Dr Rishika Chauhan is a Sessional Lecturer in the Departments of War Studies and Defence Studies at King’s College London (KCL). She was previously a MacArthur-funded Postdoctoral Researcher at KCL’s Centre for Science and Security Studies (CSSS). Her research focuses on sanctions and nuclear non-proliferation, with an emphasis on Indian and Chinese perspectives.

She has held teaching and research positions at the University of Delhi, the Observer Research Foundation, the Indian Pugwash Society, Boston University and Yale-NUS College. She has also been a Visiting Scholar at the India Centre of China West Normal University and a contributing writer for Asia Pacific Daily.

Dr Chauhan holds a doctorate in Diplomacy and Disarmament from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She is an alumna of the Wilson Center’s International Nuclear History Boot Camp and the Asia-Pacific Nuclear History Institute. She was a member of RUSI’s 2024 UK Sanctions Implementation and Strategy Taskforce and Uppsala University’s Alva Myrdal Centre’s Working Group on International Measures for Compliance with Nuclear Disarmament Regimes. She has also worked as a Research Lead on a UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology project at CSSS.

At KCL, she served as co-convenor and lecturer for the Executive Education Programme “The Art of Sanctions” (2024 and 2025), delivered to civil servants from the FCDO and government departments across Whitehall. She supervises master’s students in the Department of War Studies.

Dr Chauhan has received scholarships, grants and co-grants from the FCDO, Indian Council of Social Science Research, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Political Science Association (IPSA) and International Studies Association (ISA), among others.

Research Interests

• Sanctions
• Nuclear non-proliferation
• Indian and Chinese perspectives on International Relations
• BRICS and South Asian Security

Publications 

Research Articles

• “No Petty Frontier Disputes: China’s Salami Slicing Tactic along the LAC,” India Review, Vol. 23, No. 5 (2024), pp. 424-435.
• “India’s A La Carte Minilateralism: AUKUS and the Quad,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 4 (2023), pp. 21–39. (with Sarah Tzinieris and Eirini Athanassiadou).
• “China’s Arrival in the Great Sanctions Game: A Learnt Response, Made by America,” Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2025), pp. 1–28. (with Sarah Tzinieris).

Book Chapters

• “BRICS Stand on Sanctions: An Evident Contestation,” in Roberto Belloni, Thomas Biersteker and Francesco Giumelli, eds., Global Perspectives on Sanctions: Norm Contestation and its Impact on International Politics (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2026).
• “Emerging India and Sanctions: Balancing Norms and Interests,” in Ksenia Kirkham, ed., The Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of Sanctions (London: Routledge, 2024).
• “Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament: An Intertwined Pursuit,” in Manpreet Sethi and Kanika Rakha, eds., Emerging from the Shadows: Essays on Disarmament by Indian Women (New York: Routledge, 2025).
• “Constrain, Coerce and Deter: Non-proliferation Sanctions against India and China,” in Armend Bekaj and Peter Wallensteen, eds., Sanctions for Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation: Moving Forward (London: Routledge, 2024).
• “From Pessimism to Accommodation: India’s Stand and Practice on Unilateral Sanctions,” in Charlotte Beaucillon, ed., Research Handbook on Unilateral and Extraterritorial Sanctions (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021).
• “Differences, Not Disputes: India’s View of the Border after 1962,” in Kanti Bajpai, Selina Ho and Manjari Chatterjee Miller, eds., Routledge Handbook of China–India Relations (London: Routledge, 2020).
• “India–Japan Strategic Partnership: Steady Advance amidst Enduring Constraints,” in Rohan Mukherjee and Anthony Yazaki, eds., Poised for Partnership: Deepening the Japan–India Partnership (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 179–206. (with C. Raja Mohan).

Policy Papers and Reports

• “Supply Chains and Geopolitical Crisis”, Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia and King’s College London, 19 January 2026 (coauthored with Jaideep Singh, Angeline Tan, Matthew Moran, and Daniel Salisbury; with contributions from Christopher Hobbs; foreword by Datuk Prof Dr Mohd Faiz Abdullah).
• “Bibliometric Analysis of China’s Non-Therapeutic Brain-Computer Interface Research: Alternate Paths to Cognitive Augmentation and Control”, Issue Brief, Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Georgetown University, March 2024 (coauthored with William Hannas, Huey-Meei Chang, Daniel Chou, John O’Callaghan, Max Riesenhuber, Vikram Venkatram, and Jennifer Wang).
• “Modi’s Foreign Policy: Focus on the Diaspora”, Institute of South Asian Studies Working Paper No. 204, National University of Singapore, April 11, 2015 (coauthored with C. Raja Mohan).
• “Modi and Buddhism: Between Cultural and Faith-Based Diplomacy”, Occasional Paper No. 77, Observer Research Foundation, November 2015.
• “India and International Sanctions: Delhi’s Role as a Sanctioner”, Issue Brief No. 58, Observer Research Foundation, September 2013.

Media Articles

• “Why India and China Won’t Sanction Russia,” The National Interest, 11 May 2022.
• “China and India Aren’t Afraid to Use Money as a Weapon,” The National Interest, 14 December 2016.
• “Adapting India, Accommodating United States: A Case of Iranian Sanctions,” Foreign Policy, 24 October 2015.
• “Flexing Economic Muscle,” India in Transition, Centre for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, 19 June 2017.
• “Decoding India’s Stand on International Sanctions,” India in Transition, Centre for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, 15 December 2014.

Teaching

• Online MA in International Affairs and Global Security

Security Structures and Processes

Conflict in International History

• Department of War Studies

Nuclear Weapons and Contemporary Conflict (Module Leader, 2025-26)

• Executive Education, Department of War Studies

The Art of Sanctions (Co-convenor and Lecturer, 2024 and 2025)