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The paper examines the features and potential of the emerging strategic partnership between India and Iran. The role of diplomacy in the energy and transport spheres in forming a belt of confidence in the Greater Middle East and Central Asia is discussed. It has been proved that one of the basic features of India's development--exceptional continuity--finds its expression in the balancing policy, particularly in South-West Asia. One of the key players in the region is Iran, which is under US sanctions. However, Iranian foreign policy has retained its commitment to the goals of the Islamic revolution and dominance in the region. In the past three years, India's policy towards Iran has shown a zigzag development. The paper focuses on the participation of India and Iran in the implementation of the international initiatives like the One Belt and One Road and the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), and the prospects for cooperation in the energy sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While almost a decade old, Ted Hopf’s observation that the democratic peace is an observation in search of a theory still holds validity. In particular, the mechanisms behind the democratic peace are poorly understood, making it difficult for scholars to provide a compelling explanation. Underappreciated in the existing work is the role of identity and the importance this has for driving the democratic peace. With a focus on developing a dyadic democratic peace mechanism and using a case study approach, this paper utilizes the Copenhagen School’s securitization framework to examine how identity plays out in the US response to the Indian and Iranian nuclear programs. It finds that in fact identity does play an important role in how security policy is constructed. In policy terms, if the democratic peace does rely on identity to trigger the constraining norms that limit the escalation of conflict to violence, it is unlikely the democratic peace can be spread by force and it is possible that states nominally democratic can be excluded from the community of democracies if their behavior or significant other aspects of their perceived identity are at variance with the accepted democratic identity standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's engagement with West Asia including Iran has always been a balancing act hovering between economic necessities and strategic pursuits. The paper briefly traces the evolution of Indo-Iran engagements and also analyses their respective macroeconomic parameters. It also outlines and discusses three major geopolitical and geo-economic influences including sanctions on Iran, payment mechanism, and Iran's business environment. Moreover, the issues pertaining to access to oil, transit route through Afghanistan and other trade facilitation measures have also been discussed. The paper also uses the revealed comparative advantage index to identify some potential areas of cooperation. Also, it argues that India needs to be more cautious and pragmatic in its strategic endeavours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In April and May of 1932, Rabindranath Tagore traveled to Iran on an official visit. He had been invited to Iran as the official guest of Rezā Shah Pahlavi. Using an array of primary source material, this article examines the cultural, political, and ideological implications of this trip for the emerging discourse of nationalism in interwar Iran. The article argues that Tagore's visit played an important part in promoting the new official nationalism of the Pahlavi state. The emerging interwar ideology of “Pahlavi nationalism” sought to dissociate Iran from the Abrahamic-Islamicate “civilizational ethos” that was now understood to have long dominated Iranian culture, and instead sought to associate Iranian nationalism's claim of cultural authenticity to a newly emerging notion of “Indo-Iranian civilization” rooted in the pre-Islamic culture of Zoroastrianism and Aryanism. Tagore's visit to Iran was seen as an opportunity for his Iranian hosts to present him to the Iranian public as a living personification of this newly conceived idea of national authenticity. The public ceremonies and pronouncements that accompanied Tagore during the four-week trip all reinforced this basic message. The paper therefore argues that the Tagore visit to Iran was closely tied to the Pahlavi state's policy of cultural nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bilateral relations between India and Iran have been on an upswing since the early 1990s, and the recent visit by the Iranian president to India has infused them with new momentum. This paper examines the strategic rationale behind Indo-lranian engagement and the constraints that still hamper this bilateral relationship from realizing its full potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers an assessment of Iran's role in India's foreign policy calculations vis-à-vis Sino-Pak axis. The changing geopolitical and geostrategic dynamics in the post-Cold War era have brought about new possibilities and opportunities in the Eurasian space. Given the geographical conditions and re-emergence of geopolitical competition, regional connectivity through ports has taken a pivotal position in bilateral and multilateral engagements. Therefore, the port geopolitics has become a buzzword in the regional connectivity. India has many geopolitical, geostrategic and geo-economic interests in the Eurasian region. However, the potential has not been realized yet due to the lack of geographical connectivity. In the backdrop of emerging Sino-Pak axis, their moves and countermoves have been limiting India's multilateral interests including the connectivity across the Eurasian region. In these matrices, Iran's Chabahar Port due to its strategic location has become a crucial enabler for India. However, Iran has offered investment opportunities even to China and Pakistan in the same project. The existing enmities/competition between India and China-Pakistan has made it difficult for New Delhi to convert the proposed project of Chabahar Port into reality. Against this background, the article would try to give answers to these questions; what are the regional dynamics regarding the Sino-Pak axis to block India's connectivity with the Eurasian region? And how Iran's Chabahar Port can be a helping factor in India's counterbalancing strategy for Sino-Pak axis? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iran, being a major player in the hydrocarbon sector, is both an opportunity and a challenge for India. While Iran's hydrocarbons could partly address India's growing appetite for oil and natural gas and contribute to its energy security, its willingness to transform its energy ties with Iran beyond purely commercial transactions coincided with its desire to negotiate a civil nuclear deal with the US. Moreover some of the energy deals between the two countries are stuck over price disputes and technology difficulties, while others have come under international pressure and scrutiny. While international sanctions against Iran undermine India's ability to pursue its energy ties with Iran, maintaining the status quo has some economic and political advantages. Hence, India is not yet ready to abandon Iran for the US. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

India and Iran have shared a rich history of civilisational ties for many centuries. The close historical relations were, however, ruined by the British rule and the subsequent loss of contiguity owing to the creation of Pakistan. Iran's alliance with the Western bloc and India's adherence to the principles of non-alignment, albeit with leanings towards the Soviet Union, were the major determinants of Indo-Iranian bilateral relations until 1979. Pakistan, and its impression on the successive Iranian regimes, also played a major role in this relationship. The Islamic Revolution of 1979 changed the situation dramatically, with Iran overnight becoming a staunch US foe. The ensuing Iran–Iraq war and the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan then acted as further spoilers for the development of cordial ties between India and Iran. Extraneous factors continually prevented Indo-Iranian political relations from maturing. Economic relations, in turn, were held hostage and remained far from substantive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article proposes to trace India's relations with Iran in the post-Cold War period, to identify the highs and lows in its contours and analyse the current situation. No country, however powerful, can formulate and implement its policy towards another in a total vacuum. India's Iran policy, as well as its foreign policy on the whole, reflects its domestic and external concerns and compulsions. India's need to secure its interests and broaden its options is unexceptionable. However, abstaining on Iran's nuclear issue and declining to launch the Israeli spy satellite to monitor Iranian territory would have been well within India's interests and external expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's relationship with Iran has been uneven owing to external factors. This article traces the role of the Pakistan factor in this relationship, wherein the religious identity of a fellow Islamic nation, the strategic outlook towards Afghanistan, and energy relations between the three countries are discussed. The article outlines the Pakistani primacy in the India–Iran strategic relationship and showcases how Afghanistan is the glue for India–Iran relations despite the breaks in their continuing relationship. The article concludes by providing an overview of this unique triangular relationship, assessing the wider interests of the parties involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political tensions and rivalry between Iran and Israel have cast a shadow over India's bilateral relations with both these countries. While one offers energy security, the other provides military–security capability towards ensuring greater Indian influence in the Middle East. Conscious of their relative advantages and challenges, India has managed to maintain a fine balance in its relations with Iran and Israel. Despite the suspected involvement of Iranian citizens in the 13 February 2012 terror attack on the Israeli embassy vehicle in New Delhi, Israel could continue to be a marginal player in Indo-Iranian relations. The same, however, will not be true for the US, which seeks to limit and if possible change the substance and direction of Indo-Iranian relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the discourses on India–Iran relations are either focused on cultural and civilisational links with Iran or its relevance as an energy-rich nation. Its transit potential in providing India with access to Central Asia has not received adequate attention. While there is a general acceptance that Iran provides India with access to Central Asia, what is little known and thus not analysed is the question: to what extent has India been able to realise Iran's transit potential and what are the major bilateral, regional and international challenges faced by both these countries for realising that potential? The article argues that despite Iran's geostrategic location as well as regional complexities, the Iran–US standoff, security challenges and lack of adequate economic resources constrain India's efforts to maximise the potential offered by the various land, sea and rail routes connecting India to the Eurasian region through Iran. A new thrust by all regional partners supported by international agencies to revive old links and build new corridors therefore becomes necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three broad policy determinants can be discerned in Indian reactions to the Iranian nuclear issue. These include: 'strategic autonomy' as it relates to Indian foreign policy decision making; concerns regarding 'regional strategic stability' as it relates to events in its 'proximate neighbourhood'; and 'national security' implications on account of operative clandestine proliferation networks. Issues relating to the role of the US in influencing Indian policy positions at international forums and vis-a-vis domestic policy were prominent as regards the first determinant. Threats and 'advice' by American policy makers and law makers on specific issues like the Indo-US nuclear deal and the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline gave further grist to critics. However, an analysis of India's concerns regarding the other two policy considerations, i.e., strategic stability and national security were 'real and present' and also dominated public discourse as well. With India having become a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council from January 2011, it should be the task of Indian diplomacy, at the UNSC as well as at other bilateral and multilateral settings, to help expand the space for the application of 'satisfactory strategies' and reduce the range of 'unsatisfactory strategies' (the latter being the then Foreign Secretary Menon's term to describe America's options vis-a-vis the issue as revealed in a WikiLeaks cable) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, Iran has come to acquire a significant place in the West Asian region with the ability to influence regional politics. For India, relations with Iran are vital. In the changed strategic environment, both India and Iran have been working towards improving their bilateral relations. However, there are several challenges, especially for India, in this regard. If the Iran-US confrontation intensifies, for example, India may find it difficult to pursue a smooth relationship with Iran. This article looks at various facets of India-Iran relations and examines the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the kinds of nuclear duels in which small nuclear powers might engage. It does so by articulating a deductive framework that describes the five ways force can be used. Nuclear weapons are means of force that can be used actively or passively to preserve or change the status quo and so can be used to support the resulting generic strategies of deterrence, defense, offense, and active and passive compellence. These are the politically purposive strategies available to conduct a nuclear duel. It then considers these strategies from the perspective of small nuclear powers by considering a case. Use of a single case makes for a more rigorous analysis of the relationship between strategies by forcing consideration of tradeoffs and complementarities. The awkwardness of the real world inherent in a single case cannot be sidestepped by use of convenient examples from other situations. North Korea is used because it is the focus of negotiations to abandon its nuclear program. In contrast, India, Israel, and Pakistan are not under international pressure at this time, and Iran does not yet possess nuclear weapons. The result is an exploration of the nuclear duel involving small nuclear powers intended to illuminate for non-specialists the opportunities, constraints, and interconnections within the space of possible nuclear strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how the democratization and growing economic influence of India has affected the country's cultural end economic relations with Iran and Myanmar. The development of India's foreign policy with regard to Iran and Myanmar is considered in light of their status as rouge states in many Western countries and India's desire to become part of the United Nations Security Council. India's historical relations and continued economic interest in Iran and Myanmar are also considered in this context. The author argues that India's foreign policy is demonstrative of its status as an emerging force in world politics.

This article examines the impact of India's growing involvement with the Muslim countries in Pakistan's neighborhood—Iran, the Central Asian republics, and Afghanistan—on the contemporary U.S.-Pakistan strategic alliance, in particular the cooperation of these two allies in waging the war in Afghanistan. Driven largely by its need for expanded access to the region's energy resources, India has been moving rapidly to cement its ties with these countries. This article argues that U.S. and Pakistani objectives in Afghanistan are far from fully convergent, and that they are perhaps least convergent when it comes to India. India's lengthening strategic shadow in the region, it maintains, especially when coupled with its growing strategic partnership with the United States, is bound to have an important bearing on the evolution of the war in Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explore the implications of Shanghai Cooperation Organization's (SCO) engagement with India, Pakistan and Iran. Not in terms of power-politics or as a counterbalance to the USA as this has been explored elsewhere, but what practical problems such an expanded organization could help solve, what opportunities it could realize, and how SCO's engagement in trade is a function of favourable political and bilateral developments in the region. It is argued here that the trade, infrastructure and energy sectors are of particular importance and that substantial potential gains could be realized if coordination is improved. Nevertheless, it is also recognized that China, Russia, Pakistan, India and Iran may have lower standards of democratic development and economic transparency than the West. What is the motivation behind the SCO's engagement with India, Pakistan and Iran? Should this engagement be conceived only in terms of balancing US unipolarity or are there legitimate concerns of increasing regional cooperation in Eurasia? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relationship of India with Iran in the post-Cold War era which is from being a distant neighbor into a potential regional allies during the post-Soviet period. India has attempted to create a strong tie with the Islamic Republic of Iran in the twenty-first century with a strategic, political and economic rationale. The relationship of the two countries have been established based on the same interest concerning the area of regional geopolitics and energy exploitation.

The article focuses on the extent to which India can expand its bilateral relationship with Iran while strengthening its relations with the U.S. and the world community. Iran and India are interested in advancing commercial and energy ties. India has been reliant on Iran for its energy needs. However, the U.S. has been wary of Iran's nuclear program and has been regularly opposing it. This resulted in India voting for the resolution in September 2005 finding Iran to be in noncompliance. It also voted to refer Iran to the UN Security Council in February 2006. It is suggested that the U.S. should recognize India's potential influence in Iran and encourage India to work with the international community to offer a solution.

The article stresses that Arab prism plays a significant role in determining the nature of Indo-Iranian relations. Prism is also perceived to act as a barrier to their progress should the Arab-Iran conflict increases. Several issues concerning Indo-Iranian relations that have generated widespread coverage include energy security, the nuclear controversy and the U.S. dimension. The inherent bias of Arab towards the Middle East policy of India is considered both natural and may be justified by the historic ties between India and the arab region.