on the Chinese role.

This book debates and discusses the present and future of Disruptive Technologies in general and military Disruptive Technologies in particular. Its primary goal is to discuss various critical and advanced elucidations on strategic technologies. The focus is less on extrapolating the future of technology in a strict sense, and more on understanding the Disruptive Technology paradigm. It is widely accepted that technology alone cannot win any military campaign or war. However, technological superiority always offers militaries an advantage. More importantly, technology also has a great deterrent value. Hence, on occasion, technology can help to avoid wars. Accordingly, it is important to effectively manage new technologies by identifying their strategic utility and role in existing military architectures and the possible contributions they could make towards improving overall military capabilities. This can also entail doctrinal changes, so as to translate these new technologies into concrete advantages.

The book is structured to perform a role both as a primer to those who wish to understand the strategic issues and key concepts in cyberspace, as well as to provide sufficient pointers to those who wish to have an in-depth understanding on specific issues.

Among the major issues examined are the efficacy of the concept of cyber deterrence, the troubled history of norm-making in cyberspace, protecting critical infrastructure from crippling cyber attacks, the viability of Active Cyber Defence as a means of responding to the sheer scale of attacks, and its attendant legal and ethical issues. Emerging technologies and their potential impact on an already dynamic domain are also the subject to scrutiny, as also the various models of public-Private Partnership in cybersecurity around the world.