Since war is a contest between animate entities, how is it possible for India to escape the realities of confrontation with both Pakistan and China?
In the absence of combat mass, technology has to do the heavy lifting. For the last twenty years, the IAF has seen combat aircraft numbers rapidly dwindle without a proportional counterbalancing through technology.
India’s No First Use policy was a result of the lessons that India’s key strategic thinkers learned in the long decades they spent thinking about the global experience with nuclear strategy, and the implications for India’s nuclear policy.
Washington is seeking an active New Delhi by raising the tempo of US-India defence trade and interoperability agreements.
India’s national security landscape, if not irretrievably perilous, is stressed and susceptible to conflict with its neighbouring rivals.
Having no easy routes to sorting out the Indian defence mire, the MoD needs to take corrective measures towards military planning and readiness.
The threat posed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Navy to the Strait of Hormuz is real, but exaggerated. Its advantages in open, asymmetric warfare would dissipate in an extended conflict with a technologically superior adversary.
Transferring all attack helicopters to the Army is asking for a complete re-write of the way both the Army and IAF function. If there are command and control issues, they should be hammered out at the relevant levels instead of overhauling broader operating concepts, with ...
Particularly important to weapons’ innovations are individual factors; to successfully innovate a group must have access to individuals with the knowledge and expertise required to innovate new weapons and successfully implement them on the battlefield.
The Chinese conduct their tests from their test site in Korla, Xinjiang. Since the hit-to-kill vehicles can be used for BMD and ASAT, the site probably services both functions.
While every counter-terror theatre works on its own specific requirements and variables, Pakistan is a completely different ball game.
Information operations have long been Pakistan’s preferred tool to execute and supplement its hybrid warfare in Jammu and Kashmir.
Any future terrorist attack could be met by a response to a contour shaped by the Balakot action.
If the Balakot strike is not to join the dismal achievement of previous Indian attacks, it has to be part of a deterrence strategy.
A scrutiny of the Pulwama terrorist attack clearly shows it is undoubtedly a result of serious security lapse along with intelligence failure.
Kinetics help in neutralising certain type of threats. They do not help in the real problem — the battle of mind space.
Masood Azhar-led Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) is one of the many terror groups Beijing considers as important cogs for security and stability in its restive Xinjiang province.
India must consider military retaliation, as further inaction will only go on to reinforce Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence.
The Indian army is a manpower-intensive military. With the second largest military in terms of personnel, the Indian armed forces have always faced a shortage of funds when it came to the introduction of modernised and indigenous equipment.
The strategic build-up and modernisation of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a step in the the right direction, but challenges remain.
Rapid transformation in disruptive technologies is going to change the nature of nuclear deterrence. Artificial intelligence, cyber weapons, hypersonic weapons and persistent surveillance, by themselves or in combination with one another, will threaten the survivability of nuclear arsenals, thereby eroding the confidence in a nuclear ...
David Petraeus is a retired United States Army general. ...
Read More +
