If the world has a ‘West’ and an ‘East’ , it is fairly well established that the center of gravity is shifting to the East. The author goes a bit deeper into this conclusion to say that the East is not a peaceful homogenous bloc.
It is generally accepted that peace is a natural condition while war is an aberration. Peace is defined as ‘not violence’. Johan Galtung has defined violence in two categories, direct violence and indirect violence.
Terrorism has traditionally presented states with a major security challenge. After 9/11, however, governments have become totally focused on this threat to national security for what they fear most is terrorist violence designed to achieve clearly defined political objectives like independence from central authority.
Kanti Bajpai and Harsh V. Pant have edited this book for the benefit of graduate students studying Indian foreign policy, those teaching the subject as well as the general reader interested in its key aspects.
Anyone who has asked an Indian Army officer why it has got bogged down in a bloody quagmire in the North East, why it made such a hash of the operation in Sri Lanka, or why the lives of so many jawans were squandered in Kargil, hears the same answer: ‘We fought with one hand tied behind our backs’. Apart from being hard to do unless you have a tail or other appendage to which the hand can be tied, that excuse absolves many sins. That is also the first of many limitations in this book.
The discipline of International Relations in India, although vibrant and growing, has suffered from the straitjacket of having as its only points of reference, IR Theories originating in the western hemisphere.