Kishore Kumar Khera replies: Like the much-touted term Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) in the 1990s, a new term Network Centric Warfare (NCW) was coined to give an appearance of a new warfare concept. However, simply stated, NCW is just an extension of existing concepts of warfare prevailing for centuries and based on a military commander’s intent in knowing the status and location of all combat elements, friendly and hostile, in the battle space.

Rajeesh Kumar replies: 'Alliance' and 'strategic partnership' are two frequently used phrases in International Relations (IR). An alliance is an arrangement between two or more states to work together on mutual security issues. It can be formal or informal. Nonetheless, in an alliance, states usually are treaty-bound to assist each other in case of a threat or attack against any member.

Amit Cowshish replies: The initiative to engage with the academia in the field of defence R&D must come from the private and public sector defence industry, acting in tandem with the armed forces and the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO). This also requires an overarching organisation to coordinate the efforts. On the face of it, there are three specific areas for potential collaboration.

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. 

A. Vinod Kumar replies: The academic discipline of defence studies, usually described by the pedagogical nomenclature of defence and strategic studies, branches out from the larger stream of the study of politics, or from a scientific paradigm, even political science. Its genesis is traced to the development of security studies as an academic stream during and after the World Wars.