War and Peace in Contemporary India examines the importance of institutions and the role played by international actors in crucial episodes of India’s strategic history. The contributions trace India’s tryst with war and peace from immediately before the foundation of the contemporary Indian state, to the last military conflict between India and Pakistan in 1999. The focus of the chapters included in this edited volume is as much on India as it is on Pakistan and China, its opponents in war. The chapters offer a fresh take on the creation of India as a regional military power, and her approach to War and Peace in the post-independence period. Importantly, it advances the broader work on Indian strategic history during the Cold War and after, an otherwise under-studied intellectual landscape. The book offers fresh insights based on archival work, as well as a closer conceptual reading of Indian, British and American decision making at times of war and peace in contemporary India. This book will be of great interest to scholars, researchers and students interested in strategic studies, diplomatic and military history, international diplomacy, as well as Indian history and politics. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies.

War and Peace in Contemporary India examines the importance of institutions and the role played by international actors in crucial episodes of India's strategic history. The contributions trace India's tryst with war and peace from immediately before the foundation of the contemporary Indian state, to the last military conflict between India and Pakistan in 1999. The focus of the chapters included in this edited volume is as much on India as it is on Pakistan and China, its opponents in war. The chapters offer a fresh take on the creation of India as a regional military power, and her approach to War and Peace in the post-independence period. Importantly, it advances the broader work on Indian strategic history during the Cold War and after, an otherwise under-studied intellectual landscape. The book offers fresh insights based on archival work, as well as a closer conceptual reading of Indian, British and American decision making at times of war and peace in contemporary India. This book will be of great interest to scholars, researchers and students interested in strategic studies, diplomatic and military history, international diplomacy, as well as Indian history and politics. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies.

Rudra Chaudhuri's book examines a series of crises that led to far-reaching changes in India's approach to the United States, defining the contours of what is arguably the imperative relationship between America and the global South. Forged in Crisis provides a fresh interpretation of India's advance in foreign affairs under the stewardship of Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and finally, Manmohan Singh. It reveals the complex and distinctive manner in which India sought to pursue at once material interests and ideas, while meticulously challenging the shakier and largely untested read- ing of 'non-alignment' palpable in most works on Indian foreign policy and international relations. From the Korean War in 1950 to the considered debate within India on sending troops to Iraq in 2003, and from the loss of territory to China and the subsequent talks on Kashmir with Pakistan in 1962-63 to the signing of a civil nuclear agreement with Washington in 2008, Chaudhuri maps Indian negotiating styles and behaviour and how these shaped and informed decisions vital to its strategic interest, in turn redefining its relationship with the United States.