Articles By Ali Ahmed
Nuclear Command and Control: Locating the Strategic Forces Command
By: Ali Ahmed | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 01 Mar , 2022
It’s possible that the full length nuclear doctrine – of which only the abridged version is in the public domain – explicates a thorough nuclear command and control (C2) arrangement. In the...
India needs a National Security Doctrine for furthering Jointness
By: Ali Ahmed | Date: 01 Feb , 2022
The absence of a national security doctrine is much lamented. The necessity of a strategic doctrine being rather obvious, here an additional argument is made that India’s efforts towards...
Defence reform: Jointness and command and control
By: Ali Ahmed | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 21 Jan , 2022
The story of General Rawat’s efforts as the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) to infuse critical velocity into the military’s jointness process is well known. Empowered by the amendment to the...
Punishing future Pakistani terror provocations
By: Ali Ahmed | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 27 Sep , 2021
A leading scholar-strategist, Professor Rajesh Rajagopalan, opined recently: “With the US (United States) no longer needing Pakistan in the critical manner it did before – and with...
Civilian Faculty at Professional Military Education Institutions
By: Ali Ahmed | Issue: Courtesy: CLAWS | Date: 29 Jul , 2021
While technical training institutions, as for instance the College of Military Engineering, and pre-commission training institutions, such as the National Defence Academy, have civilian faculty...
Cohesion in the Army: The Battle Winning Factor
By: Ali Ahmed | Date: 21 Jun , 2021
In military sociology literature, the Standard Model on military cohesion can be envisaged as a set of concentric circles, with the inner circle housing the primary group. The primary group is the...
Nuclear Doctrinal revision in its effects on the India-China Dyad
By: Ali Ahmed | Date: 06 Jan , 2017
In the latest brouhaha over the nuclear doctrine revision, Manoj Joshi offered the sage advice that Pakistan should not be the only referent in considering evolution of India’s nuclear...
The Future of Full Spectrum Deterrence
By: Ali Ahmed | Date: 17 Oct , 2016
If strategic commentary in India in wake of the surgical strikes in retaliation for the Uri terror attack is to be believed, it is not going to be business as usual either for Pakistani security...
Nurturing Radical Professionalism
By: Ali Ahmed | Issue: Courtesy: CLAWS | Date: 08 May , 2016
With the conduct of the first Lt Gen Hanut Memorial Lecture, the Center for Joint Warfare Studies has taken on annual yeoman’s task. While the lecture topics will over coming years no doubt...
What a short, swift war means for the Infantry
By: Ali Ahmed | Date: 04 Apr , 2016
India expects that the next war will be swift and short. It would be swift in not being a replay of Operation Parakram in which, as critics would have it, India took time to mobilise, thereby,...
Doctrine in Civil-Military Relations
By: Ali Ahmed | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 16 May , 2015
Supervision of doctrine making is one way by which civilian control is exercised over the military. Military doctrine writing is largely done within the military. However, it is to be in close...
At the Conventional-Nuclear Interface
By: Ali Ahmed | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 09 Aug , 2014
Conventional backdrop to nuclear foreground Accustomed to the phrase ‘nuclear backdrop’ as the army has been over the past two decades, the title may require explaining. The assumption is...
NRRC: For the nuclear doctrine review
By: Ali Ahmed | Date: 20 Jun , 2014
With the Bharatiya Janata Party in power in India a nuclear doctrine review is in the offing. Since the issue found controversial mention in the elections, it will likely figure high in the ‘to...
Diplomatic engagement in a post nuclear use environment
By: Ali Ahmed | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 27 May , 2014
Strike corps exercises are usually well covered by the media. Inevitably mentioned in write ups from reporters over the past decade since Exercise Poorna Vijay has been the nuclear backdrop. The...
India’s Nuclear Doctrine: The storm in India’s nuclear teacup
By: Ali Ahmed | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 21 Apr , 2014
The reference to India’s nuclear doctrine in the BJP’s manifesto has resulted in a virtual storm in the strategic community. While the manifesto only makes the point that the BJP will seek to...
India-Pakistan: Distancing the spark from the nuclear tinderbox
By: Ali Ahmed | Date: 06 Apr , 2014
In a speech for the Subbu Forum Society for Policy Studies at the India International Center last April, Ambassador Shyam Saran, currently chair of India’s National Security Advisory Board,...
Reflection on Conflict Duration
By: Ali Ahmed | Issue: Vol 24.3 Jul-Sep 2009 | Date: 14 Sep , 2012
The new Indian Army doctrine dilating on the nature of future wars reads: ‘Emerging at short notice, being of short duration and being fought at high tempo and intensity.’ These are valid...
Taking Nuclear War-Fighting Seriously
By: Ali Ahmed | Issue: Vol. 27.1 -Mar 2012 | Date: 19 Mar , 2012
What are the implications of a nuclear battlefield? Since the early eighties, this question has been posed since Sundarji’s postal seminar on nuclear conflict while he was in command of the...
UN Peacekeeping: Thinking 'out of the box'
By: Ali Ahmed | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 13 Feb , 2012
The story of India’s peacekeeping engagement is too well known to recount. However, less known is the fact that India numbers among the five top UN troop contributing countries. In effect,...
Legal warfare: The neglected dimension
By: Ali Ahmed | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 27 Jan , 2012
The legal dimension is usually taken as an after thought, coming to fore post conflict. This is no longer the case. The legal arena is now very much where the conflict plays out, even as the...