War from the Ground Up is not easy reading. The author’s erudition, bolstered by a wealth of detail and historical context, makes this one of the more serious studies on contemporary military conflict. Emile Simpson has attempted to arrive at an overall understanding of war in its contemporary and traditional forms by drawing on his experience of three tours as an infantry officer with the Royal Gurkha Rifles in Afghanistan.

• Authors: Alok Deb
• October 2017
• Journal of Defence Studies

The Thirty-first Report of the Standing Committee on Defence (SCoD)1 was submitted to Parliament on 9 March 2017. The report examined the capital outlay for the defence services for the year 2017–18, procurement policy of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and defence planning. A glance through the report showed that, apart from a rather sketchy analysis of these issues, the committee has only ended up making hackneyed observations and recommendations that have been made repeatedly in the past without much success.

• Authors: Amit Cowshish
• October 2017
• Journal of Defence Studies

The introduction to Alexander Klimburg’s book, The Darkening Web: The War for Cyberspace, begins by referencing the Indian parable of the Blind Men of Hindoostan and the elephant to bring out the difficulty of ‘grasping the entirety of cyberspace’. The focus of his book is on international security, and more specifically, the security interests of states in cyberspace. That said, a large part of the book focuses on three countries—the United States, Russia and China—and their approaches and actions in cyberspace. Europe is mentioned largely in the context of privacy and data laws.

• Authors: Cherian Samuel
• October 2017
• Journal of Defence Studies

The clamour for a national security strategy has become part of a constant refrain that accompanies every debate on India’s strategic culture or national security outlook. This repeated call for a security strategy stems from a perceived lack of clarity for functionaries within the government as well as the larger audience. An important constituent amongst the latter are a large number of countries that increasingly look upon India as an important partner in the evolving geopolitical environment.

• Authors: Vivek Chadha
• July 2017
• Journal of Defence Studies

Since taking over in 2009, the Obama Administration considered Asia to be significant for power cooperation and for establishing an international order based on accepted rules and norms. This started the journey of a much-debated concept that was first called the ‘Back to Asia’ strategy and later re-termed as a ‘Rebalance’ or ‘Pivot to Asia’. In November 2011, then American Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in an article titled ‘America’s Pacific Century’, reiterated the importance of Asia-Pacific for the United States (US).

• Authors: Sarabjeet Singh Parmar
• July 2017
• Journal of Defence Studies

Air power has long been recognised as a useful asset in internal security operations, running the full gamut from militarised counter-insurgency (CI) and counter-terrorist (CT) operations to the mundane task of crowd control. In the last 15 years, the archipelagic state of Trinidad and Tobago has made extensive use of air assets for internal security operations, with mixed results. In the process, some lessons have been learnt and some serious mistakes made that can be instructive for even large countries such as India.

• Authors: Sanjay Badri-Maharaj
• July 2017
• Journal of Defence Studies

International military exercises are an extension of military training for partner countries and a significant military diplomacy tool. Since 2012, the Indian armed forces have engaged 23 countries in 93 international military exercises. This article analyses the data regarding these exercises in terms of the participating countries and services. Outlining the benefits and possible pitfalls of participation in international military exercises, it suggests a holistic policy review on the subject.

• Authors: Kishore Kumar Khera
• July 2017
• Journal of Defence Studies

India has been the recipient of transfers of defence technology predominantly through the licensed manufacture mode which, while being cheap and easy to implement, has some major limitations. This article looks into alternate modes of technology transfer and explores additional possibilities through a broad perspective on technology development. It also attempts to assess the relative strengths of each mode, the challenges in implementation and indicate a way forward to meet suitable national goals.

• Authors: Kevin A. Desouza
• July 2017
• Journal of Defence Studies

This article examines the various aspects of employing public–private partnership (PPP) for carrying out maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) activities for aerospace and land forces in India. PPP in MRO is expected to increase the uptime of the existing equipment, and enable their full exploitation. It would enable harnessing the efficiencies of the private sector while using the resources existing in the public sector. The broad concepts and operational philosophy of MRO for defence equipment are also covered.

• Authors: Chandrika Kaushik
• July 2017
• Journal of Defence Studies

In this first of two volumes, Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramaniam offers excellent and concise histories of India’s wars and military operations, starting with the rescue and partial liberation of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947-48 from depredating Pakistani irregulars and ending with the 1971 war for the liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistan’s genocidal rule. Based on published material available, and supplementing it with interviews, Subramaniam’s India’s Wars provides a layered perspective on the strategic, operational and tactical aspects of these wars and operations.

• Authors: S. Kalyanaraman
• July 2017
• Journal of Defence Studies