Journal of Defence Studies

From the Editor

While it is commonly believed that the time for major wars has passed, thesecurity environment is becoming more complex. We should, however,remember that whereas there has been no global war after 1945 and noideological war after 1991, the world has not witnessed an absence ofconflict either. Besides the ongoing regional contestations and bilateraldisputes involving sovereignty we are now faced with internal wars of highintensity, often with deep external involvement.

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January 2014 |
Journal of Defence Studies

Critical Issues in Indian Politics: India’s Foreign Policy, edited by Kanti P. Bajpai and Harsh V. Pant Critical Issues in Indian Politics: India’s National Security, edited by Kanti P. Bajpai and Harsh V. Pant

Indian foreign policy has made tremendous progress since the collapse ofthe Berlin Wall. Today, India is being seen as an important regional powerand a responsible global player. It is the goal of India’s foreign policy toachieve major power status for the country in the international arena.This ambition has been a common thread in the policies of all politicaldispensations to have ruled the country. To achieve this stated goal, Indianeeds to be pragmatic and instead of being guided by the past, it has tolook at safeguarding its interest in the future.

Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb, by Feroz Hassan Khan

Brigadier Feroz Hassan Khan (Retd) brings to bear the right credentialsto this six year effort under review. The career Pakistan Army officer andJohns Hopkins University graduate (1989–91), currently a faculty memberof the Naval Postgraduate School, Moneterey, California, spent the lastdecade of his 32 year service (he retired in 2001) dealing with nuclearissues in key positions.

New Perspective for Oceanographic Studies in the Indian Ocean Region

India’s location in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) compels it to play a larger strategic role in the region. The growing energy needs of China—with the Gulf continuing to be its most preferred source—further causes the Chinese merchant fleet to transit the IOR. To ensure uninterrupted supply of energy resource, the Chinese have started to increase their presence in the region and this has, in turn, encouraged the Americans to also deploy their marine assets in the region.

Directed Energy Weapons for the Indian Armed Forces

Military planners believe that the ‘blast and fragmentation’ type conventional weapons cannot advance much further technologically.The next chapter in weapons technology development is expected to be realized from Directed Energy weapons (DEWs). It can be assumed that by 2035, DEWs consisting of laser, microwave and millimeter waves can reach current performance levels of the existing kinetic energy weapons(KEWs) and conventional weapons. While these will co-exist with KEWs,a non-DEW option would have a debilitating effect on the defence preparedness of any nation.

Maritime Security in the Indian Ocean: An Indian Perspective

For a maritime nation like India, its conception of maritime security of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and, specifically, its approach to maritime security has a long historical legacy. The modern Indian Navy has its origins in the colonial period. But it is the post-colonial period spanning independence and then the imperatives of the Cold War, and later to the interim phase in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union to the present day strategic partnerships—all of which have contributed to moulding the Indian perspective of maritime security.

Border Defence Cooperation Agreement: The Icebreaker in Making?

The long expected Agreement on Border Defence Cooperation (BDCA) was signed between the governments of India and China on 23 October 2013 in Beijing, during the visit of the Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to the People’s Republic of China. The draft of the agreement had been through close-door negotiations by both the governments for about a year prior to its signing. Incidentally, it was also during these negotiations that a three week long face-to-face incident occurred—in April-May 2013—at Depsang located in the Aksai Chin region which is disputed between India and China.

Is the Submarine Arm Losing its Punch?

The explosions that gutted INS Sindhurakshak during the early hours of 14 August 2013 caught the imagination of an entire nation that watched the brief footage of the catastrophic event on their television sets. Barring some minor accidents which resulted in structural damage, this is the most tragic incident involving loss of lives in the 46 year history of the submarine arm.

Assessing Modernization of the Indian Armed Forces through Budgetary Allocations

India’s quest for modernization of the armed forces is propelled by the persistent threat to its territorial integrity and the aspiration of becoming a great power. However, there is no clearly defined comprehensive policy, much less a carefully crafted strategy, for time-bound modernization of the armed forces and there is no mechanism in place to steer the modernization programme in a holistic manner. In fact, there is considerable ambiguity about the core question as to what constitutes comprehensive ‘modernization’.

Maritime Security in the Indian Ocean: A Changing Kaleidoscope

The Indian Ocean Region (IOR), though considered an important maritime region, has not yet been accorded the due importance of a geo-strategic entity. One attributable reason is the ‘sandwiching’ of the IOR between two ‘hotspots’—the South China sea and the Persian Gulf that divert the attention of nations from this area. While there are commonalities like ‘Freedom of Navigation’, the divergences—caused by varying strategic interests even while addressing common security issues such as piracy—have resulted in a sectoral view of the maritime security paradigm in the IOR.

China’s ‘Three Warfares’ and India

For the past decade, China is known to have actively used ‘three warfares’ (3Ws) strategy—media, psychological and legal warfare—to weaken its adversaries in regions constituting what it perceives to be its ‘core interests’. While a wide range of tools have been deployed, the attacks have remained mostly confined to Taiwan and South-East Asian states involved in the territorial disputes in the South China Sea. But with Beijing’s influence in South Asia and the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) growing, there is evidence emerging of the 3Ws strategy being put to use against India.

The Rational Believer: Choices and Decisions in Madrasas of Pakistan, by Masooda Bano

The Rational Believer is a result of three years of research and field trips in Pakistan by the author and examines the post-9/11 image of madrasas in Pakistan. The findings are correlated with socio-economic theories and explain the logic of the teachings of Quran, where appropriate. Analyses of what makes a believer endure hardships, why jihadis attack fellow Muslims and what makes them martyrs (shuhada) are also carried out.

Hinduism and the Ethics of Warfare in South Asia: From Antiquity to the Present, by Kaushik Roy

In the academic field of modern history studies, historians dealing with South Asia largely neglect the historical evolution of military–strategic thought on the Indian subcontinent. It is also true that, both for political scientists and scholars of the specialized field of strategy, it is not very common to find people engaging with theories other than Western theories of warfare.1 Nevertheless, the new generation of scholars has started to deal with these subjects.

Samudra Manthan: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific, by C. Raja Mohan

Samudra Manthan is a book whose time has come. It brings to the table the other dimension of the Sino-Indian rivalry, which is often missed by the larger group of policymakers: the maritime and naval aspects of the relationship. Raja Mohan borrows from Indian mythology in selecting the name of this lucid and well-researched account of the emerging frontiers of Sino-Indian rivalry in the Indo-Pacific.

The Rise of the Indian Navy: Internal Vulnerabilities, External Challenges, edited by Harsh V. Pant

Since antiquity the Indian Ocean has been the centre of human progress, a great arena in which many civilizations have mingled, fought, and traded on important trade routes criss-crossing the waters around India for thousands of years. The entry and exit is to this vast water body is through four ‘gates’ or choke points: the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb; around South Africa’s Cape Agulhas; the Strait of Malacca; and past Australia’s Cape West Howe.

Strategic Perspectives on Growth Phases and Long-term Techno-economic Performance of India’s DRDO

The future of an organization is less determined by outside forces than by its history and the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) is no exception. This article analyses the major achievements and shortfalls of the DRDO. It models the strategic dimensions of organization development. The value of production from defence industries arising from DRDO technology transfers is rapidly escalating, enabling the government’s goal of self-reliance.

The Cholas: Some Enduring Issues of Statecraft, Military Matters and International Relations

The article addresses the deficit in the indigenous, rich historical knowledge of south India. It does this by examining the military and political activities of the Cholas to understand the employment of various supplementary strategies. The article deals with the engagements and battles of the Cholas with other kingdoms of south India, and ‘externally’ with Sri Lanka. It begins with an exposition of various types of alliances that were an integral part of the military strategy of the time.

Letter to the Editor

My overall impression is that the Army has been unduly harsh and self-deprecatory regarding the present state of its moral health. As against this, the Army’s track record has been excellent through all wars and operations since independence, except in 1962. In addition, the Army has done sterling work in quelling or containing various insurgencies in Nagaland, Punjab and, above all, the virulent, decades old insurgency in Kashmir, which is still raging intensely. In spite of the most strenuous efforts made by Pakistan, Kashmir still remains under Indian control.

Effective Underwater Weapon Systems and the Indian Ocean Region

The Indian Ocean Region (IOR) has profound strategic relevance not only for the nations in the region but also for other countries.1 The bulk of the world’s merchant fleets transit through one of the busiest sea lanes in the world, via the Malacca Straits. Also, the presence of major petroleum exports originating from the Gulf, encourage the major powers of the world to have a strategic presence in the IOR.

Political Abstention in War and the Influence of Nuclear Weapons: A New Research Puzzle

Clemenceau’s famous statement—‘War is too important to be left to the generals’—represents an essential conflict in civil?military relations during crisis situations, especially with regard to the demarcation of boundaries for civil and military authority in the conduct of war. Where and when, in the conduct of war, should the political class step down and military commanders take over? Or, since, as the Clausewitzian dictum of war being a continuation of politics suggests, can war ever be considered a purely military enterprise?