Year Ahead guest, Ayesha Ray discusses her research including escalating tensions in Kashmir and the inclusion of women in the Indian armed forces.

Ayesha Ray is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at King’s College, Pennsylvania. She received her Ph.D in Political Science from the University of Texas at Austin, and her M.Phil and M.A. in International Relations from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her research interests focus on civil-military relations, conflict, and security issues in South Asia. She is the author of The Soldier and the State in India: Nuclear Weapons, Counterinsurgency, and the Transformation of Indian Civil-Military Relations, published by SAGE, in 2013; and a monograph, Culture, Context, and Capability: Comparing the American and Indian Counterinsurgency Experience, published by the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, in 2016. She also has several book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed international publications.