Beijing’s Soft Diplomacy in West Asia in Times of COVID-19 China’s soft diplomacy in West Asia, particularly in times of pandemic, is a way to improve its global image and recast itself as a responsible actor at relatively low cost, rather than a sign of any deeper commitment towards the region. Nagapushpa Devendra | July 03, 2020 | IDSA Comments
Contemporary Technology in Peacekeeping Operations Since the Cold War, United Nations peacekeeping has evolved from monitoring peace treaties to multidimensional peacekeeping operations tasked with rebuilding states and their institutions during and after conflict. In June 2014, An Expert Panel on Technology and Innovation in UN Peacekeeping recommended investigating how innovative technology can strengthen peacekeeping missions. Swaim Prakash Singh | July-September 2020 | Journal of Defence Studies
Iran’s Nuclear Program: A Study in Proliferation and Rollback Farhad Rezaei, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2017, 272 pp., €103.99 (Hardback), ISBN 9783319441191 Syed Jaleel Hussain | July 2020 | Strategic Analysis
Temperature Rising: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Wars in the Middle East Nader Uskowi, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2019, 207 pp., £52.95 (hardcover), ISBN 9781538121726 Prabhat Jawla | July 2020 | Strategic Analysis
Contest for the Indo-Pacific: Why China Won’t Map the Future Rory Medcalf, La Trobe University Press, Melbourne, 2020, 320 pp., Price $32.9 (Paperback), ISBN 9781760641573 Ashok Sharma | July 2020 | Strategic Analysis
With Us and Against Us: How America’s Partners Help and Hinder the War on Terror Stephen Tankel, Columbia University Press, New York, 2018, 424 pp., US$ 30.00 (Paperback), ISBN: 9780231168113 P. R. Kumaraswamy | July 2020 | Strategic Analysis
Making of India’s Northeast, Geopolitics of Borderland and Transnational Interactions Dilip Gogoi, Routledge (South Asia Edition), Oxon, 2020, i-275 pp., Rs. 995/- hardback, ISBN 978-0-367-89832-8 Pushpita Das | July 2020 | Strategic Analysis
India–Vietnam Relations through the Prism of the Indo-Pacific Concept As influential actors in the regional security architecture, India and Vietnam share common political and security interests and their bilateral cooperation plays a crucial role in contributing towards shaping a safe and secure Indo-Pacific region. Both the countries share an identical value perspective on the Indo-Pacific and hence augmenting their strength in the regional order would facilitate maritime security, reviewing opportunities and challenges in the region, as well as building an equitable and open trade and investment system. Sanghamitra Sarma | July 2020 | Strategic Analysis
Re-categorisation of High-Enriched Uranium and Plutonium for Safeguards Verification: Is It Necessary? What are the Other Options? The desirability and necessity of having a relook into the re-categorization of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) defined High-Enriched Uranium (HEU) and Plutonium (Pu) by focussing on the relevance of strategic value/isotopic composition of the materials for re-categorization, for example, creating an intermediate category between the existing Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) and weapons-grade uranium (U-235 > 90 per cent) and re-categorizing plutonium into Weapons-Grade Plutonium (WGPU) and Reactor-Grade Plutonium (RGPU), specifying the content of Pu-240 in each case, had been sugges K.L. Ramakumar | July 2020 | Strategic Analysis
Discursive (De)legitimization of the Iran Nuclear Deal in Donald Trump’s Tweets On May 8, 2018, President Trump withdrew the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Since the JCPOA is endorsed by a United Nations Security Council Resolution and supported by the international community, Trump has had to justify this controversial decision. Based on data extracted from Trump’s Twitter account and taking advantage of Theo van Leeuwen’s (2008) discursive construction of the legitimation model, this article addresses the following question: How has Donald Trump attempted to delegitimize the JCPOA? Hossein Nourani , Afsaneh Danesh , Mohammad Reza Nouri , Farzaneh Latifi | July 2020 | Strategic Analysis
