Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs - India

Climate of Security

Joseph S. Nye — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:41:24 -0500

"...Climate change will put stress on weak governments in poor countries and may lead to an increase in the number of failed states and become an indirect source of international conflict. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon argued in 2007 that the Darfur conflict 'began as an ecological crisis, arising in part from climate change.'

Such direct and indirect effects from human activity, while not malevolent in intention like terrorism, argue for a broadening of our concept of security and the adoption of new policies...."

Solving FATA

Hassan Abbas — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:21:27 -0500

"The growing Taliban insurgency in the Afghan-Pakistan border area increasingly threatens the geography of the region. Continuation of this crisis could derail the India-Pakistan peace process, undermine democratic gains in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan, and jeopardize U.S. interests in the region.

Despite the explosive nature of the crisis and apparent consensus between the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees about the need for additional focus on the area—as well as military forces there—the popular analysis of the situation often fails to appreciate the very basic facts of the issue...."

Why U.S. Could Lose Out on India Nuclear Trade

Xenia Dormandy — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:00:31 -0500

Xenia Dormandy, Director of the Project on India and the Subcontinent, was interviewed by Brajesh Upadhyay for BBC News on July 11 regarding the implications of the U.S.-India nuclear deal for international trade.

Indo-Israeli Relations: Key Security Implications

Ronak D. Desai and Xenia Dormandy — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:00:33 -0500

Following more than forty years of diplomatic estrangement, the last decade has witnessed India and Israel embark on a new multidimensional "strategic partnership." What are the implications of growing ties between these two countries for India and the United States?

Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict

Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:24:05 -0500

The historical record indicates that nonviolent campaigns have been more successful than armed campaigns in achieving ultimate goals in political struggles, even when used against similar opponents and in the face of repression. Nonviolent campaigns are more likely to win legitimacy, attract widespread domestic and international support, neutralize the opponent's security forces, and compel loyalty shifts among erstwhile opponent supporters than are armed campaigns, which enjoin the active support of a relatively small number of people, offer the opponent a justification for violent counterattacks, and are less likely to prompt loyalty shifts and defections. An original, aggregate data set of all known major nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006 is used to test these claims. These dynamics are further explored in case studies of resistance campaigns in Southeast Asia that have featured periods of both violent and nonviolent resistance.

FULL TEXT AVAILABLE>>

Separatism's Final Country

Richard N. Rosecrance and Arthur A. Stein — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:54:01 -0500

"Muller argues that ethnonationalism is the wave of the future and will result in more and more independent states, but this is not likely. One of the most destabilizing ideas throughout human history has been that every separately defined cultural unit should have its own state. Endless disruption and political introversion would follow an attempt to realize such a goal. Woodrow Wilson gave an impetus to further state creation when he argued for "national self-determination" as a means of preventing more nationalist conflict, which he believed was a cause of World War I...."

Size Matters

Richard N. Rosecrance — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:22:33 -0500

"As the American political system hurtles toward its quadrennial encounter with the oracle of democracy, it is worth our while to take stock of the country's place in a world beset by bewilderingly rapid change. (Heaven knows none of the candidates will bother to do this.) I want to suggest that an old yet generally neglected subject remains particularly relevant: the relationship between the size of political units and the effective scale of systems of economic production and exchange. Another way to describe this relationship is by recourse to the hoary scholarly phrase "political economy", a term of art that has unfortunately gone out of style...."

Balancing Asia's Rivals

Joseph S. Nye — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:36:35 -0500

"...Bush leaves behind a better legacy in Asia. American relations with Japan and China remain strong, and he has greatly enhanced the United States' ties with India, the world's second most populous country....Improved relations between India and the U.S. can structure the international situation in a manner that encourages such an evolution in Chinese policy, whereas trying to isolate China would be a mistake.

Handled properly, the simultaneous rise of China and India could be good for all countries."

Terrorism, War, or Disease? Unraveling the Use of Biological Weapons

Anne L. Clunan, Peter R. Lavoy and Susan B. Martin — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:55:10 -0500

The use of biological warfare (BW) agents by states or terrorists is one of the world's most frightening security threats but, thus far, little attention has been devoted to understanding how to improve policies and procedures to identify and attribute BW events. Terrorism, War, or Disease? is the first book to examine the complex political, military, legal, and scientific challenges involved in determining when BW have been used and who has used them.

Need for an Integrated Energy Modelling Institution in India

Ananth Chikkatur and Shoibal Chakravarty — Sat, 24 May 2008 14:40:59 -0500

ETIP's Ananth Chikkatur and Princeton's Shoibal Chakravarty write in India's Economic & Political Weekly about that need for a government-supported statutory energy modeling institution - the Bureau of Energy Information and Analysis - that can develop in-house modeling and analysis capacity for India.

Policies for Advanced Coal Technologies in India (and China)

Ananth Chikkatur — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:00:10 -0500

In a presentation to the World Bank, Ananth Chikkatur discusses the role of coal in the Chinese and Indian power sectors, focusing on policies for incentivizing technological innovation in the coal sector in those countries, and suggesting possible roles for the World Bank regarding coal power in both countries as well.

South Asia, A New Center of Democracy?

Xenia Dormandy — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:06 -0500

Thus far this year we’ve seen elections in Pakistan, Bhutan, and Nepal. Elections have been promised in Bangladesh and the Maldives later this year, and scheduled in India and Afghanistan for next year. Yet, barring India, we rarely think of these nations as democracies. Could this then be the next wave?

India's Key Foreign Policy Issues

Xenia Dormandy — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:00:59 -0500

April 7, 2008

In recent years, India's military, diplomatic and economic energies have expanded far beyond Nehru's Non-Aligned position. But what does that mean for India, its region, and the United States?

Cleaner Power in India: Towards a Clean-Coal-Technology Roadmap

Ananth Chikkatur and Ambuj Sagar — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:43:37 -0500

Investigating the role of coal in India's energy sector, Chikkatur and Sagar emphasize the need for a technology roadmapping process. They highlight the interlinkages between technology innovation and public policy and provide an analytical framework to help delineate the kinds of questions that scholars and practitioners need to ask in addressing India's coal sector.

India-Iran Relations: Key Security Implications

Xenia Dormandy and Ronak D. Desai — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 09:00:12 -0500

While India and the United States have embarked on a campaign to strengthen their bilateral relations, as symbolized by the proposed US-India civilian nuclear deal, it appears as though New Delhi has similarly begun to pursue a more robust relationship with another major power: Iran. The two states have recently expanded cooperation in a number of key areas, including counterterrorism, regional stability, and energy security. What are the implications of this "New Delhi-Tehran Axis" for the United States, and how should Washington respond to growing ties between India and Iran?

Workshop Ponders: Post-Kyoto, What Next?

Sasha Talcott — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:11:14 -0500

"The project is examining ideas that are similar to Kyoto’s top-down approach, though stronger, as well as approaches that are substantially different. Key ideas in play range from indexing emissions targets to economic growth, to bottom-up approaches, such as linking together the actions of a number of countries. One of the project’s key goals is to persuade the countries of the world not only to look at ideas similar to the Kyoto Protocol, but also to look at ideas that are very different in structure."

Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements Research Workshop

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 22:05:09 -0500

The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements hosted a research workshop in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on March 13–14, 2008. The workshop brought together key scholars and other thinkers working on international climate change policy from a variety of disciplines, including economics, political science, and law. Together, they addressed issues such as how to persuade developing countries — among them China and India — to sign on to an international agreement, how to link climate policy with international trade, and how to effectively address deforestation, which accounts for 20 percent of global emissions. Attendees presented their initial research findings and got feedback on their ideas. The workshop was preceded by a reception and dinner at the Harvard Faculty Club, which featured Todd Stern, a partner at the law firm WilmerHale, as a keynote speaker. The final drafts of the research will be published in early fall 2008.

Is India Ready for CTL Fuels?

Ananth Chikkatur and Sunita Dubey — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:21:56 -0600

Faced with high oil prices and increasing oil imports to meet the country’s rising demand for transportation fuels, there is now a perception that India’s energy security is threatened. While the production of biodiesel has now become a national mission, CTL fuels are also gaining currency as a commercially attractive proposition because of the potentially cleaner characteristics.

Flooding Out and Drying Up in Southasia

Sunita Dubey and Ananth Chikkatur — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:37:05 -0600

In this essay, Dubey and Chikkatur describe how climate change is affecting the region from the Maldives to Pakistan, and what steps government and individuals can take to mitigate against it and adapt to it. They explore issues of food and economic security, climate injustice, and the need for sustainable lifestyles.

A Cold Start for Hot Wars? The Indian Army's New Limited War Doctrine

Walter C. Ladwig III — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 13:32:58 -0600

India’s inability to coerce Pakistan into halting its support for insurgents in Kashmir, as well as its experience in past conflicts with Pakistan, led it to develop Cold Start—a new offensive military doctrine that will allow it to mobilize quickly and retaliate in a limited manner. Although India is far from realizing its goal, this break from a traditional defensive strategy deserves scrutiny. A history of misperception and mistrust between India and Pakistan, poor intelligence, and domestic insecurity suggests that limited war could quickly escalate to the nuclear threshold, posing a serious risk to the stability of the subcontinent and the rest of the world.

Correspondence: Do Small Arsenals Deter?

Ward Wilson, Rajesh M. Basrur and Michael D. Cohen — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 13:46:43 -0600

January 1, 2008

Rajesh Basrur and Michael Cohen respond to Ward Wilson's Spring 2007 International Security article, "The Winning Weapon? Rethinking Nuclear Weapons in Light of Hiroshima."

Towards Better Technology Policies for the Indian Coal-Power Sector

Ananth Chikkatur and Ambuj Sagar — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:34:18 -0600

This paper assesses the suitability of current and emerging advanced power generation technologies for the Indian context and presents some technology policy implications of this assessment and analysis to help the Indian coal-power sector meet the country’s energy needs in a sustainable manner.

Pressure on U.S. to Rethink Pro-Pak Policies

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 12:00:42 -0600

"He again has demonstrators on the streets. And, he has lost the one principal opposition leader with whom he appeared to be able to work," said Xenia Dormandy, director of the Project on India and the subcontinent at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. "It is unclear whether whoever replaces Benazir will hold the same accommodative views as she did."

Anxiety, a ‘wounded’ military and the election build-up

Haroon Ullah — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 12:46:02 -0600

December 26, 2007

The electoral season is in full swing in Pakistan , and politicians are scrambling to rally support for their candidacy. Driving around Lahore , one sees a multitude of political party candidate signs and banners littering the major roadways. From rickshaw drivers to shop owners, everyone seems to have an opinion.

U.S. Primacy, Eurasia's New Strategic Landscape, and the Emerging Asian Order

Alexander Vuving — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:37:57 -0600

This paper argues that the current structure of international power in Asia is transitional. But neither hegemony nor multipolarity will likely be the next Asian order. The paper then assesses the prospects of the emerging regional order in Asia in terms of four options: bipolarity, the East Asian Community, U.S.-China condominium, and shared leadership. The paper concludes by discussing how Southeast Asian countries should prepare for the future strategic environment.

Linking Climate Policy with Development Strategy: Options for Brazil, China, and India

John P. Holdren — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:04:23 -0600

Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program Director John P. Holdren spoke at a Woods Hole Research Center–sponsored side event at the 13th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bali, Indonesia.

U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Deal

Xenia Dormandy — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0600

The United States and India have, in the words of U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, made the civil nuclear deal the “symbolic centerpiece” of the bilateral relationship. However, India’s coalition politics have created an obstacle to completing the deal. How important is this deal really and how should we move forward?

Developing Better Policies in the Indian Coal Sector

Ananth Chikkatur and Ambuj Sagar — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0600

Chikkatur and Sagar discuss the role of coal in India's energy supply, key challenges related to the growth of India's coal sector, and special institutional and governance issues. They conclude by highlighting key areas for policy focus.

Developing Better Policies for the Sustainable Development of the Indian Coal Sector

Ananth Chikkatur and Ambuj Sagar — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0600

Coal accounts for about 70% of total electricity generation in India and is likely to remain a key energy source for at least the next 30-40 years. An increase in India's use of coal resources for its energy supply must occur through environmentally and socially sustainable development of this sector.

India's Foreign Policy

Xenia Dormandy — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0600

"While local politics in India mandate an internal focus, recent Indian administrations have understood that it will require engagement with the international community to achieve their domestic objectives. In words, India still focuses inwardly: in actions, however, India is beginning to feel its way outside its borders. In recent years, India’s military, diplomatic and economic energies have expanded far beyond Nehru’s Non-Aligned position. But what does that mean for India, its region, and to the United States?"