Current Issue Vol 22.2 April-June 2007
Archives
This section features some of the selected articles from various print editions of Indian Defence Review. Subscribe Now to the print edition for a complete access to the remaining articles and features.
The Winnable War
by Bharat Verma
On a scale of 1 to 10, an American editor of a defence newspaper told me that his threat perception on terror attacks inside the United States would merit an eight. A German minister rated it at four adding that war against terrorism was difficult to win “as they were far too many”. An Indian General engaged in fighting terrorism exported from Pakistan in Kashmir for past few decades responded nonchalantly with ‘May be two!’ These responses exhibit that farther the theatre of war, higher was the paranoia.
Pakistan's Fault Line
by Bharat Verma
The so-called land of the pure, Pakistan, on its creation in 1947 had approximately 13 percent minorities residing within an Islamic population of 76 million. In its unholy fervour to achieve physical instead of the spiritual purity, the minorities were reduced to 2.5 percent even as the country’s population soared to 156 millions by the year 2000.
Maritime Power 
by Admiral (Retd) VS Shekhawat, PVSM, AVSM, VrC
HISTORY IS SELDOM A TRUE CHRONICLE OF PAST events. Nations generally interpret history to make their own appear nobler, grander, more glorious or altogether different from current interpretations of it and trivialise that of traditional adversaries. New research and facts entail revising settled beliefs, sometimes painfully.
Gilgit and Baltistan - Strategic Relevance
by Vikram Sood
Gilgit and Baltistan are parts of India, as much as the rest of the J & K state is, but this region does not seem to figure too prominently on our collective radar screen. Instead, we seem to have made the sanctity of the LOC an article of faith and never “violate” it even though Pakistan began its invasion on India on October 22, 1947 and has continued to violate the LOC since the cease-fire 56 years ago.
FDI in Defence Industry
by Maj Gen (Retd) Mrinal Suman, AVSM, VSM
The Government of India has been taking a number of steps to achieve the target of procuring 70 per cent of its defence requirements from indigenous sources by 2010. Despite its best efforts over the last two decades, India is nowhere near that objective as yet.
Engaging Inscrutable MYANMAR
by RSN Singh
THE RECENT VISIT (8-10 MARCH, 2006) OF President APJ Abdul Kalam to Myanmar was an epoch making event, as it was the first visit by an Indian Head of State to that country. Coming on the heels of the visit of President George Bush to India, who had adversely commented on the military regime and its human rights record – President Kalam’s Myanmar visit was a reiteration of India’s independent and pragmatic foreign policy with regard to its neighbours.
C I Operations in the Northeast
by Brig (Retd) SP Sinha
Prior to 20th century guerrilla warfare was regarded as purely military form of waging war. It was the weapon of the weak against the strong. The guerrillas employed ‘hit and run’ tactics against their adversaries. This form of warfare was also applied to the role of irregular troops acting as partisans in support of conventional forces.
The Chinese Way
by Professor Priyadarshi Mukherji
Just ten days before the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), on 21 September 1949, in his opening address at the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Mao Zedong proclaimed, “The Chinese People Have Stood Up!”.