Defeats are orphans and very educative. Most defeats are, in fact, manifestation of erroneous judgments or equipment failure, or a combinations of the two. In case the defeats are of military force application then the costs are very high. The United Kingdom’s (UK) military missions and the losses in Iraq and Afghanistan can be classified as failures, if not outright defeats, and have thrown up significant lessons about its higher defence management.

• Kishore Kumar Khera |
• January-March 2018 |
• Journal of Defence Studies

This article posits that military science has been one of the most neglected subjects in Indian history in practice and in scholarship. Greater, popular scholarly focus tends to be mostly on subjects dealing with grand strategy and with it, abstract armchair theorising. While grand strategy is necessary at the political–military level, it is not sufficient as victory or defeat also depends on the capacity of the armed forces to achieve the desired results during the conduct of war.

• P. K. Gautam |
• January-March 2018 |
• Journal of Defence Studies

The work of intelligence agencies is a grey area and any attempt to ‘lift the veil’ is an uphill task, shrouded in uncertainty and doubt, and suspect as to the authenticity of the information brought out into the open. Notwithstanding this, it has been established beyond doubt that intelligence agencies have a major say in strategic events both at the international and national levels. Given a free hand, they might end up ‘controlling the controllers’.

• Vishal Kumar Verma |
• January-March 2018 |
• Journal of Defence Studies

Asian geopolitics currently represents a complex blending of power and paradox, both stable and fluid, with change occurring against an unresolved tension between the direction of economic growth and that of strategic anxiety. With the continent turning into the economic growth engine of the world, regional geopolitics is witnessing friction between Asian powers that had previously kept economic and political separation from one another.

• Abhay Kumar Singh |
• January-March 2018 |
• Journal of Defence Studies

The book traces the history and events of the nineteenth century in a sparsely populated desert area of Asia, Balochistan, an area (inhabited by the tribal Baloch people) and brings out the strategic importance attached to the Bolan Pass by the colonial British.

• Y.M. Bammi |
• January-March 2018 |
• Journal of Defence Studies

From the days of their inception, remotely piloted aero models (known popularly as drones) have been feared as a means of spreading terror. Recently, the use of drones by terrorist outfits like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as the Islamic State (IS), has seen an increase and this has brought those fears to the fore. Experts fear that the drones have given terrorists a near-perfect solution for spreading terror and a major terror act may be around the corner as legal and illegal drone activities are on the rise.

• Atul Pant |
• January-March 2018 |
• Journal of Defence Studies

On 19 December 2017, three days ahead of the scheduled 20th Round of Indo-China border talk between the Indian National Security Advisor (NSA), Ajit Doval, and China’s State Councillor, Yang Jiechi (the details of which are yet to be made public), the daily Times of India reported a statement by China that the Doklam standoff posed a ‘major test’ for the bilateral ties and that lessons should be learnt from it to avoid a similar situation of its kind in the future.1 China’s statement was made in the context of the face-off between Indian Army and China’s People’s Liberation Army (PL

• A.K. Bardalai |
• January-March 2018 |
• Journal of Defence Studies

Attribution of cyberattacks is an impending issue in enabling a credible deterrent against both state and non-state actors. It applies equally to cases of a criminal nature as well as to those with implications for national security. The technology underlying cyberspace facilitates anonymity and thus affixing responsibility, that is, attributability, is not merely a technological challenge but a political one as well, especially when nation states have proven prowess in engaging their adversaries in cyberspace.

• Munish Sharma |
• January-March 2018 |
• Journal of Defence Studies

Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War, by C. Christine Fair, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 343, £27.99

Defeat is an Orphan: How Pakistan Lost the Great South Asian War, by Myra MacDonald, London: Hurst & Co., 2017, pp. 328, £25.00‘

• Abhay Kumar Singh |
• October 2017 |
• Journal of Defence Studies

The article argues that India and the United States are poised to strengthen their bilateral strategic convergences, not only in the Indian Ocean but also in Pacific-Asia that lies eastwards of the Malacca Straits, and wherein India’s geo-strategic stakes as well as its military-strategic footprint are likely to increase in the coming years. This would progressively enhance the complementarities between their navies in the western Pacific and its contiguous seas, thereby enabling substantive naval cooperation towards ensuring security and stability in the broader Indo-Pacific region.

• Gurpreet S Khurana |
• October 2017 |
• Journal of Defence Studies