Why This Surgical Strike Across LoC Changes Indo-Pak Nuclear Red Lines

This was written a few hours after the Indian strikes across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu & Kashmir was announced by the Director-General of Military Operations (DGMO) at a press conference in New Delhi on September 29, 2016.  I was already writing a piece for CNN News-18 on deterrence equations across LoC when I saw the press conference.  The result was this quick essay, published on the CNN New-18 website.

Why This Surgical Strike Across LoC Changes Indo-Pak Nuclear Red Lines

The Indian decision to conduct a strike against terrorist bases across the Line of Control (LoC) has important implications for nuclear deterrence and Pakistan's so-called nuclear 'red lines'.  

Though full details of the strike are still awaited, the fact that India publicly announced it and stated that the Indian Director-General of Military Operations (DGMO) had informed his Pakistani counterpart about the attack reinforces India's decision to challenge these nuclear red lines. Irrespective of whether Pakistan responds or even how it responds, the nuclear deterrence game between India and Pakistan has changed.  

Mehta's essay on Pakistan: A brief critique

I generally enjoy reading Pratap Bhanu Mehta's essays, specially his always trenchant analysis of Indian politics.  His essay last week is a fine exemplar, outlining the deeper institutional difficulties that face Prime Minister Modi, which Modi unfortunately does not seem to be paying much attention to.  Mehta's position is always that of a true Liberal, and he appears not to take a position first and let the analysis follow, but decide on his position based on his analysis.  Such analytical commitment and honesty is rare anywhere but especially in India.

But Liberalism has serious flaws when it comes to understanding international politics. I had earlier posted a brief comment on another essay of his where I disagreed with his view of Indian policy on Pakistan, which he characterized as Realism.  His latest essay gives me another chance to provide a brief Realist critique of the Liberal view of India-Pakistan relations.

New Book

I and Atul Mishra are proud to announce that our book Nuclear South Asia: Keywords and Concepts has now been published by Routledge.  This was several years in the works and at one point, I had even given up on completing it, until Atul came on board to rescue it.  The project started as a dictionary series, which I agreed to join with considerable reluctance and with good reason: a project like this requires great discipline and I wasn't sure I was up to it.  After some initial work, I realized that my original doubts were well founded: I would not be able to do this on my own and I was ready to junk it.  That was when Atul agreed to join the project and breathed fresh life into it.  This was a huge burden for Atul because he was still writing his PhD thesis and this was a subject way beyond his PhD thesis topic. Nevertheless he not only agreed to join but gave me sufficient hope that I could get back to working on it.  Once we were finished with our initial draft came the next obstacle: because most of the other authors contracted to write dictionaries on other topics in the same series failed to finish their manuscripts, the entire series was shelved by the publisher.  We understood the publisher's point of view -- you cannot have a series with just one manuscript, after all -- but this left us with a more or less complete manuscript and no publisher.  We had some interest from at least one other publisher, but they required significant additions and both I and Atul were too exhausted to consider it.  Eventually, after more than a year of sitting on the shelf, Routledge finally expressed an interest but because a couple of years had passed since we wrote the manuscript, it required significant updating.  After this long journey, I think it would be fair to say that both of us are at least as much relieved as excited that it is now out.

An Agenda for the New EAM

This is the second essay I wrote in Economic Times on the new government's foreign policy, published on May 27.  Though rumors suggested that Sushma Swaraj would be the new EAM, it was not confirmed until Tuesday morning.  On Wednesday, Dr. Ashley Tellis wrote an open letter to the new EAM, which also makes interesting reading.  He stresses economic diplomacy agenda more than I did in my piece but there are some points on which our suggestions are similar.  Other interesting pieces included a couple by Dan Twining (here and here), a couple by C. Raja Mohan (here, here and here), and one by my CIPOD colleague Happymon Jacob.  Many more analyses out there of course, but these are the ones I think are must reads.

With Modi's Stress on Foreign Policy, Task Cut Out for External Affairs Minister

The new external affairs minister (EAM) has a long list of foreign policy challenges and very little time to lose. Over the past several years, Indian diplomacy has been hamstrung by ideological blinkers of another age, domestic political interference in foreign policy, and glaring institutional weaknesses. The new EAM needs to move with some alacrity in addressing these problems before they inflict more damage to Indian foreign policy.

Pragmatic Partner

First, EAM has to get right some key global partnerships. On top of that list is improving India's relationship with Washington that has suffered because of a number of irritants, the most recent of which was the unfortunate Devyani Khobragade incident. It is important that the EAM cut loose the Third Worldist ideological tendencies that have been binding Indian foreign policy and examine India's interests dispassionately.