Maritime strategy is playing an ever greater role in Indian strategic thinking. As India reaches for great power status, it is increasingly turning to the Indian Ocean to expand its strategic space. Although it currently operates in co-operation with the United States, India has long-term aspirations towards attaining naval predominance throughout much of the Indian Ocean. In conjunction with an expansion of India's naval capabilities, there has been a significant strengthening of India's maritime security relationships throughout the region.

There are many volumes on conflict resolution and nuclear proliferation. While the conflict scholarship focuses on management, resolution and transformation of conflicts, the proliferation scholarship examines why states acquire nuclear weapons in the first place and whether or not these have any deterrent value. The book under review goes beyond these two prospects by questioning what happens when a state, in protracted conflicts, acquires nuclear weapons.

The article argues that India does not have a well-defined neighbourhood policy. It makes a historical survey of the approaches of different Indian leaders to the neighbourhood and examines the reasons for the prevailing negative perceptions about India in the region. It argues that these negative perceptions have come about because India has largely adopted an ad hoc and bilateral approach vis-à-vis its neighbours and has allowed its policy to be guided by an overarching concern for security. In recent years, India's approach has changed considerably.

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.