There is a widespread perception amongst the intelligentsia that India lacks strategic culture. The deficiency if any perhaps lies in the reluctance to articulate India’s perceptions on strategic issues, as also to formulate a long-term strategic view. As the oldest think tank in Asia, United Services Institution of India (USI) decided to address the above issue and how it could contribute to evolution and dissemination of strategic thought on challenges facing the Nation. To this end the publication of a USI Strategic Yearbook 2016, which was the maiden attempt, which received wide appreciation for its quality and contents. This current issue of the Yearbook contains series of articles by eminent persons and experts on various aspects of national security; the aim is to provide a strategic perspective which will create awareness and also help the policymakers in giving a strategic direction for India to transform into a developed society and a secured nation. USI hope’s that readers will find this publication useful and interesting.

The USI of India Strategic Yearbook 2021 continues the writing excellence we have established since we started this publication in 2016. We have gained respected reputation as a compendium of professionally researched and presented strategic issues of relevance to India, of both the current time and previous year. As earlier the book provides comprehensive researched articles on contemporary security studies by knowledgeable Indian strategic thinkers and scholars, both from the military and civil field. The articles deal with security issues covering international and domestic affairs presented in five thematic sections titled 'India’s National Security Overview', ‘Internal Security Issues', ‘External Security: India's Strategic Neighbourhood', ‘External Security: Pakistan–China Strategic Challenges’ and 'National Security Capacity Building'. The articles deal with the existing paradigm of India's national security. They contribute to security studies in fields of international relations, geopolitics, changes in the character of war, technology, organisational changes and internal security threats and responses. They empower the reader to carry out further research on strategic studies. The Yearbook provides an increased “upstream” focus on defence and security policy practice for all military or civilian practitioners in the field and those researching strategic and security issues.

This book locates the Arctic within the context of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) national strategy of the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation. Drawing on a range of sources published in Chinese and English, the author analyses Beijing’s Arctic scientific activities and technological capabilities, including the research infrastructure, long-term goals, and the significance for China’s understanding of the region, its Arctic identity, and international perceptions. Examining the region from the perspective of the Comprehensive National Security Outlook developed during the Xi Jinping era, the book focuses on military, economic, technological, and political components and considers the PRC’s official and academic discourses and the views of the region within bilateral relations with Arctic states, outlining a science, security, and governance nexus in China’s Arctic engagement. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students of Arctic geopolitics, Chinese studies, security studies, and foreign policy analysis. It will also appeal to policymakers and defence analysts in Arctic states and other regional stakeholders.

This book covers the research fields in biodiversity conservation, the Belt and Road eco-environmental cooperation, China's five-year plan for eco-environmental protection, sustainable development goals assessment, and human health loss assessment. In the past, these achievements have played an important scientific role in supporting China's ecological and environmental protection, and produced extensive social impacts and significant environmental benefits. At the same time, the relevant research ideas and methods also show the latest progress and trend in the field of environmental strategy and planning in China in recent years, which can be used for reference by experts and scholars of other countries in the field of ecological environment.

Based on the diverging interests of Germany and Poland as influential members of the European Union on the Eastern Partnership (EaP), the contributions in the anthology analyse specifics and current problems of the states in EU’s Eastern neighbourhood. By including the interests of Russia and the USA, which go beyond the EU, the geostrategic implications of these relations for the Eurasian region will also be highlighted. The studies of renowned German and Polish experts represent the results of individual research and bilateral exchange on the current state of EU’s relations towards its Eastern neighbours.

This book provides a fresh perspective on the political agency of private entrepreneurs in contemporary China. Most Chinese scholarship describes this group as being politically acquiescent due to systematic co-optation by the party state. This book, however, argues that private entrepreneurs should be understood, and analytically conceptualized, as a 'strategic group' that makes use of different formal and informal channels to safeguard and expand its interests, though so far it has not challenged the current regime.State-business relations in contemporary China should thus be understood not in terms of mere clientelism, but as a dynamic symbiosis in which private entrepreneurs contribute substantially to policy and institutional change. This book is based on several years of comparative empirical fieldwork across China. With its rich and unique qualitative data and insights, this volume contributes significantly to our understanding of the political behaviour and impact of private entrepreneurs in contemporary China.

This book describes capacity building in strategic and non-strategic machine tool technology. It includes machine building in sectors such as machine tools, automobiles, home appliances, energy, and biomedical engineering, along with case studies. The book offers guidelines for capacity building in academia, covering how to promote enterprises of functional reverse engineering enterprises. It also discusses machine tool development, engineering design, prototyping of strategic, and non-strategies machine tools, as well as presenting communication strategies and IoT, along with case studies. Professionals from the CNC (Computer Numeric Control) machine tools industry, industrial and manufacturing engineers, and students and faculty in engineering disciplines will find interest in this book.

This book explores the military strategies of the five system-determining great powers during the twenty-first century. The book’s point of departure is that analyses of countries’ defence strategies should acknowledge that states come in various shapes and sizes and that their strategic choices are affected by their perceptions of their position in the international system and by power asymmetries between more and less resourceful states. This creates a diversity in strategies that is often overlooked in theoretically oriented analyses. The book examines how five major powers – the United States, China, the United Kingdom, France and Russia – have adjusted their strategies to improve or maintain their relative position and to manage power asymmetries during the twenty-first century. It also develops and applies an analytical framework for exploring and categorising the strategies pursued by the five major powers which combines elements of structural realism with research on power transition theory and status competition. The concluding chapter addresses questions related to stability and change in the present international system. This book will be of interest to students of strategic studies, foreign policy, and International Relations.

"The “Indo-Pacific” has emerged as a strategic pivot in the evolving balance of power. The region encompasses about 60 per cent of the world population, three of the ten largest economies, five of the ten most populated countries and three of the ten largest countries. It is home to an enormously populous and diverse mix of ethnicities, cultures, political systems, religions, and economic models. Global trade and energy linkages bind the oceans such that events across the region are strongly interrelated and mutually dependent. Considering the importance of this region, the United Service Institution of India (USI) organised a seminar on 01-02 November 2018 at New Delhi on the theme of, “Evolving Geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific Region: Challenges and Prospects”. The seminar brought together varying perspectives on the challenges and prospects in the security and economic domain in the region, and the framework for architectures for collective security and economic integration. The seminar was organised into three separate sessions. The first session covered security challenges and prospects in the Indo-Pacific Region. The second session was devoted to economic challenges and prospects in the Indo Pacific Region and the third session to discussions on frameworks for cooperation. The proceedings were rounded off with a panel discussion on the furtherance of security and economic cooperation in the Indo-Pacific Region. This book is based on the papers presented by various speakers during the seminar."