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    • India's Military Strategy: Countering Pakistan's Challenge

    • Publisher: Bloomsbury
      2022
    This book explores what military strategy is and how it is interconnected with policy on one hand and military operations on the other. In the process, it traces the transformation of the notion of strategy from its original military moorings to a more policy-oriented and-influenced conception and elaborates upon a tripartite framework of policy, strategy and doctrine to think about, understand, and analyse the use of force. The book explores the politics of India-Pakistan conflict in order to root the study of Indian military strategy in the political sphere. It discusses three main issues that have ensured the persistence of conflict: incompatible national identities, Pakistan's congenital quest for parity with and compulsion to challenge India, and irreconcilable positions on the Kashmir issue. The book argues that India has invariably pursued limited political aims that did not threaten Pakistan's survival or form of government or regime in power albeit containing a counter offensive elements. It states that India employed the strategy of exhaustion during the Indian Army's campaigns in the 1947-48 conflict and 1965 war, which made way to strategy of annihilation during the 1971 war (East Pakistan), but after Pakistan's acquisition of nuclear weapons capability the strategy is back to exhaustion. The book highlights the importance of designing an overall military strategy for waging limited war and pursuing carefully calibrated political and military objectives by creatively combining the individual doctrines of the three services by establishing a Chief of Defence Staff system.
    • ISBN: 9789356400023 ,
    • Price: ₹ 1299/-
    S. Kalyanaraman
    2022

    Anil Thomas asked: What lessons can be drawn from the Russia–Ukraine war to realign India's conventional capability?

    Vivek Chadha replies: The Russia–Ukraine war has lasted more than six months. However, from the perspective of drawing long-term lessons from the war, it may still be considered premature. The ongoing trajectory of the war has indicated inadequate clarity regarding Russia's terminal objectives or for that matter, even a strategic timeline that Russia may have assigned to its senior military leadership. Therefore, with inadequate clarity on some of these issues, drawing conventional lessons does become a challenge.

    Early Military Lessons from Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine

    While the end state of the Russia–Ukraine conflict is still afar, an analysis of the conflict and war fighting so far, shows that there are enough early lessons for the strategic and military practitioners to decipher and take note of.

    Deepak Kumar
    March 28, 2022

    Aboli Dhawade asked: What is Grey Zone Warfare?

    Abhay Kumar Singh replies: The term ‘Grey Zone Warfare’ has often been used in the strategic discourse in the context of explaining the antagonistic behaviour of feuding states, which may incorporate conventional and non-conventional tools and techniques or may rely entirely on non-conventional tactics, blurring the line between military and non-military actions and the attribution for events. 

    The Concept of Active Defence in China's Military Strategy, by Amrita Jash

    The strategy articulated by Deng Xiaoping in 1990 as a guiding tenet of China's foreign policy was: “Observe calmly, secure our position, cope with affairs calmly, hide our capacities and bide our time, be good at maintaining a low profile, and never claim leadership 1”.

    Gurpreet S Khurana
    April-June 2021

    Kundan Kumar Singh asked: What is the difference between ‘credible minimum deterrence’ and ‘minimum credible deterrence’?

    Kishore Kumar Khera replies: Deterrence, a psychological phenomenon, based on reason and logic, is often used as a strategic tool in gaming various options in a competitive environment. Although in the domain of nuclear weapons, deterrence often retains the central stage, it is equally applicable in non-nuclear and even in non-kinetic domains. An illustration is a suitable method for understanding various shades of deterrence.

    Suchak Patel asked: What is the meaning of ‘Deterrence by Denial’ especially in the context of India and China?

    S. Kalyanaraman replies: Deterrence by Denial refers to State A building up requisite military capabilities and devising an appropriate strategy to deny the territorial objectives that State B might seek to achieve through military means and thereby deter B from initiating war for that purpose.

    Jaydeep Chaudhary asked: In military terms, what is the difference between intrusion, incursion, transgression and infiltration?

    Deepak Kumar replies

    Intrusion: As per the open-source definition, it means the movement of a unit or force or a military asset inside another nation’s specified operational area or territorial seas or territorial airspace for surveillance or intelligence gathering in times of peace, no war-no peace, or war. A characteristic feature of intrusion is that it is temporary in time and space and has to be vacated (or evicted).  

    Harvir Singh asked: What is the difference between ‘standoff’ and ‘faceoff’?

    Deepak Kumar replies: In military parlance, the term ‘standoff’ refers to the measure of separation in ‘time’ and ‘space’ between opposing military forces who are unable to reach an agreement. The opposing forces are ‘fixed’ in time and space and cannot move or are unwilling to move. The aim of standoff could be to build up military and political pressure on an enemy or keep it in fear of war. In a defensive strategy, the aim could be to counter enemy threat or intentions.

    Abhishek Manchanda asked: What is the difference between ‘disengagement’ and ‘de-escalation’?

    Deepak Kumar replies: In military parlance, the term ‘disengagement’ can be defined as withdrawal from a stated military policy, military involvement, or at the tactical level, a military position. There are three important tenets of disengagement according to a RAND study by Hans Speier: (a) disengagement from enemy requires bilateral action, (b) disengagement can be forced if enemy lacks a credible threat, and (c) disengagement decisions can be based on present and future intentions.

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