Category Archives: South Asia

Strategic Stability: Grappling the Enigma of Sub-Continental Nuclear Politics

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By

Vice Admiral (Retd.) Vijay Shankar 

Keywords: Strategic Stability, Nuclear Security in South Asia, Indo-Pak Diplomacy, China Nuclear Policy, Pakistan Nuclear Policy

Download full article here

This article is forthcoming in the “South Asia Defense and Strategic Year Book 2015” 

Excerpts

It can be no nation’s case to destroy the very purpose that polity sets out to attain and
therefore strategic empathy lies at the heart of nuclear stability

Cold War Mantra-Catastrophic Force as the Basis of Stability

In September 1950, responding to a directive from the President of the USA to reexamine objectives in peace and war with the emergence of nuclear weapons capability of the Soviet Union; the Secretaries of Defense and State tabled a report titled National Security Council – 68 (NSC-68).[i] This report was, in general terms, to become the mantra that guided world order till the end of the Cold War and in particular formed the source that defined and drove doctrines for use and proliferation of nuclear weapons. As a founding policy document of contemporary world order the memorandum contrasted the fundamental design of the Authoritarian State with that of the Free State. Briefly put the coming clash was seen in almost Biblical terms as a life and death struggle between the powers of ‘evil’ with that of ‘perfection’.

NSC-68 came at a time when the previous 35 years had witnessed some of the most cataclysmic events that history was subjected to; two devastating World Wars, two revolutions that mocked the global status quo, collapse of 5 empires and the decline and degeneration of two imperial powers. The dynamics that brought about these changes also wrought drastic transformation in power distribution. Key determinants of power were seen as a function of ideological influence, military prowess, economic muscle and the means of mass nuclear destruction. Comprehensive Power had decisively gravitated to the USA and the USSR. The belief that the USSR was motivated by a fanatic communist faith antithetical to that of the West and driven by ambitions of world domination provided the logic and a verdict that conflict and violence would become endemic. And thus was presented to the world a choice to either watch helplessly the incarceration of civilization or take sides in a “just cause” to confront the possibility. World order rested upon a division along ideological lines, and more importantly to our study, the formulation of a self fulfilling logic for the use of nuclear weapons. The 1950s naissance of a nuclear theology was consequently cast in the mould of armed rivalry; its nature was characterized by friction and thwarting the spread of influence. The scheme that carved the world was Containment versus burgeoning Communism. In turn rationality gave way to the threat of catastrophic force as the basis of stability.

The Quest for a New Paradigm

Crumbling of the Soviet Union in the last decade of the twentieth century and the end of the Cold War brought down the curtains on the distinctive basis of global stability that NSC 68 had spawned. In its wake scholarly works suggested the emergence of one world and an end to the turbulent history of man’s ideological evolution. Some saw the emergence of a multi polar order and the arrival of China. Yet others saw in the First Iraq War, the continuing war in the Levant, the admission of former Soviet satellite nations into NATO and the splintering of Yugoslavia an emerging clash of civilizations marked by violent discord shaped by cultural and civilizational similitude.

However, these illusions were dispelled within a decade and found little use in understanding and coming to grips with the realities of the post Cold War world as each of them represented a candour of its own. The paradigm of the day (if there is one) is the tensions of the multi polar; the tyranny of economics; the anarchy of expectations; and polarization of peoples along religio-cultural lines all compacted in the cauldron of globalization in a state of continuous technology agitation. An uncertain geo-political brew, as the world had never seen before, has come to pass under the looming shadow of the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The Problem

The problem with nuclear weapons in an uncertain world is the complexity of convincing decision makers that no conceivable advantage can be achieved from a nuclear exchange. For, as long as one side believes that there is some value to be had through the deployment and use of nuclear weapons, indeterminate fears creep in that sets into motion a chain reaction which in turn provokes and raises the degree of calamitous risk.

Military planners are familiar with the fact that risk assessment is an imperative in the development of a strategic plan. The process is marked by persistent motivation to not only eliminate uncertainties and bring about balance between political objectives and resources, but also to ensure that probability of success of a strategy and benefits that accrue outweigh the hazards of failure. In the nuclear arena we note that strategic imbalance is intrinsic to the relationship. From start, the equation is irrevocably in a state of unstable equilibrium caused by the fact that when nuclear resources are used the impact will invariably be to obliterate the political objectives that were sought to be achieved. This is the reality of nuclear weapons. Its value lies in non usage; its aim is, nuclear war avoidance; its futility is, in attempting to use it to attain political goals.

Strategic collaboration with a potential enemy is not a concept that comes naturally to leadership. Tradition is against it and the very idea of sovereignty rejects the thought of it. Nonetheless it can be no nation’s case to destroy the very purpose that polity sets out to attain and therefore strategic empathy lies at the heart of nuclear stability.

A nuclear deterrent relationship is founded entirely on rationality. On the part of the ‘deterree’ there is rationality in the conviction of disproportionate risks of hostile action; and on the part of the deterrer rationality of purpose and transparency in confirming the reality of the risks involved in a manner that strategic miscalculations are avoided . The exceptional feature of this transaction is that the roles are reversible provided it is in the common interest to maintain stability in relationship.

The test of a durable deterrent relationship is its ability to withstand three dynamics that are common to contemporary politics, significantly so in the sub-continent. First: the deterrent itself must be stable; by which is implied its command, control and doctrinaire underpinnings must be unwavering and transparent. Inconsistencies increase the temptation to take pre-emptive action. Second: in a crisis, either conventional or sub-conventional, the propensity to ‘reach-for-the-nuclear-trigger’ must be restrained. Third: the predicament that intrusion of technology into the nuclear calculus causes, for it invites covertness but its impact demands transparency.

The Tri-Polar Tangle

Unique to the deterrent relationship in the region is the tri-polar nature of the playing field, with China and Pakistan at ‘the collusive base’ and India on the vertex. Ever since the 1960’s it was amply clear and comprehensively demonstrated that China would use all means at its disposal to not just embarrass India in the international arena but also to ensure that it never posed a challenge of any nature to its larger designs. Continued nuclear and missile technology proliferation in-region remains an abiding symptom. What is striking is that despite several incidents over the last decade and a half that could have escalated to the nuclear level, security establishments in China, India and Pakistan have not set themselves to the task of preparing concrete perspectives on the issue of nuclear stability barring endorsing the idea. China’s proliferation policy may have been driven by balance power logic but in today’s geo political circumstance it only serves to diminish its global standing and in time may rebound on its ambitions. With Pakistan the only meaningful measure in place is mutual notification of ballistic missile flight tests. On the perilous side is induction of tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) by way of Chinese collaboration with the consequences of devolution of control and ever increasing ambiguities.

The Blight of Ambiguity

The policy of nuclear ambiguity was brought to prominence when Prime Minister Eshkol in 1966 stated that ‘Israel would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the region’. Three red lines were linked to its use. These included successful Arab military penetration; destruction of Israeli Air Force; cities attacked by weapons of mass destruction. It served as Israel’s ultimate guarantor of security.

The worth of ambiguity and its corollary, opacity of policy only serves to accentuate hazards of the unintended. Indistinctness in policy, when TNWs are in the arsenal, immediately suggests that conventional principles of war apply. This provides the incentive for use of nuclear weapons and a reactionary development of a first strike capability on the one hand, while the adversary strives to generate a counter force potential.

Ambiguity has been used as an offset for conventional inferiority with the belief that control over escalation is possible. This is so obviously a fallacy due to the nature of the weapon. Also its effect in disrupting stability is apparent. Covert technology intrusions coupled with ambiguity of intent increases the hazard geometrically, making the demand for transparency more urgent.

Paradox of Indo-Pak Diplomacy

Bi lateral diplomacy between India and Pakistan is a paradox particularly when considered against the framework of conservative diplomacy. Conventional wisdom would suggest that the two parties sit across the table and deliberate with political leadership views, power balance and national perspectives forming the basis. The rub when dealing with Pakistan is that political leadership is a charade that masks the real manipulators of power. The unfeigned decision makers are those represented by the military establishment who as a rule do not expose themselves to diplomatic parleys and appear to thrive in an ambience of imprecision. While this policy has served the military well, it makes for an awkward situation when diplomatic deliberations invariably end in a void. Diplomacy in the classical sense implies the practice and art of conducting international parleys between states with the purpose of (in addition to others) defusing starkly competitive behavior. This orthodox structure comes a cropper when dealing with a situation where the real national leadership absents itself from the tedium of negotiations.

When dealing with Indo Pak parleys there is a certain Chamberlainesque tragedy to its progress that is squarely on account of the refusal to recognize the reality of who tenants the seat of power in Pakistan. On the Indian side a rejection of this reality ironically leads to an untiring conciliatory policy that is marked by appeasement. Such policy as characterized by the inability to fully exploit the 1971 liberation of East Pakistan, The “Gujral Doctrine” of appeasement, the stalemate during ‘Operation Parakram’ (the one year military stand-off after the failed terror attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001), the self imposed restraints during Kargil and lastly the reliance on means that had little relevance to the nature of the 26/11 assault on Mumbai; all these are more symptomatic of India’s unreal appraisal of the adversary. Chamberlain, between 1938 and 1939, it will be recalled pursued a peacemaking course, which had a contradictory and inadvertent effect of revealing true Nazi policy. Despite the breakdown of the Versailles treaty and the brazen Czech invasion he refused to reconcile to the dangerous face of Nazi power.[ii]

The fundamental dilemma that States must master in peace and diplomacy and more so to in developing a nuclear strategy is an appraisal of the other’s intentions. In an environment of control ambiguity, a military strategy that embraces Jihadists compounded by nuclear opacity (as is the case in Pakistan) the complexity of this estimation shows up often in the skewed and poor quality of strategic decision making. The current implosive situation in Pakistan and its strategic links with China has not made matters any simpler for planners to generate responsive counter strategies.

China’s Janus Faced Nuclear Policy

When dealing with nuclear issues uncertainties rise from the multilateral nature of nuclear relationships, discriminatory regimes that exist and importantly the competing strategic groups that the multipolar has precipitated. It has blurred the lines between conventional and nuclear weapons at the same time it provides a warped incentive in asymmetric situations for the lesser State to habitually provoke incidents and then threaten to reach for the nuclear trigger.

The current situation has not left the Indian strategic dilemma unimpaired. The two faced nature of the Sino-Pak nuclear relationship has put pressure on the No First Use (NFU) doctrine that has shaped India’s policy and indeed its arsenal. China’s stated NFU policy hides the First Use intent of Pakistan that the former has so assiduously nurtured from development of the Pakistan nuclear weapons programme to the supply of TNWs. China would appear to have forgotten the actuality of an enfeebled Pakistan civilian leadership incapable of action to remove the military finger from the nuclear trigger, the active involvement of non-state actors in military strategy and an alarming posture of an intention-to-use. Indeed the Pak proxy gives to China doctrinal flexibility, it unfortunately also makes the severance of the Nuclear from the Conventional a thorny proposition that even China must know can boomerang on its aspirations.

[…]

The Nuclear Nightmare

We have thus far noted the effect of the external environment introducing nuclear multilateralism; an enfeebled civilian leadership in Pakistan that is incapable of action to remove the military finger from the nuclear trigger; the active attendance and involvement of non state actors in military strategy; internal environment that without rationale finds solace in TNWs, larger and more varied arsenals; security anxieties shoving arsenals down the slippery slope of developing nuclear war fighting capabilities; absence or at best ambiguity in doctrinal underpinnings that mould nuclear posture and the alarming reality of ‘intention-to-use’. The larger consequence of the considerations discussed so far makes the status quo untenable.

The nuclear nightmare, when articulated, is a hair trigger, opaque deterrent leaning towards conventionalizing under single military control steered by a doctrine seeped in ambiguity and guided by a military strategy that carouses and finds unity with non state actors. It does not take a great deal of intellectual exertions to declare that this nightmare is upon us.

Strategic Non Nuclear Forces

Given the state of relations with Pakistan and their persistence of employing terror organizations as a part of military strategy, there is every probability that conventional forces will have to be employed on both sides of the border by the Indian state. This naturally runs the risk of escalation. Theoretically, under these circumstances it is important that both sides do not reach for the nuclear trigger. Obviously the best way of averting such a situation is to ensure that such a conflictual possibility does not arise at all, through transparency and unrelenting diplomacy.

In practice, history has shown, this is often not workable and therefore conventional forces should have the mobility and firepower to achieve limited aims rapidly without allowing escalation beyond the conventional threshold, the ‘Cold Start’ doctrine is an expression of just such intent. This would mean maintaining nuclear forces that inhibit the adversary from even contemplating a nuclear exchange in addition its strategic forces must also equip itself with select non nuclear conventional hardware that tracks and targets nuclear forces (all under political control). This would provide the pre-emptive teeth to a deterrent relationship that leans so heavily on NFU.

Bringing about strategic stability is therefore the key to manage Pakistan’s nuclear forces and holding it in a state in which deterrence does not break down. Against the reality of a conventional war with its limited goals and moderated ends and the unlikelihood of it being outlawed in the foreseeable future; the first step is separation of the conventional from the nuclear. Where this severance is not articulated the No First Use arsenal must be of a nature that credibly deters. As mentioned earlier given the politics of the region, historical animosities and the emasculated nature of civilian leadership in Pakistan, the dangers of adding nuclear violence to military perfidy is a reality that demands a high level of preparedness.

Conclusion   

The challenge before us is clear. To put the nuclear genie back into the bottle is neither realistic nor a proposition that merits consideration. The key lies in bringing about an ambience conducive to strategic stability. Areas that could be addressed begin with weakening the Sino-Pak nuclear collusion (as discussed earlier); mutually dispelling the veil of opacity that surrounds the nuclear deterrent; technology intrusions that have put the arsenal on a hair trigger must be subjected to a safety catch through the instruments of transparency and the removal of ambiguities in strategic underpinnings; Institutional verification measures must evaluate and exchange risks and alert status. It is only such devices that will enable strategic restraint and in turn a stable deterrent relationship to be realized on the sub continent.

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End Notes

[i] US Department of State Office of The Historian. <https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/NSC68&gt;

[ii] Murray Williamson. The Change in the European Balance of Power 1938-1939.Princeton University Press 1984 pp. 193-215

The Islamic State Caliphate: A Mirage of Resurrection

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By
Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar

This article was first published in the author’s monthly column on the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies website.

Keywords: ISIS, ISIS funding, Ummayad Caliphate, Toynbee, South Asia Nuclear Stability

The Universal State: The Last-Gasp Opportunism of Power
Belief in the immortality of a ‘Universal State’ has in history periodically evoked those very ghosts that had established the State’s mortality causing their decay and expiry. The fall of the Ummayad Caliphate in Damascus at the hands of the Abbasids, only for the former to supplant itself on the Iberian peninsula and draw roots in Cordoba; the Abbasid Caliphates shock overthrow when Baghdad fell to the Mongols was resuscitated in the Fatamids Caliphs of Tunisia and the rise of the Ottoman Empire under whose suzerainty the Caliphate survived till its death at the hands of westernization are illustrative of the degeneration, reinvention and last-gasp opportunism of power.

The Flawed Revelation
While this selection has been uncovered from Islamic history, the truth is equally appropriate to other civilizations. To our study it is the causes of this rhythmic phenomenon that is of greater significance, even as our focus remains on the idea of the Caliphate. The first manifest reason is the ideological imprint that the founders of the Islamic Universal State cast on its adherents as contemporary historical truth was imposed on an overwhelming religious legend. The second branch of the root lay in the genius and impressiveness of its leaders. Lastly, the fact that the inspiration of the Universal State was built around past glories captivates the heart and minds as it embodies a rally from the rout of a ‘time of troubles’ (Toynbee, A Study of History). The universality of the state was therefore not just a geographical idea or a final impulse to brazen out decay of a civilisation but more a flawed revelation in the minds of the faithful.
The current turmoil in West Asia may be traced to the aberrant imposition of a Western order in the aftermath of the defeat and collapse of the Ottomans and the eventual denial of the idea of a Caliphate by its leadership. The Caliphate, which had lost its religious and civilizational magnetism, was substituted by a mosaic of states that was mandated more by the promise of colonial influence and economic profit. This led to a situation when the underlying antagonism and economic dispossession have erupted in aggression and a yearning for a return to the Universal State.

Disruptive Nature of the Islamic State
The Islamic State (IS, varyingly called the ISIS or the ISIL) has swept from Syria into Iraq in a maelstrom of destruction and has in a short but bloody campaign laid waste to the northern third of Iraq. No political Islam or civilizational impulse here, just rabid intolerance. In its wake it has disrupted the correlation of political forces in the region as the US seek a quick blocking entente with Iran; Syria sees in the situation an opportunity to settle scores with the insurgency raging within; Shia organisations find common cause to offset the IS; Sunni States carry a cloaked bias towards the IS to the extent that a recent New York Times report suggests funding by Turkey, Saudi and Qatar; terrorist organisations in Afghanistan and Pakistan welcome the new leadership that has displaced al-Qaeda and Kurdistan has been catapulted to the forefront of opposition to the IS.

Distressing Probability of Nuclear Reach
As the fanatical outburst of xenophobia stretches south and eastward the IS’ influence will in due course manifest in the fertile Jihadist breeding grounds of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Pakistan today, as many perceptive analysts have noted, represents a very dangerous condition as its establishment nurtures fundamentalist and terrorist organizations as instruments of their misshapen policies in Afghanistan and Kashmir. The essence of Pakistan’s rogue links will, unmistakably, seduce the IS into the sub-continent underscoring the distressing probability of the IS extending its reach into a nuclear arsenal. The impending withdrawal of US forces from the region will only serve to catalyse such a calamitous scenario.

Sustaining the Richest Terrorist Group
Ideologically the IS is driven by little other than a deep rooted malevolence (towards the US in particular) for the near quarter century of armed turmoil and sectarian carnage that has visited the region without near term hopes for restoration. The fallout has been a demonizing of plurality and a fierce rejection of modernity. Resurgence of the banished Iraqi Republican Guard has provided muscle to the movement and the revival of the Baathist faction infused a much needed organisational framework to the IS. The feeble capitulation of the 350,000 US trained Iraqi security forces stands testimony to the vigour of the enterprise. The seizure of over 400,000 pieces of small arms, artillery munitions, the pillaging of USD $430 million from the Central Bank of Mosul and the creation of a self sustaining financial flow to fuel the movement would suggest the work of trained minds and the organisational precision of professionals; besides it also makes the IS the richest militant group in West Asia.
Timing of the fierce advent of the IS and its leadership of the movement to establish a new Caliphate is distinctly ominous. The West in a state of economic exhaustion, militarily fatigued, geo-politically starved of ideas and facing the prospects of a world order being put in disarray by a revisionist China; neither has the stomach nor the resolve to block the onslaught. The only check on the abuse of unconventional and maleficent power has always consisted in opposition by an equally formidable rival, or of a combination of several countries forming a league of defence; unfortunately such an alliance has not been formed.

Conclusion: Development of a Strategy
When Toynbee suggested the emergence of a Universal State he saw in it disintegration of a civilization as it encountered disastrous ‘time of troubles’, such as wars within and without followed by the establishment of a universal state-an empire in the throes of decay. Ultimately the universal state collapses. The menacing feature of the Islamic State is that the end of a ruinous historical rhythm is synchronised today with the draw down of an external enforcing dynamic and the intolerable availability of weapons of mass destruction.
In such circumstances the prognosis can only be a universal catastrophe unless a three pronged strategy is put in place:
• Firstly arrest the rampage of the IS by a coalition of regional forces under UN aegis.
• Secondly, choke the money flow both from patron States and the IS’ financial dealings by targeting beneficiaries.
• Thirdly, deny access to weapons of mass destruction through rigorous guardianship of known sources.

The Perils of Strategic Narcissism: China

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By

Vice Admiral (retd.) Vijay Shankar

China’s rise has powered an impulse to military growth and unilateral intervention which in turn evokes anxieties and resistance by players in the same strategic milieu. The paradoxical effect is to undermine its own strategic standing.

 Keywords: Franco-German War of 1870, Globalization and China, State Controlled Capitalism, China as a Revisionist Power, New Strategic Alliances in Asia, Cooperative Security Strategies, Third Island Security Chain

Historical Similitude

            The Franco-German War of 1870 forms a watershed in strategic thought. After the annexation of the North German Confederacy in 1866, Bismarck sought the Southern German States.[1] He deceived the French into believing that a Prussian Prince would rule from the throne of Spain as a larger strategy of encirclement. By July 1870, France[2] was conned into a seemingly ‘inevitable’ war. Germany through superior military craft and technology inflicted a crushing defeat on the host. In the process the balance of power in Europe was upset.[3] The War, from deception, to alliances, provocation of crisis and defeat of the enemy forcing a one-sided negotiation could well have been scripted by Kautilya[4] or, more significant to our narrative, Sun Tzu.[5]

German victory ushered a strategic orientation to compete with the principal imperial power, Britain.[6] Three strategic objectives swayed the rivalry: military dominance over land and sea; global economic and technological ascendancy in tandem with unimpeded access to primary resources; and thirdly, diplomatic and political pre-eminence. By 1890, Germany had established continental military dominance and a warship-build programme that would challenge British command of the seas. Economically, Germany had already overtaken Britain in heavy industries and innovation, capturing global markets and amassing capital. This in turn muscled influence and superiority in one sector after another.

A thirty-year projection in 1890, suggested that Germany, home to the most advanced industries having unimpeded access to resources of the earth, best universities, richest banks and a balanced society would achieve her strategic goals and primacy. Yet precisely thirty years later, Germany lay in ruins, her economy in shambles, her people impoverished and her society fragmented. By 1920, her great power aspirations lay shamed between the pages of the Treaty of Versailles. The real lesson was that Germany’s quest for comprehensive power brought about a transformation amongst the status-quo powers to align against, despite traditional hostility (Britain and France; Britain and Russia), to contain and defeat a rising Germany that sought to upset the existing global order.

China in Perspective

Historical analogies are notorious in their inability to stage encores, yet they serve as means to understand the present. Contemporary fears of nations are driven by four vital traumas: perpetuation of the State; impact of internal and external stresses; reconciliation with the international system; lastly the conundrum of whether military power produces political outcomes. The paradigm of the day is ‘uncertainty’ with the tensions of multi-polarity, tyranny of economics, anarchy of expectations and polarisation along religio-cultural [7] lines all compacted by globalization [8].

If globalization is a leveller to the rest of the world, to China, globalization is about State capitalism, central supremacy, controlled markets, managed currency and hegemony. The military was to resolve fundamental contradictions that threatened the Chinese State. Significantly globalization provided the opportunity to alter the status-quo.[9] Against this backdrop, is the politics of competitive resource access and denial, which rationalized the use of force.[10]

China’s dazzling growth is set to overtake the USA. Its rise has been accompanied by ambitions of global leadership. This has in turn spurred an unparalleled military growth. In this circumstance the race to garner resources by other major economies is fraught. But the real alarm is, China seeks to dominate international institutions without bringing about a change of her own morphology. China’s claims on the South and East China Sea; handling of internal dissent; proliferatory carousing with North Korea and Pakistan are cases in point.

The emergence of China from its defensive maritime perimeters into the Indian Ocean is seen as the coming ‘Third Security Chain’. Gone is Deng’s ‘power bashfulness’, in its place is the conviction that the-world-needs-China-more-than-China-the-world.Its insistence on a bi-lateral policy to settle disputes even denies the natural impulse of threatened states to seek power balance in collective security. 

The Sense in Cooperative Security Strategies

            The standpoint that provocation and intimidation can benefit China by persuading the victim to negotiate outstanding issues from a conciliatory position is a strategically mistaken one. India, Japan, Vietnam and the South China Sea Littorals have demonstrated so. Far from acquiescing they have chosen to resist, adopting (in trend) a cooperative security strategy. This includes deliberate negative response to favour Chinese economic monopoly even when the benefits are obvious. While individual action may be insignificant, the aggregate of combined action may impede China’s growth which in turn question’s strategic stability of dispensation.

The parallels with the rise and fall of Germany is complete when we note that China’s Defence White Paper of April 2013 underscores the will to expand offensive military capability in pace with economic growth. Internationally this can only be viewed as acutely threatening. The delusion that menaced States will not align to contend and defy China’s grand design is a strategically misleading notion.

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End Notes

[1] Séguin, Philippe. Louis Napoléon Le Grand, Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1990, Pg 390-394.

[2] Encyclopaedia Britannica, updated December 2013, Franco-German War, retrieved 30 May 2014.

[3] Lowe, John. The Great Powers, Imperialism and the German Problem 1865-1925. Taylor and Francis, Routledge, London, New York 1994. Pgs 13, 26, 34.

[4] Kautilya. The Arthashastra, translation by Rangarajan LN, Penguin Classics New Delhi 1990, Part IX pg 498 to Part XI pgs 625-644, 676-679 & 727.

[5]Sun Tzu, The Art of War, translated by Griffith, Samuel B. Oxford University Press, London 1963. Chapter V, pg 39-44.

[6] Kennedy, Paul. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Vintage Books, New York 1987, Chapter 5 pgs 194-274, deals with the crisis of the rise of ‘Middle Powers’ such as Germany (1885-1918).

[7]Fukuayama Francis. “The End of History.” The National Interest, 16 (Summer 1989), pp 4, 18.

[8]Huntington. Samuel, P. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of  World Order, Penguin Books, India 1997, pp 30-39.

[9] The World at War http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/index.html.The United Nations defines “major wars” as military conflicts inflicting 1,000 battlefield deaths per year. In 1965, there were 10 major wars under way. The new millennium began with much of the world consumed in armed conflict or cultivating an uncertain peace. Between 1989 and 2010, forty nine wars erupted. As of mid-2005, there were eight Major Wars under way [down from 15 at the end of 2003], with as many as two dozen “lesser” conflicts ongoing with varying degrees of intensity.

[10] Security analysts  have examined China’s efforts to develop weapons systems that can retard or even stop a potential adversary from entering an area of interest. Dubbed “access-denial,” the aim of such a strategy is to use weapons that deter and should the need arise challenge or indeed prevent inimical forces from operating in conflict zones or oceanic areas of interest . The teeth of this strategy is an anti-ship missile. Such a missile, fired from land, sea, underwater or air can cause tremendous damage to an enemy surface vessel. While such technology isn’t new, the effective ranges of such weapons have increased tremendously, along with their accuracy, speed of delivery and precision. Defending against such systems is therefore a major problem for planners.