Book Review
| DOI | 10.1177/0973598411110016 |
| Published date | 01 June 2011 |
| Date | 01 June 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
N.S. SISODIAAND V. KRISHNAPPA (eds.)
Global Power Shifts and Strategic
Transition in Asia
Academic Foundation,
in
association with the
Institute for
Defence
Studies and
Analyses,
New Delhi
2009
Price: X
995
/
US
$ 79.95
Sreya Maitra*
International politics is characterized by the dynamic collision and
collusion of interests, perceptions, and ambitions of nation-states. This
renders it a perpetual volatility and flux; a constant quest for dispelling
disorder to cautiously maintain order. A wide range of scholarship,
espousing contending theoretical schools seek to explain, justify or critique
the inter-play of complex forces at the global, regional and sub-regional
level.
A section of scholars, pre-dominantly realists, argue that interactions
among sovereign states are often conditioned by strategic considerations
of power and security, backed by their global and regional geopolitical
understandings. The present volume is a recent contribution on the
changing dynamics of geo-politics in Asia and its strategic ascendance, in
the context of global power configurations and re-configurations following
the end of the Cold War. It brings together seventeen essays, divided into
four sections, each focusing on inter-connected themes; the nature of the
current power-conflict in Asia, presence of external powers, impact of the
trans-national processes like globalization in shaping the Asian strategic
context, potential and prospective role of multilateral institutions to foster
cooperative state behaviour in rendering order and meeting transnational
threats and finally, the recent trends of resurgent nationalism in Asia and
contending theories of strategic transitions in Asia.
The essays in the first section titled 'Indian Perspectives' represent
contrasting views on India's role in shaping the future geopolitical and
strategic context of Asia. In The Asian Transition and India's Emerging
* Doctoral Candidate and Junior Research Fellow, Department of International
Relations, Jadavpur University, Kolkata.
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