Stephen Philip Cohen can rightly be called the doyen of South Asian security analysis, especially traditional security concerns in the region and advocacy on US foreign policy.

The contributors to the volume have all, at different at different points in time, been Cohen's students, and are now well-known scholars in their own right. Broadly dividing Cohen's work into categories, the contributors deal with the following issues:

The essays reflect a view of security as something people choose to make for themselves through an exercise of agency that is rooted in the realm of ideas.