Can we start framing similar questions in India?
From the novel A Soldier’s Duty by Thomas E. Ricks:
We as a nation have not really come to grips with what should be the proper role of uniformed officers in debates about issues that affect the armed services. It is especially problematic in an era of deference to [...]
Two examples.
This thought from the must-follow blog, Kings of War would have a few parallels in all armies of the world. First, the thought:
So often, the Army’s emphasis is on action over reflection, understandable for an organization that gets things done, but with a dangerous corollary. As a personal example, during my cadet years, I [...]
2009 has been a year of setbacks for the DRDO. It is a great opportunity to reform the organisation.
The DARPA — Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — was set up by the US government the same year, 1958, the DRDO — Defence Research and Development Organisation — was born in India. Well, the similarities end [...]
…if the defence ministry continues to avoid, bypass and confuse those asking the right questions.
In its report on national security in February 2001 — constituted in the backdrop of the Kargil Review Committee report — the group of ministers had recommended that “the Government should constitute a high powered expert committee to reorganise, reform and [...]
Indian armed forces need to actively court and embrace intellectualism.
In the latest issue of Marine Corps Gazette, Lt. Colonel Michael D. Grice of the US Marines asks his Corps the rhetorical question — Where is our Kilcullen?
We have brilliance within our ranks; that is inarguable. What we do not have, however, is a systemic way [...]
There is little research on the contribution of the Indian armed forces to the Indian independence movement.
People always seemed to know half of history, and to get it confused with the other half. ~Jane Haddam
Even though the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny of 1946 has earned a footnote in the history of India’s independence movement, [...]
A must read monograph tracking India’s defence relations with the world.
From the brilliant monograph at the Strategic Studies Institute of US Army War College titled India’s Strategic Defense Transformation: Expanding Global Relationships by Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hedrick of US army:
India’s interests have changed over the past decade or more, taking it from a position of [...]
What is their role? What is holding them back from achieving their potential?
MoS for External Affairs, Shashi Tharoor — currently in the media spotlight due to a needless tweeting controversy — is doing something of great significance in his ministry. If this Times of India report is something to go by — and Tharoor has [...]
India versus Pakistan, tit for tat says Mahabharata.
Gurcharan Das educates us on the lessons from the Mahabharata for Indo-Pak relations.
It’s hugely empowering that in the Mahabharata no one appeals to God. The epic doesn’t trust the Vedas, or the wise [...]
An asset and a liability.
Indian army has been Indian barely for 62 years now. It was the British Indian Army for at least twice that period. It should come as no surprise then that the Indian army still continues to draw most of its values and traditions from the British army.
One such quality is what [...]
Strategy: a game everyone plays, but few play it well.
Resources are always limited in comparison with our wants, always constraining out action. (If they did not, we could do everything, and there would be no problem of choosing preferred courses of action.) ~Charles Hitch and Roland McKean
In the past few weeks, China has turned out [...]
Transcripts of statements made by generals should be placed on government websites to obviate confusion & misreporting.
The Army Chief today made some remarks about infiltration across the Line of Control being facilitated by Pakistan , and the increased nuclear capability of Pakistan. India Today website reports it as:
Indian Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor on Friday [...]
But the military laws are unsuited to a modern, democratic India.
Indian army is ignoring the Supreme Court guidelines on sexual harassment in workplace because it believes that the Army act takes precedence over any such SC advisories. Perhaps, army is correct in strict legalistic terms but it is certainly not ethically right. The Army act, [...]
One possible explanation for its allegations against India.
Pakistani military-intelligence combine is crying hoarse about Indian support to Baloch rebels, which is faithfully parroted by the Pakistani media. The Indian economic and reconstruction support to Afghanistan also attracts the ire of Pakistani strategic community and its media. Meanwhile, some of the most notorious Pakistani Taliban leaders [...]
Even the reasoning of a celebrated game theorist is fallacious.
One of the world’s most prominent applied game theorists, Bueno de Mesquita, has been regularly consulted by CIA — more than a thousand predictions with better strike rate than CIA’s own analysts — and big international corporates to “predict the outcome of any situation in which [...]
Metrics to measure progress essential, but nearly impossible to design.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. ~Samuel Clemens
Home minister’s strategy to take on the LWE threat is much in the media spotlight now. While it is great to lay out a strategy and provide resources to execute it, it is equally [...]
A French View of Counterinsurgency by Roger Trinquier.
Long before Petraeus and his gang of COINdistas made Counterinsurgency fashionable among armed forces all over the world, in 1958 a French Colonel by the name of Roger Trinquier published a book called La Guerre Moderne [Modern Warfare]. What Trinquier called modern warfare is commonly referred to [...]
Understanding the complex relationship and its security implications.
The central government’s action plan against LWE or Left Wing Extremism (better known as Naxalism or Maoism) has generated a lot of attention in recent times. The Acorn’s timely reminder (via this tweet) about his op-ed on the subject early last year concluded with an ecumenical, yet incisive, [...]
Many reasons. None substantial.
Lieutenant General (retired) S. K. Sinha lays bare the reasons “that have been militating against the introduction of this appointment” of the Chief of Defence Staff [Journal of Defence Studies, Volume 1, No 1, Pages 135-136]:
First, is the political leadership’s fear, of the man on the horse back. It is apprehended that [...]
An important debate on national security.
In a guest post few days back, BeeCee had sought to reconsider the necessity of a Chief of Defence Staff[CDS] for Indian defence services. Now, Anil Kumar makes a case for the defence minister to push for appointment of the CDS [LT: The Acorn]. His arguments:
The demands of interoperability can [...]
Visitants annotate…