Analyzing regional challenges and their implications for U.S. foreign policy This book is an impressive overview of security and governance issues in South Asia and their implications for U.S. foreign policy in the region. The focus is on major enduring issues that include India-Pakistan relations, India-China relations, conventional forces, and nuclear weapons. The book's contributors also tackle a number of often underexplored issues, including democratic backsliding in India, authoritarian hardening in China, and the international ramifications of both. The impact of Pakistan's political culture on democracy, and the insurgency in Pakistan's Baluchistan province, along with examinations of the internal security challenges in Nepal, Bangladesh, and the Maldives provide lessons for other states on how to counterviolent extremism and insurgencies related to identity and marginalization. Anyone interested in South Asian security and U.S. policy toward the region will be rewarded with new insights on these topics, written by academics and analysts specializing in the issues. The chapter authors were close colleagues or advisees of long-time Brookings Institution senior fellow Stephen Philip Cohen. Cohen was the first American scholar to work on South Asian security studies. He largely defined the field, trained and mentored many of its leading analysts, and was himself its most experienced and insightful scholar-practitioner until his death in 2019. This book is dedicated to Cohen in recognition of his contributions to scholarship and policymaking on South Asia.

The South Asian security complex refers to security interdependencies between the states in the region, and also includes the effect that powerful external actors, such as China, the US and Russia, and geopolitical interests have on regional dynamics. This book focuses on the national securities of a number of South Asian countries in order to discuss a range of issues related to South Asian security. The book makes a distinction between traditional and non-traditional security. While state-centric approaches such as bilateral relations between India and Pakistan are considered to be traditional realist approaches to security, the promotion of economic, environmental and human security reflect global concerns, liberal theories and cosmopolitan values. The book goes beyond traditional security issues to reflect the changing security agenda in South Asia in the twenty-first century, and is a useful contribution to studies on South Asian Politics and Security Studies.

What In Today'S World Constitutes Security? A Question Which Often Comes To The Fore, But Is Seldom Answered Satisfactorily. What Is It That Is Most Important For A Nation To Protect And For Which It Needs To Evolve Strategies? Are State Boders And Frontiers The Most Crucial And Therefore Ought To Be Defended Against All Forms Of External Aggression And Influence And At All Costs?

The security relationship between India and Pakistan is generally viewed through a neo-realist lens. This book explains the rivalry of these countries by looking at the socio-cultural norms at two levels, and discusses a hypothetical security community that could result in peace in the region.

This book aims to explore the ways in which non-state actors (NSAs) in South Asia ' media actors, epistemic communities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), civil society groups and others ' are involved in securitising non-traditional security challenges in the region at the domestic and regional levels.

This book provides a rich analysis of the actors and organizations to reflect on the antecedents and trajectories of terrorism and insurgency in South Asia, and the different countermeasures adopted by the countries to deal with the security and developmental challenges. South Asia is a complex geography that has been both a victim and a playing field for indigenous insurgencies, and domestic and transnational terrorist movements. The contributors to this volume explore how this situation has posed serious challenges to the sovereignty of the states, to national and human security, and to the socioeconomic fabric of the communities, and to the ethnic and religious cohesion. The book provides detailed studies of country cases on terrorism, security, and insurgencies, and it underlines the national, regional, and global implications of the threats that emanate from this region. Presenting an opportunity to diversify away from a Western-centric focus on terrorism and security, this book will be valuable to researchers in political science, criminology, defense and security studies, and to policy makers and think tanks.

Stephen Philip Cohen can rightly be called the doyen of South Asian security analysis, especially traditional security concerns in the region and advocacy on US foreign policy. The contributors to the volume have all, at different at different points in time, been Cohen’s students, and are now well-known scholars in their own right. Broadly dividing Cohen’s work into categories, the contributors deal with the following issues: how security is understood and how important strategic relationships are framed approaches to and choices made in the areas of military structure, arms production, and investment in science and technology how and why civil society groups are mobilized towards political ends—specifically looking at ethnic mobilization in diaspora communities, non-official initiatives for peace in South Asia, and the role of state and non-state actors in disaster management the role of the army. The essays reflect a view of security as something people choose to make for themselves through an exercise of agency that is rooted in the realm of ideas.