Emerging Reconciliation Amidst Continuing Military Impasse ; Strategic Insights, v. 1, issue 6 (August 2002)

This article appeared in Strategic Insights, v.1, issue 6 (August 2002). It appeared with a companion piece, Pakistan's Challenges and the Need for a Balanced Solution" by Brigadier Feroz Hassan Khan. Both pieces appeared under a header: India and Pakistan at the Precipice: Two ViewsHigh level U.S. political engagement during the last two months has resulted in a visible easing of tensions between India and Pakistan. During the visit of U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to Pakistan on 6 June 2002, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf pledged to end cross-border infiltration from Pakistan into Indian-controlled Kashmir on a permanent basis. India responded with a series of diplomatic and military steps, and acknowledged that the level of cross-border incidents had decreased. Pakistan, however, dismissed the steps taken by India as merely "cosmetic." During his visit to India on 12 June, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that the United States would want to convert this initial positive movement into a virtuous cycle of mutually reinforcing actions that would reduce tensions and create the conditions for political dialogue between the two adversaries.Center on Contemporary Conflict;Department of National Security Affairs;Naval Postgraduate Schoo

Tajikistan

Nearly a decade after a civil war ravaged the Republic of Tajikistan, the country is still suffering the effects of contamination from landmines and explosive remnants of war. Although the country has never produced or exported anti-personnel mines, Soviet and Uzbek forces emplaced them along most of its borders. Tajikistan is also the only State Party to the Ottawa Convention to declare APMs stockpiled in its territory by a non-State Party; Russian Ministry of Defense units deployed in Tajikistan control approximately 18,200 mines. All of these issues contribute to a crippling mine problem for one of the poorest countries in the world

Satellite Image Fusion in Various Domains

In order to find out the fusion algorithm which is best suited for the panchromatic and multispectral images, fusion algorithms, such as PCA and wavelet algorithms have been employed and analyzed. In this paper, performance evaluation criteria are also used for quantitative assessment of the fusion performance. The spectral quality of fused images is evaluated by the ERGAS and Q4. The analysis indicates that the DWT fusion scheme has the best definition as well as spectral fidelity, and has better performance with regard to the high textural information absorption. Therefore, as the study area is concerned, it is most suited for the panchromatic and multispectral image fusion. an image fusion algorithm based on wavelet transform is proposed for Multispectral and panchromatic satellite image by using fusion in spatial and transform domains. In the proposed scheme, the images to be processed are decomposed into sub-images with the same resolution at same levels and different resolution at different levels and then the information fusion is performed using high-frequency sub-images under the Multi-resolution image fusion scheme based on wavelets produces better fused image than that by the MS or WA schemes

Proxy War to Proxy Peace; Strategic Insights: v.2, issue 8 (August 2003)

This article appeared in Strategic Insights (August 2003), v.2 no.8During his visit to Kashmir on 18 April 2003, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee made a new peace offer to Pakistan. Pakistan's Prime Minister Zaffarullah Khan Jamali responded to this offer by making a telephone call to Mr. Vajpayee on 20 April 2003, thereby setting in motion speculation on the possibility of high-level engagement between the two countries. During recent months, both sides have made positive moves toward a fresh rapprochement, including a set of India-centered confidence building measures undertaken by Pakistan, both countries restoring normal diplomatic ties, and also announcing restoration of air and land transportation links between the two countries. Furthermore, both sides have avoided indulging in heightened euphoria about an immediate start of bilateral dialogue, preferring a cautious and weighted approach with a better prospect of leading towards meaningful communication. Despite heightened expectations caused by the talk of talks between the two countries, the progress in that direction has been rather tardy. This Strategic Insight argues that Pakistan's political response to India's peace offer is a proxy response, and that the real stakeholders in Pakistan are still undecided on final contours of the Pakistan-India relationship