Militaries the world over need to study and understand lessons from the ongoing military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon, and the new knowledge needs to be placed in context. Neglected military history itself provides enduring lessons. This article attempts to capture the trends and debates in the understanding of current warfare and outlines how lessons of war are interpreted with a focus on future trends in war-fighting. The article concludes with some policy suggestions and areas for further inquiry.
India is a responsible regional and global power. The military is a highly energy and material intensive part of a nation. It is also destructive in its primary mission. It is incumbent that the Indian military also must be part of the adaptation and mitigation process of climate change and related matters such as arresting environmental degradation and restoration of natural capital. This article shows some indirect linkages of climate change and war in the past.
Director General’s N.S. Sisodia’s opinion piece “The Case to strengthen Indian think tanks” published in The Hindu on May 24, 2009 is timely. The United Service Institution of India (USI) has existed since 1870 and the IDSA since 1965. In Delhi, over the last decade, a number of new think tanks working on defence issues have been established, like the Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS), Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), The National Maritime Foundation (NMF) and the Centre for Joint Warfare Studies (CENJOWS).
The death of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eeelam (LTTE) leader Prabhakran closes a chapter in the first counter insurgency success of the 21st century by military means. A greater challenge in nation building now faces the Sri Lankan people - integrating the Tamils in their society dominated by Sinhala Buddhists.
Purely from a military point of view some important lessons and some areas of further inquiry emerge. In brief they are:
Environmental degradation, climate change and ozone depletion are complex challenges which need to be addressed by society. The equipment intensive military with high budgets, fossil fuel consumption, and extensive use of chemicals also owns prime real estate such as military stations and cantonments.
US Air Force Colonel (Retd.) John Warden, who is now Founder and President of Venturist Inc., was interviewed by P.K. Gautam who is a retired Colonel of the Indian Army and currently Research Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.
The November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks have highlighted the new challenges posed by cyberwar. A faked telephone call from the India Foreign Minister to the Pakistani President caused a diplomatic flutter. It appears that the new civilian leadership in Pakistan was not aware of diplomatic protocol involved in such telephonic contacts and was fooled into believing that this was indeed a genuine communication.
In the just concluded two-day conference at the IDSA on “Changing Political Context in India’s Neighbourhood: Prospects of Regional Cooperation”, Dr Hari P. Bhattaria from Tribhuvan University, Nepal alluded to the problem of integration of over 19,000 former Maoists in the Nepal Army or para-military forces in Security Sector Reforms.
Bridging the Gap Between Academics and Policymakers
Director General’s N.S. Sisodia’s opinion piece “The Case to strengthen Indian think tanks” published in The Hindu on May 24, 2009 is timely. The United Service Institution of India (USI) has existed since 1870 and the IDSA since 1965. In Delhi, over the last decade, a number of new think tanks working on defence issues have been established, like the Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS), Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), The National Maritime Foundation (NMF) and the Centre for Joint Warfare Studies (CENJOWS).