Articles By Lt Gen NS Brar
Remembering the Forgotten Army of World War-II
By: Lt Gen NS Brar | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 09 Aug , 2020
“The British couldn’t have come through both world wars if they hadn’t had the British Indian Army.” — Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief of British Indian Army...
Dealing with the Dragon – Harsh Reality, Hard Options
By: Lt Gen NS Brar | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 06 Aug , 2020
Nations on attaining independence and sovereignty will, like any family inheritance, also inherit disputes and legacies needing resolution. In any family, the options are to settle the disputes...
Military Spending – Getting Bang for the Buck
By: Lt Gen NS Brar | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 30 Jun , 2020
A nation maintains its military as an instrument of national power and means of safeguarding national interests. Military capabilities in turn mean expenditure. Universally countries spend in...
Frontiers and Borders: Breaking the logjam on the Northern Border
By: Lt Gen NS Brar | Date: 18 Jun , 2020
Listen in the north, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind; Tramp o’ Cossack hooves in front, grey great coats behind. Trouble on the Frontier of a most amazin’ kind …. —Rudyard Kipling,...
Politics and the Military
By: Lt Gen NS Brar | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 18 Sep , 2019
History bears witness that a strong, sovereign and independent state has always been backed by a strong army, in today’s context military, yet paradoxically, the military is a threat in being...
Creating the CDS – Not the What but the How
By: Lt Gen NS Brar | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 04 Sep , 2019
Two recent announcements by the government – creation of a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) for the armed forces and merger of public sector banks – though diametrically opposite in context, have...
CDS – A Long Way to Tipperary
By: Lt Gen NS Brar | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 21 Aug , 2019
Irish soldiers marching off to the Western Front in World War I sang It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long, long way to go; a longing for home but underlying the near certainty of death or...
Poppies and Marigolds
By: Lt Gen NS Brar | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 11 Nov , 2018
The year 2018 marks the centenary of the end of World War I. ‘The War to End All Wars’ or ‘The Great War For Civilisation’ did not achieve what the belligerents or its protagonists...
When Soldiers Ask Questions
By: Lt Gen NS Brar | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 14 Sep , 2018
The country is at war, make no mistakes about it. Many eyebrows will be raised asking ‘Where is the war?’ Von Clausewitz had many aphorisms, of which the most famous is “War is...
The Men Who Saved Ladakh
By: Lt Gen NS Brar | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 01 Jun , 2018
The land is so barren and the passes so high that only the best of friends or fiercest enemies would want to visit us. – A Ladhaki saying Ladakh, the crown on India’s map, was the transit...
Mind the Gap
By: Lt Gen NS Brar | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 19 Aug , 2016
The recent attempted ‘coup’ by the Turkish military has brought back into focus the question of equation and balance between the legitimate government and its armed forces and reinforced the...
The Naga Imbroglio and Conflict Resolution
By: Lt Gen NS Brar | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 10 Jul , 2016
The passing away of Isak Chisi Swu, co founder of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), on 28 June has brought back into focus the issue of settlement of the ‘Naga Problem’. He...
Military Muscle and Flab
By: Lt Gen NS Brar | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 01 Jul , 2016
The NDA government on assuming office and the defence minister on being appointed have repeatedly expressed the desire to curtail defence expenditure. The perception being that major savings can...
Legacy of the Great War
By: Lt Gen NS Brar | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 30 Jan , 2016
The War to End All Wars or The Great War For Civilisation did not achieve what the belligerents or its protagonists had imagined. In due course it very appropriately came to be labelled as the...