Book Review: Nina Caspersen. 2017. Peace Agreements: Finding Solutions to Intra-State Conflicts
| DOI | 10.1177/2347797017751710 |
| Author | Benjamin Reilly |
| Published date | 01 April 2018 |
| Date | 01 April 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Reviews 103
It faces a unique strategic situation in having two nuclear-armed neighbours
with whom the country has had difficult relationship in the past (pp. 157–84).
While Menon has written Choices after his retirement, it is not a memoir.
Rather, it is a scholarly discussion of five important themes concerning contem-
porary Indian foreign and security polices with which he had direct experience,
providing an acute understanding of prospects and problems of policymaking and
limits imposed by India’s strategic setting. Menon brings together insights on
matters ranging from state building in west Asia, problem of terrorism, approach
of international community to India–Pakistan tensions to the emerging geopolitics
in Asia-Pacific region.
Menon characterizes India’s strategic practice as bold in conception and cau-
tious in application (pp. 191–93). He also does not shy away from providing an
interesting take on what sort of power India will likely become. Menon argues
that India will become great power simply because it is in the interest of India to
become one. Yet India will not lose its sense of uniqueness endowed to it by its
history, geography and civilization. Given India’s problems at home, even though
India will have enhanced hard power, it will continue to privilege diplomatic
means as opposed to military means (pp. 200–05). There are many such insights,
interesting opinions and arguments spread across the book.
Choices could have been more useful if it had covered other instances of poli-
cymaking and crisis such as India’s inability to sign agreement on water-sharing
and land boundary with Bangladesh in 2011 and India’s evolving relations with
Israel, both instances in which Menon himself was deeply involved. Nonetheless,
the book is written in an accessible manner and covers several important episodes
in contemporary India’s foreign and national security policymaking. Hence,
Choices is engaging for its treatment of the subject and would be an interesting
read for scholars and policymakers alike.
Sankalp Gurjar
South Asian University, India
E-mail: Sankalp.gurjar@gmail.com
Nina Caspersen. 2017. Peace Agreements: Finding Solutions to Intra-State
Conflicts. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. 226 pp. ISBN: 978-074-5680-27-9
DOI: 10.1177/2347797017751710
Since the end of the Cold War, over 20 violent internal conflicts have been ended,
at least temporarily, by formal accords among the warring parties. The consent of
these peace agreements are often discussed, but rarely analysed. Nina Caspersen’s
new book is the best work I know of to assess the nature of such peace agreements
around the world. Well-written, insightful and genuinely comparative, it will be a
particularly useful not just for scholars but as a resource for teaching graduate
students and informing practitioners too.
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