Defence Reforms Archives

A Call for Change: Higher Defence Management in India

This monograph examines higher defence management and defence reforms in India. It deliberately coincides with Cabinet discussing the Report of Naresh Chandra Committee on defence reforms and aims to initiate a debate on higher defence management and civil-military relations.

V. P. Malik , Arun Prakash , Anit Mukherjee , B D Jayal
Monograph

United States Reforms to Its Higher Defence Organisation: Lessons for India

Democracies of the world have many similarities, notwithstanding the differences in the system of governance and the governmental structure. The decision making by the Higher Defence Organisation (HDO) and the government of the United States and India face similar challenges regardless of the threat perception and the role, size and the employment of the military.

British Reforms to Its Higher Defence Organisation: Lessons for India

All is not right with the Indian Higher Defence Organisation (HDO) became public knowledge, perhaps for the first time, after the Kargil War in 1999. There have been significant changes in the geo-strategic situation and the nature of threat faced by India over the years and yet little has changed in the higher defence management and the HDO of the country.

Defence Reforms: A National Imperative

Publisher: Pentagon Press

Despite being faced with myriad and complex challenges to national security, India's defence structures have not kept pace with changing times. The defence reforms that were undertaken periodically were reactive in nature and, in many cases, responses to crises as well as being sporadic, piecemeal and often ad hoc. The most recent review of security challenges undertaken occurred close to two decades ago, in the aftermath of the Kargil conflict of 1999.

ISBN: 978-93-86618-34-4,
Price: ?.995/- $32.95/-
E-copy available

Gurmeet Kanwal , Neha Kohli
Book

Defence Reforms: Why is it Critical to Bite the Proverbial Bullet?

This policy brief attempts to suggest six critical policy imperatives that must act as guidelines for the ongoing attempt at defence reforms.

Vivek Chadha
September 11, 2017
Policy Brief

The State of the Smaller Latin American Air Forces

While the larger air forces are capable of sustaining their existing and future inventories for some time to come, the combat assets available to the region’s smaller air forces are facing a problem of pending obsolescence.

China’s Military Reforms: Is All Well With the PLA?

If PLA doesn’t change its ‘army-centric’ character and make way for professionals with domain expertise, the higher defence organisation will continue to be weak and the reform only in name.

Mandip Singh
March 09, 2016
IDSA Comments

Dysfunctional Operating Environment in Defence: Removing the Cobwebs

The effort to set right the operating environment has to start with creating a mechanism to review the existing devolution of power comprehensively based on clearly defined principles and not in an ad hoc manner.

Amit Cowshish
November 05, 2014
IDSA Comments

National Security Decision Making: Overhaul Needed

A sub-committee of the CCS must devote time and effort to make substantive recommendations to improve the structures for higher defence management, defence research and development, self-reliance in defence production and the improvement of civil-military relations.

Gurmeet Kanwal
August 26, 2014
IDSA Comments

Defence Reforms – Agenda for the New Government

A country’s response to external threats and internal security challenges is based on its defence preparedness, advance planning for contingencies and the political will. The new government will have to make key decisions on different aspects of defence reforms. This Policy Brief puts forward some suggestions.