This edited volume critically examines the concept of the “security dilemma” and applies it to India–China maritime competition. Though frequently employed in academic discussion and popular commentary on the Sino-Indian relationship, the term has rarely been critically analysed. The volume addresses the gap by examining whether the security dilemma is a useful concept in explaining the naval and foreign policy strategies of India and China. China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its expansive engagement in the Indian Ocean Region have resulted in India significantly scaling up investment in its navy, adding ships, naval aircraft and submarines. This volume investigates how the rivalry is playing out in different sub-regions of the Indian Ocean, and the responses of other powers, notably the United States and prominent Southeast Asian states. Their reactions to the Sino-Indian rivalry are an underexplored topic and the chapters in this book reveal how they selectively use that rivalry while trying to steer clear of making definite choices. The book concludes with recommendations on mitigating the security dilemma. This work will be of great interest to students of strategic studies, international relations, maritime security, and Asian politics.

China and India are emerging as major maritime powers as part of long-term shifts in the regional balance of power. As their wealth, interests, and power grow, the two countries are increasingly bumping up against each other across the Indo-Pacific. China’s growing naval presence in the Indian Ocean is seen by many as challenging India’s aspirations towards regional leadership and major power status. How India and China get along in this shared maritime space—cooperation, coexistence, competition, or confrontation—will be one of the key strategic challenges for the entire region. India and China at Sea is an essential resource in understanding how the two countries will interact as major maritime powers in the coming decades. The essays in the volume, by noted strategic analysts from across the world, seek to better understand Indian and Chinese perspectives about their roles in the Indian Ocean and their evolving naval strategies towards each other.

A major new examination of the Indian Ocean, revealing how the region has become a hotly contested geopolitical flashpoint Throughout history, the Indian Ocean has been an essential space for trade, commerce, and culture. Every European power has sought to dominate it. Now, after a lull in the postwar period, control of major shipping routes has once again become a critical aspect of every rising state’s ambition to be a global power. Darshana M. Baruah shows how governments from Washington, DC, to Nairobi and Canberra are expanding their interests in the region. The Indian Ocean is resource rich, strategically placed, and home to over two billion people. Island nations have become more important than ever, with Madagascar forming ties with Russia and the Comoros with Saudi Arabia. It is also through the region that China engages with Africa and the Middle East. This is a compelling account of the geopolitical significance of the Indian Ocean—showing how the region has taken centre stage in a new global contest.

Drawing on a wide body of literature on international rivalries, this comprehensive and theoretically grounded work explains the origins and evolution of the Sino-Indian rivalry. Contrary to popular belief, the authors argue that the Sino-Indian rivalry started almost immediately after the emergence of the two countries in the global arena. They demonstrate how the rivalry has systemic implications for both Asia and the global order, intertwining the positional and spatial dimensions that lie at the heart of the Sino-Indian relationship. Showing how this rivalry has evolved from the late 1940s to the present day, the essays in this collection underscore its significance for global politics and highlight how the asymmetries between India and China have the potential to escalate conflict in the future.

This book presents a comprehensive analysis of China's aspirations to become the dominant global power, focusing on its strategic ambitions in Asia. The book delves into various aspects of China's military, economic and political strategies aimed at achieving its goal. It provides insights into how China plans to leverage its growing influence in Asia to reshape the regional order and establish itself at the centre of the power in the region. This book reconnoitre China's historical and contemporary quest for regional and global dominance and also the strategies china employs to exert its influence, including Belt and Road Initiative, military expansion, economic and diplomatic efforts

This book analyses strategic discourse on the Himalayas from the perspective of India’s interests. Home to many communities, cultures, natural resources and political boundaries, it is the geopolitical landscape of the Himalayas between India and China that dominates other narratives and discourses. The traditional notion of Himalayas as India’s frontiers and buffer is challenged by China. Despite various mechanisms to address border resolution there are violations and transgressions from China. This book examines India’s responses to the new emerging challenges in the Himalayas. How the statist discourse on strategic interests incorporates people’s discourse. It provides a nuanced understanding of India’s strategic undertakings, diplomatic initiatives and development framework. This book will be a valuable addition to existing knowledge on the Himalayas between India and China. Scholars and practitioners interested in International Relations, Strategic Studies, Himalayan Studies and South Asian Studies will find it useful. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan)

This book addresses the compulsions that underlie the China’s relations with India and South Korea— both increasingly mutually dependent on China for markets, trade, investments, technology, tourism, etc. It inquires into two sets of regional relationships, with China being the common linking factor. While examining the generational change in the leadership of China, India and South Korea, this study will be a significant addition to the evolving sphere of comparative regional relations.

India is now enmeshed in the deterrence game—actively with its traditional adversary Pakistan, and potentially with China. At the same time it is finding easier access to fissile materials and strategic technologies. In order to deal with these developments safely and wisely, the nation needs a much more sophisticated and multidisciplinary understanding of the strategic, technological, operational, and cost issues involved in nuclear matters. In this important book, Indian strategic analyst Verghese Koithara explains and evaluates India's nuclear force management, encouraging a broad public conversation that may act as a catalyst for positive change before the subcontinent experiences unthinkable carnage. The defense management system of a nuclear power absolutely needs to be sound and thorough. In addition to the considerable demands of managing its nuclear forces, it also must control conventional forces in a manner that forestalls nuclear escalation of a conflict by either side. Expanding and upgrading nuclear forces without enhancing deterrence is dangerous and should be avoided. India's nuclear force management system is grafted onto a woefully inadequate overall system of defense management. Koithara dissects all of these issues and suggests a way forward, drawing on recent developments in deterrence theory around the world.

Across the political spectrum, there is wide agreement that Asia should be at the center of US foreign policy. But this worldview, the "Pivot to Asia" announced by the Obama Administration in 2011, is a dramatic departure from the entire history of American grand strategy. Ten years on, we now have some perspective to evaluate it in depth. In The Lost Decade, Robert Blackwill and Richard Fontaine take this long view. They conclude that there are few successes to speak of, and that we lack a coherent approach to the Indo-Pacific region. They examine the Pivot through various lenses: situating it historically in the context of America's global foreign policy, revealing the inside story of how it came about, assessing the effort thus far, identifying the ramifications in other regions (namely Europe and the Middle East), and proposing a path forward.

This book examines the critical changes to the Asia-Pacific security architecture emerging in the context of shifts in the global order as the Obama Administration’s major strategic innovation and likely legacy unfold. The author reviews the state of the international security system during the Obama presidency, recording the Administration’s Asia-Pacific inheritance, and tracing its efforts to chart a collaborative course aimed at retaining US primacy amidst strategic turbulence. While security discourses are coloured by relative US ‘decline’ and China’s ‘rise,’ the book points out the competitive-cooperative complexity of interactions, with symbiotic economic ties moderating rivalry. Focusing on the military-security cutting edge of Sino-US dynamics, the narrative outlines the dangers posed by extreme nationalist dialectics in an interdependent milieu. It examines the policies of Japan, Australia, India and Russia towards the evolving Sino-US diarchy, while recording Washington’s and Beijing’s contrasting approaches to these allies and possible adversaries. The book concludes with observations on the loss of definition and clarity as the system evolves with multiple actors bidding for influence, and the need for statesmanship as the systemic fulcrum moves from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of International Politics, Asian Politics, American Politics, International Security and International Relations.