Articles By Col Anil Athale
Genius of Shivaji the Great
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 19 Feb , 2021
In 1987 as I was attending the Senior Command course at the College of Combat, Mhow, we had an officer from Bangladesh also as a fellow student officer. Once during a casual conversation, I asked...
My Wellington Days
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 23 Dec , 2020
Admiral Arun Prakash (Retd) was the course senior of the 34th Defence Services Staff College Course (DSSC) of 1979 that I also attended. Arun Prakash has written a very thoughtful column (Indian...
Ladakh Standoff: Brinkmanship Gone Wrong
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 02 Dec , 2020
Ever since the border standoff between India and China along the Line of Actual Control (LAC for short) in Ladakh in May 2020, strategic analysts have been struggling to decipher the Chinese...
Chimera of Atmanirbhar Defence
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 29 Sep , 2020
In this year full of pessimism, one is loath to add on to the pile of misery, but reality of last 70 years and our Ostrich like attitude makes it likely that the dream of defence self-reliance is...
Two Front War Threat: A Historian’s Perspective
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 15 Sep , 2020
In April 2020, China amassed troops on Ladakh frontier with India prospect of a two front war has loomed large on Indian horizon. Two front war situations are brought about by geo-political...
Decoding Chinese Strategic Intent!
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 24 Aug , 2020
An old Bollywood song (from Dev Anand’s film ‘CID’) ‘Kahin pe nigahe, kahin pe nishana’ (while eyes are fixed on something, the target is somewhere else) best encapsulates the Chinese...
Bursting Myths of 1962
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 23 Jul , 2020
Formerly head and Joint Dir. War History division, Min of Defence and co-author of official history of 1962 Sino-Indian Border Conflict.He researched as Kennedy Fellow at Presidential Archives in...
The Coming Geo-Political Earth Quake!
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 05 May , 2020
Some days back an ex-Pakistani diplomat had written a hilarious article in which this worthy predicted that in post Covid19 world, Chinese ‘soft power’ will help in gaining ascendance over the...
War against Covid-19: Role of Media
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 25 Apr , 2020
Late Army Chief BC Joshi often told me that media is a force multiplier, he was of course talking in context of the ongoing insurgency in Kashmir. I had a firsthand experience of the power of...
Red Flag over Kabul
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 05 Mar , 2020
As has been the practice over the years, attention of the entire Indian strategic community is focussed on the effect of US Taliban deal in terms of the threat the emboldened Taliban will pose to...
Role of Military History
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 23 Feb , 2020
Napoleon had once famously said that ‘morale to the material is like three is to one’. Military history that celebrates the glorious deeds of past can boost the morale of soldiers and citizens...
Middle-East Conundrum and Indian National Security
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 24 Jan , 2020
The second decade of the 21st century has had an inauspicious start in the Middle East. The killing of an Iranian General in American drone strike has raised the temperatures in the Middle East to...
Importance of Data Mining for Operational Efficiency
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 03 Dec , 2019
As world in general begins to move towards widespread use of artificial intelligence (AI for short) authentic data becomes increasingly important. Battlefields of the future are no exception. But...
Countering Pakistan’s Kashmir Strategy
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 01 Oct , 2019
Pakistan’s PM Imran Khan Niyazi, in a sense outlined the basic contours of Pakistan’s Kashmir strategy. He harped on bloodbath post lifting of curfew. He also in a way threatened that Indian...
How Indo-Pak Tensions will help us Pullback from Afghanistan!
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 23 Aug , 2019
One is not surprised that lazy strategic analysts and clueless media persons have been taken in by the Pakistani canard that it alone will bring in Taliban to negotiations and ensure peace in...
War Clouds Over Kashmir: Expect Commando Raids!
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 16 Aug , 2019
The abrogation of article 370 by India has put Pakistani army, its ‘real’ ruler, at horns of a dilemma. Indications are that the world body like UN has refused to take up the issue. Pakistani...
Possible Taliban victory in Afghanistan: A double edge sword
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 08 Aug , 2019
There has been much jubilation in Pakistani strategic circles over the US volte face on Taliban. A desperate US are now ready to deal with the fundamentalist force like Taliban. The Taliban have...
Ushering in a green army!
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 16 Jul , 2019
In 1992, a remark by the then Army Chief, General SF Rodrigues that ‘good governance was as much the business of army!’ was deliberately picked up by a journalist to defame him. The late...
Time and Opportunity for Radical Rethink on Defence!
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 21 Jun , 2019
It has been a long standing demand/suggestion of many military thinkers like late Lt. General Eric A. Vas and Maj. Gen. Keshav Pendse, that defence and security issues should be part of the...
Understanding the Riddle of Indian Defence Dependency
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 15 Jun , 2019
Part-1 As the first IDSA military history research fellow, I was engaged in studying the Anglo-Maratha wars of 18th and early 19th century. During my research I came across a very interesting...