Articles By Col Anil Athale
Ukraine War: Essence of a Decision
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 24 Apr , 2022
In a book of the similar title, Prof. Graham T. Allison has analyzed the American decision-making process during the Cuban Missile Crisis of Oct 1962. He mentions how at a crucial meeting just...
India in a Turbulent World
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 12 Apr , 2022
The pointless Russian invasion and the images of wanton destruction in Ukraine have been dominating the world stage for last several weeks. Most of us have been unable to understand the current...
Russian Invasion of Ukraine: Wider Repercussions
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 25 Mar , 2022
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that began on the 24 of February 2022 is yet to end with the military and diplomatic outcome still mired in uncertainty. However, whatever the ultimate outcome, it...
Russian Invasion of Ukraine: Limits of Military Power
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 02 Mar , 2022
On the ‘WhatsApp University’ in India, some time back a ‘fauji’ (in Hindi anything related to the military) article was in circulation that compared the national level mourning on death...
Some Fundamental Issues: musings of a soldier
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 16 Feb , 2022
What follows is not a structured military paper but a series of points to ponder over. I begin with some fundamental issues, some universal and some peculiar to Indian milieu. Understanding...
Preserving the Autonomy of Logic of Force
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 03 Oct , 2021
Legislature, executive, judiciary and press are four pillars of a democracy but there is also a fifth one, the armed forces, without which the other four may not exist. Armed forces are the...
Afghanistan: From the Perspective of Counterinsurgency
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 27 Aug , 2021
The collapse of Afghan army without offering any resistance marks the end of American counterinsurgency operations. After a similar collapse of South Vietnamese Army in 1976, this is a second...
Is Afghanistan the First Domino?
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 25 Aug , 2021
In the 1960s, “Domino theory’ was a popular phrase used by the Western strategic analysts to justify American intervention in Vietnam. To jog the reader’s memory, the said theory postulated...
India’s Tryst with Military History: Glass is half full!
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 17 Jun , 2021
Defence Minister Shri Rajnath Singh’s announcement that the Defence Ministry will follow a policy of writing war history within 5 years of the conflict and most documents will be declassified...
Rise of China: A Historians Perspective
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 22 May , 2021
Arnold J. Toynbee, in his monumental ‘A Study of History’ (12 volumes) predicted in his final volume in 1961 that when the modernization process now going on in India and China reaches its...
Decoding China’s Covid-19 ‘Miracle’!
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 14 May , 2021
Despite the Chinese attempts to cover its tracks some things stand out, • Many of the scientists from Wuhan lab have gone missing. • By February 2020, the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) took...
Anti-Naxal Operations: How not to Fight a Guerilla War!
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 11 Apr , 2021
The April 4, 2021, attack by Naxalites in Sukma district of Chattisgad resulted in 22 Policemen being killed. As per early reports around 400 Naxalites executed an ambush on a section of divided...
Will Indo-Pak Relations be Re-set?
By: Col Anil Athale | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 28 Mar , 2021
Indo-Pak relations have seen so many false dawns that one is skeptical that the current moves can yield any different results. On 18 March 2021, Pakistan’s Army Chief General QamarJaved Bajwa...
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...