This article explores the objectives of China's engagement in the Maldives and how the current administration of the country is responding to it. The article also looks at how the Maldives has been used by major powers in the past. On the basis of these analyses, it envisages the path that Maldivian foreign policy is likely to follow in the future and its likely impact on the security environment in the Indian Ocean region.

• Anand Kumar
• March 2012
• Strategic Analysis

This article will bring to light the transformation of the Pakistani state from a relatively tolerant to an unstable state dominated by militancy and violence. In the formative phase of Pakistan, the notion of religious extremism was almost non-existent as the founder of the country, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, made it clear that the new state would not be theocratic in nature.

• Moonis Ahmar
• March 2012
• Strategic Analysis

The Pashtun populations of Afghanistan and Pakistan have long been a source of bilateral contention, with each government inciting Pashtun tribals against the other. Now that the majority of Pashtuns live in Pakistan, Islamabad is using its Pashtun connections to project influence into Afghanistan. As a result, both Afghanistan and Pakistan are threatened by runaway Pashtun militancy. Peace and stability in both countries will be impossible until political reforms have been implemented in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan.

• Robert Boggs
• March 2012
• Strategic Analysis

This article assesses the shifting preferences of Bhutan towards the foreign policy determinants. Three determinants (national security, political culture and economic engagement) have been studied as they play a significant role in shaping Bhutan's policy behaviour. These determinants have been analysed with respect to India, Nepal and China, three countries that have been of critical interest to Bhutan's foreign policy.

• Medha Bisht
• January 2012
• Strategic Analysis

It is now commonly accepted that small island countries are facing an existential threat because of global warming and the consequent rise in the level of the oceans.

• P. K. Gautam
• January 2012
• Strategic Analysis

For a long time, it was common practice to term the rate of economic growth in India the ‘Hindu rate of growth’—a derogatory term for the low growth rate of the economy.

• Hari Bansh Jha
• January 2012
• Strategic Analysis

The new radicals in Pakistan have challenged the old Islamists as represented by the religious political parties on the nature of state and the means to capture state power. These new radicals reject the ‘bottom up’ approach followed by the traditional Islamic political parties and prefer a ‘top down’ approach. Their ideological inspiration and reference point is Afghanistan under Taliban.

• Smruti S. Pattanaik
• July 2011
• Strategic Analysis

The historical baggage weighing on the Russo-Afghan relationship is apparently in the process of being jettisoned. The two countries have been cautiously reaching out and engaging each other for quite some time now. Afghan President Hamid Karzai's state visit to Moscow on 20–21 January 2011 – the first by an Afghan head of state in more than two decades – could be perceived as a major step forward.

• Vishal Chandra
• July 2011
• Strategic Analysis

The subject assumes significance in view of the politics evolving around the idea of negotiating peace, especially with the Taliban, as the West plans to withdraw bulk of their troops by 2014. Though often regarded as flawed, ill-timed, regressive, wobbly, dangerous and unworkable, the idea has nevertheless come to dominate the discourse on the Afghan war. However, principal Afghan opposition forces and networks operating from Pakistan continue to publicly rebuff and mock at the government's initiative.

• Vishal Chandra
• September 2011
• Strategic Analysis

India shares 4095 kilometres of land and river boundaries with Bangladesh. The border is porous, criss-crossed by rivers and hilly and mountainous terrain which has made the guarding of this border extremely difficult. Border is a political construction. People living in the villages adjacent to the border do not subscribe to any concept of nationality or recognise the boundaries of the nation state. For the people living in the ‘borderlands’, a non-existent line bars them from leading the natural existence they have led for centuries.

• Smruti S. Pattanaik
• September 2011
• Strategic Analysis

While Pakistan clearly seeks to maintain cordial relations with Iran, it is unlikely that it would be willing to incur the displeasure of Saudi Arabia with which it has greater economic and strategic links.

• Nazir Ahmad Mir
• October 24, 2018
• IDSA Comments

Nepal’s quest for an alternate transit country with a view to reducing its dependence on India succeeded with the finalisation of the text for the Protocol of Transit Transport Agreement with China on September 7, 2018.

• Nihar R. Nayak
• September 27, 2018
• Issue Brief

China may or may not succeed in transforming Africa into a substitute market. If it does, the bilateral trade relationship is likely to become more unbalanced and tilted in its own favour leading to greater exploitation of Africa.

• Anand Kumar
• September 18, 2018
• IDSA Comments

The forthcoming presidential election is a contest between Yameen’s pledge to bring about a transformational change with mega-projects and Solih’s pledge to end presidential tyranny, injustice and corruption

• Gulbin Sultana
• September 17, 2018
• Issue Brief

Whenever a civilian government has attempted to improve relations with India, it has either had to backtrack on promises made or the Pakistan Army ensures that, through its actions at the LoC and inside J&K, these promises stand scuttled.

• Deepak Kapoor
• August 08, 2018
• IDSA Comments

With the ever increasing support and swelling number of protesters, Pashteen changed the name of the organisation from the Mehsud Tahafuz Movement to Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, a Movement for the Protection of Pashtuns.

• Zainab Akhter , Yaqoob-ul-Hassan
• May 04, 2018
• IDSA Comments

The purposes of the visit have been achieved and a new phase of relationship has begun with India acknowledging Nepal as an ‘equal partner’.

• Nihar R. Nayak
• April 11, 2018
• IDSA Comments

The current policy is premised on the understanding that unless India hurts the principal architect of Pakistan’s Kashmir policy, that is, the Army, terrorism would continue unabated.

• Vivek Chadha
• March 22, 2018
• Policy Brief

The four conditions for acquiring Indian citizenship and new regulations to ease the travel abroad of Tibetan refugees could cause the dismantling of Tibetan settlements which are the nerve centres of the preservation and promotion of Tibetan civilization.

• Yeshi Choedon
• February 23, 2018
• Policy Brief

Political instability in the wake of the arrest of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia in a corruption case will not portend well for Bangladesh and the region.

• Smruti S. Pattanaik
• February 15, 2018
• IDSA Comments