23 February 2014 – 25 February 2014
The Strategic Studies Summit, titled “(R)evolution”, was organised by the Near East and South Asia, Center for Strategic Studies in the United States from 23-25 February 2014 bringing together participants for Asia and the Middle East.
This year’s conference and working groups focused on the impact of shifts in political power when revolutionary agitations began with the grassroots movements demanding for regime change. The plenary and working groups were set up with the tough mandate of trying to identify whether the changes occurring in the various regions were organic and evolutionary in their progress or had revolutionary power that may completely unseat the existing power balance in the near future.
Afghanistan, Iran, the Arab Spring, maritime security in the Indian Ocean, Peace Keeping operations and post-conflict reconciliation were important thematic areas for the working groups. It must be noted that many GPPAC members and partners were invited to represent their organisations in this conference, including Dr. Mallika Joseph (RCSS), Dr. Suba Chandran (IPCS), Dr. Nishchal Pandey (CSAS), Mr. Shahab Enam Khan (BEI) and Ms. Mariam Safi. GPPAC South Asia continued to make use of such opportunities to link with networks within the region and ones that go beyond in order to make valuable institutional linkages to support the joint work done in the region. RCSS participated in 4 of the 6 working group meetings which dealt with topics ranging from Peace-Keeping missions and reconciliation to specific contexts such as Afghanistan in transition and maritime relations in the Indian Ocean Region.
