Articles By Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.)

Army Officers and Professional Military Education (PME): Need for Focussed,...

Army Officers and Professional Military Education (PME): Need for Focussed,...

By: Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.) | Issue: Courtesy: CLAWS | Date: 30 Apr , 2021

Profession of arms is unique because of lethality of weapons and breadth of operations. Warfare, including virtual ones like cyber and electromagnetic spectrum, and military strategy has become...

More

Army Officers Cadre: Need for Positive Restructuring

Army Officers Cadre: Need for Positive Restructuring

By: Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.) | Issue: Courtesy: CLAWS | Date: 16 Apr , 2021

Indian Army Officers are a class apart. That is why lakhs of young boys barely in their teens aspire and compete to join the profession of arms, which has traditionally been looked upon...

More

Contemplation of Non-Kineticism and Military Capabilities

Contemplation of Non-Kineticism and Military Capabilities

By: Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.) | Date: 25 Mar , 2021

Are armed forces still the Profession of Arms?  The profession of arms is unique because of the lethality of our weapons and our operations, the very core purpose and existential reason of which...

More

Modern Warfare and Contemplation of Strategic Victory

Modern Warfare and Contemplation of Strategic Victory

By: Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.) | Issue: Courtesy: CLAWS | Date: 08 Feb , 2021

That is an old saying – victory has a thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan!  On the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on 01 May 2003, US President George W. Bush announced Mission...

More

Turning Points, Objective Determinants

Turning Points, Objective Determinants

By: Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.) | Date: 12 Dec , 2020

Indian Armed Forces are organisations that despite having large bureaucracies, hierarchical structures and specialisations, are like living organisms and are not machines. Different stages of the...

More

Contemplating the Amended Paradigm

Contemplating the Amended Paradigm

By: Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.) | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 09 Oct , 2020

Six months, and the external security environment of India has turned on its head!  With burgeoning trade at the threshold of $100 billion and general bonhomie, China was spoken in India with...

More

LOC-isation of LAC: Pragmatic Appreciation

LOC-isation of LAC: Pragmatic Appreciation

By: Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.) | Date: 26 Sep , 2020

In a candid statement on the floor of the Indian Parliament on 15 and 17 Sep 2020, the Defence Minister Rajnath Singh stated that there is no common delineation or perception of the Line of...

More

Ideating Structural Rebalancing

Ideating Structural Rebalancing

By: Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.) | Issue: Courtesy: CLAWS | Date: 30 Aug , 2020

In a recent article catchily headed, The Army in Indian Military Strategy: Rethink Doctrine or Risk Irrelevance, the author states that “…Indian Army’s prevailing doctrine leaves the...

More

Ideating Infantry’s Makeover

Ideating Infantry’s Makeover

By: Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.) | Date: 03 Apr , 2018

Infantry – the Alma Mater, to be proud of!  Nearly seventy years in incessant combat in insurgencies, in countering infiltration (CI) and in combating terrorism (CT), has battle hardened the...

More

Ideating Force Modernisation: Negotiating Culs de Sac

Ideating Force Modernisation: Negotiating Culs de Sac

By: Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.) | Issue: Courtesy: CLAWS | Date: 29 Mar , 2018

An intense debate on the doctrinal and force structuring basis of the Armed Forces, most significantly, the Army, is currently underway, becoming mordant as it goes. Four compelling threads merit...

More

Line of Control Ceasefire - ‘Escalate to De-escalate’

Line of Control Ceasefire - ‘Escalate to De-escalate’

By: Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.) | Issue: Courtesy: CLAWS | Date: 12 Feb , 2018

The Ceasefire Agreement is historic – dating to 2003, announced as it was initially unilaterally by Pakistan, and later on the Indian suggestion expanded to include Siachen Glacier.  As one...

More

Ideating Force Management: Specialisation of Units

Ideating Force Management: Specialisation of Units

By: Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.) | Issue: Courtesy: CLAWS | Date: 05 Feb , 2018

Warfare is currently in transformative phase – akin to the two military technological revolutions of the 21st century – the mechanisation of war and the advent of nuclear weapons.  The first...

More

No Beating of Drums of War, Yet Ominous Dark Clouds!

No Beating of Drums of War, Yet Ominous Dark Clouds!

By: Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.) | Date: 25 Jan , 2018

The Indian Army Chief had in the annual press conference prior to the Army Day 2018, stated that time had come to shift attention to the northern border in view of China’s increased...

More

Ideating Future War Fighting: Multi-Domain Warfare

Ideating Future War Fighting: Multi-Domain Warfare

By: Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.) | Date: 10 Jan , 2018

The bedrock of all security strategies is the in-depth analysis of how the security environment of the future is fathomed, and how this analysis is translated into national security strategy,...

More

Military Leadership and Humanities

Military Leadership and Humanities

By: Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.) | Date: 14 Dec , 2017

“The humanities and social sciences teach us to question, analyze, debate, evaluate, interpret, synthesize, compare evidence, and communicate—skills that are critically important in shaping...

More

Professional Military Education and Producing Thought Leaders for The Army

Professional Military Education and Producing Thought Leaders for The Army

By: Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.) | Date: 17 Jul , 2017

‘A different habit, with worse effect, was the way that ambitious officers, they came in sight of promotion to the Generals’ list, would decide that they would bottle up their thoughts and...

More

‘Obey The Order’ – No Questions Asked, Or…

‘Obey The Order’ – No Questions Asked, Or…

By: Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.) | Issue: Courtesy: CLAWS | Date: 27 Jun , 2017

A recent trail on social media extolled a statement of General Mark Milley, the Chief of Staff for the US Army in May 2017, with a stunning comment about the order and discipline of the...

More

Combating Terrorism: The Soldier And The Society

Combating Terrorism: The Soldier And The Society

By: Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma, PVSM,UYSM,AVSM,VSM (Retd.) | Date: 16 Jun , 2017

The aftermath of the incident in South Kashmir, tying a civilian in front of the Army jeep, to protect the polling staff from a large stone-throwing crowd has been discussed threadbare, and is...

More