The Peloponnesian war was fought from 431 to 401 BC between the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta and the Athenian Empire, known as the Delian League led by Pericles, the ruler of Athens. In the initial phase of the war, Thucydides (460–395 BC) was removed from command by the Athenian government after he failed as the commanding general to prevent a Spartan occupation of Amphipolis. He was exiled for 20 years. This came as a blessing in disguise for the scholar in him. The exiled general now had the scholarly atmosphere of solitude to write his book as the war was fought.
This study compares Indian traditions of statecraft in Kamandaka’s Nitisara, or the Elements of Polity, with the earlier foundational root text of Kautilya’s Arthashastra. There are commonalities, dissimilarities and uniqueness in the texts. However, key values and concepts across time do not seem to have changed and remain relevant even today.
This article aims to rediscover some key aspects of leadership and management latent in ancient Indian secular texts of statecraft and governance that are relevant in contemporary times.
Consultant to Indigenous Historical Knowledge Project at IDSA, Col PK Gautam’s article, titled ‘Dharma: The Moral Aspect of Statecraft’ was published in UNISCI Journal, No.49, January 2019, University of Madrid, Special Issue on Contemporary India: Foreign and Security Policy.
Consultant, IDSA, Col PK Gautam’s co-authored entry on ‘Kautilya (4th Century BCE) along with Shri Kishan Rana, has been featured in ‘The Encyclopedia of Diplomacy’, published by Wiley Online Library.
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.
Research Fellow, IDSA, Col PK Gautam’s article on Kautilya’s Arthashastra, titled ‘Kautilya’s Arthashastra and its Relevance to Contemporary Strategic Studies’ was published in the April-June 2017 issue of the USI Journal.
Research Fellow, IDSA, Col PK Gautam’s article on Mountain Batteries in the 1918 Palestine Campaign titled, ‘Murree and Pooch Mountain Batteries in the 1918 Palestine Campaign’, was published in the October- December 2016 issues of the USI Journal, Vol. CXLVI, No. 606.
Research Fellow, IDSA, Col PK Gautam’s article titled ‘Military - Environment- Diplomacy Interface: Prospects for India’ was published by the Science Technology and Security Forum of Manipal Advanced Research Group (MARG), Manipal University.
