India's Changing Afghanistan Policy: Regional and Global Implications
Abstract : Since 2001, Afghanistan has allowed New Delhi an opportunity to underscore its role as a regional power. India has growing stakes in peace and stability in Afghanistan, and the 2011 India-Afghan strategic partnership agreement underlines India's commitment to ensure that a positive momentum in Delhi-Kabul ties is maintained. This monograph examines the changing trajectory of Indian policy toward Afghanistan since 2001 and argues that New Delhi has been responding to a strategic environment shaped by other actors in the region. As the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces prepare to leave Afghanistan in 2014, India stands at a crossroads as it remains keen to preserve its interests in Afghanistan. This monograph underlines the ever-evolving Indian policy in Afghanistan by examining it in three phases, before drawing out the implications of this change for the region and the United States. There has been a broader maturing of U.S.-India defense ties, and Afghanistan is likely to be a beneficiary of this trend. Managing Pakistan and unravelling Islamabad's encirclement complex should be the biggest priority for both Washington and New Delhi in the coming years if there is to be any hope of keeping Afghanistan a stable entity post-2014.
Russia in Central Asia: The Dynamics of Great-Power Politics in a Volatile Region
Abstract:With US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces poised for a major drawdown from Afghanistan in 2014, and Russia determined to strengthen its influence in the "near abroad," new uncertainties face the volatile post-Soviet Central Asian states. Changing power alignments in the region will pose new challenges for the United States, Russia, China, and the European Union. This article assesses the evolving direction of great-power interaction and influence in Central Asia, focusing on Moscow’s growing assertiveness in the region. Using a neoclassical realist framework, I argue that geographic, historical, and cultural ties; a military presence; and developing economic institutions favor Russia over the short term, although China is best poised to expand regional influence over the long run. US war weariness, budget constraints, and distance suggest that—barring new major terrorist threats emanating from the region—Washington’s presence and influence will gradually diminish.
The Breakdown in North-East India
This article tries to unravel the drivers of the protracted ethnic and secessionist conflicts, and the resultant disorder that have marred the north-eastern region of India. These conflicts have mostly been explained using the grievance narrative. But such explanations fail to account for the large variance in violence levels within the region. A rather more fruitful line of inquiry is provided by a state-society reading of the political history of the north-east that highlights the fact that conflicts there are accompanied by a contested and weak authority of governmental agencies and the fragmentation of society. Unpacking this causal connection demands that one delve into the region's history to study the process of state-making—how state leaders in colonial and post-colonial times established bureaucratic apparatuses, and constructed and mobilised collective identities in an effort at legitimacy. By focusing on the cases of Mizoram and Manipur, and their very divergent success with mitigating conflicts, and using qualitative sources of data, the paper demonstrates that in Mizoram the process of state-making was such that it consolidated the public legitimacy and authority of reigning institutions among all sections of society, resulting in the strengthened capability of government agencies to provide services, manage group contestations and avoid breakdown. In Manipur it was localised and traditional centres of power—tribal and ethnic associations—that gained in authority, in effect compromising the legitimacy of the government and the institutional capability of its agencies.