The Strategist by Vijay Shankar
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The Chanciness of Squirming Back from the Brink of Nuclear War
Vijay Shankar · 31 Jan, 2020 · 5647
Stanislav
Yefgrafovich Petrov, Colonel Second Rank of the Soviet Strategic Air Defence
Forces, stood as watch-in-charge at the Oko nuclear early warning surveillance
system at the top secret Serpukhov-15 complex in a South Moscow suburb. ...
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India-China and the Sometime Pickle of Civilisational Connects
Vijay Shankar · 14 Nov, 2019 · 5629
The
Peloponnesian War (431- 404 BCE), was a significant event of the ancients as it
reshaped the Hellenic world. A hegemonistic Athens and its trading vassals was
challenged by Sparta backed by the xenophobic Peloponnesian League. In the ...
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2019 Shangri-La Dialogue: The Shadow of China
Vijay Shankar · 06 Aug, 2019 · 5609
The
Shangri-La Dialogue, an Asian security summit held annually in Singapore, took
place between 31 May-2 June this year. And, in a grand affirmation of design, its
director general declared, “It is a unique meeting where ministers deb ...
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Xi and China’s Fourth May Revolution: Can State Control and People’s Empowerment be Reconciled?
Vijay Shankar · 23 May, 2019 · 5590
Since 1919, the Fourth of
May movement has been evoked by Chinese scholars and the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) as a beacon for independence
and enlightenment. How the array of critical thoughts that the movement
represented will ...
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Why Nuclear Doctrinal Stasis is Not a Bad Idea
Vijay Shankar · 24 Apr, 2019 · 5582
There
is an inherent limit to how precisely predictions can be made, let alone prognosticate
impact particularly when polity, power, and people are involved. The historian
Michael Howard cautioned against those who would play the oracle: ...
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Xi’s Disquieting Dream of National Rejuvenation
Vijay Shankar · 31 Jan, 2019 · 5553
In the run up to the First World War, Germany pursued a combination of overbearing diplomacy and brinkmanship to achieve policy goals, despite the risk of war. Demanding a review of the international order that would confer on it a domi ...
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Deen Aaya
Vijay Shankar · 24 Sep, 2018 · 5516
The
impact of organised religion on nations has historically been a sense of
contrived significance, but in essence has neither refined society nor elevated
power status. The case of civilizational encounters is curious. The vanquished w ...
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The Dilemma of a Threshold
Vijay Shankar · 01 Aug, 2018 · 5498
The nuclear planner is acutely involved in analysis of when and under what political conditions opposing leadership (military or otherwise) may resort to the employment of nuclear weapons. For nations with a policy of no first use (NFU), th ...
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The Regression of Nuclear Policy
Vijay Shankar · 03 May, 2018 · 5462
Contemporary trends positing the reversibility of a nuclear exchange presupposes that the antagonists are able to understand mutual aims, objectives and have unimpeachable knowledge of boundaries within which the conflict is to be played ou ...
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Quad: The Making of a Robust Entente?
Vijay Shankar · 12 Mar, 2018 · 5446
The force planner’s primary task is to ensure that the military element of national power alongside economic and political elements supports national strategy. India had in 1950 defined national goals in the Preamble and Directive Pri ...