The Fragile Af-Pak Policy

With each passing day, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the Obama administration’s so-called Af-Pak policy is simply not working. The fraudulent Presidential elections in Afghanistan, coupled by the rampant corruption in all walks of life in that hapless country, have not made the NATO-propped Karzai government in Kabul either stable or popular. Read More »

Guns versus Butter

India, with limited resources and rising aspirations, faces the age old “guns versus butter” question, which has become even more complex in the era of terrorism, piracy, insurgency, in the backdrop of large conventional forces facing us along our borders with nuclear armed neighbors, China and Pakistan. The nation is already under attack by terrorists, while the conventional and nuclear threats continue to grow. Read More »

Pakistan: The Counter-Strategy

In the big picture of the Pakistani game plan, Kargil is merely a footnote. Pakistan’s end game is to cause as much destruction within India by activating direct insurgency in Kashmir, extending support to terrorist activities in the Northeast and supplying arms and explosives to sow seeds of dissent within the country against the legitimately elected authority of the state. Read More »

India’s Foreign Policy : A Muddle for Sixty Two Years

Introduction

The India-Pakistan joint statement at Sharm-al-Sheikh during the NAM conference in which Balochistan was mentioned for no rational reasons has once again brought into sharp focus, lack of direction, absence of any strategic thought and a shocking unawareness of our national interest on part of our foreign policy establishment. Those who have been carefully following India’s foreign policy since independence will not be surprised. Read More »

Prospects for Democratization in Myanmar: Impact on India

According to the military junta that rules Myanmar,1 the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) is on the cusp of the completion in 2010 of its self-ordained “roadmap” to a form of “democracy” in the country - an election, the inauguration of a bicameral representative national legislature, local legislatures, and the operational stage of the new constitution that was approved by a questionable referendum in May 2008. Read More »

Defence PSUs : The Great Betrayl

Introduction

When the saras crashed, killing its crew, the deafening silence in the media, as also from those who know about flight testing, design and manufacture of aeroplanes, and the unforeseen dangers in this activity, was rudely apparent. What is the Saras for? Who would use it? What kind of pilots would fly such a piece of aeronautical disingenuity? Read More »

The Big Picture

New Delhi cannot afford to sit around while others plot its destruction.

Surrounded with sullied strategic environment and the spreading fire that engulfs the region, New Delhi can either continue to live in fear as it has in the past, or fight back. Read More »

Defence & Aerospace Digest

Indian Air Force

Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA)

Flight evaluation of the six contenders in the race for the $11 billion (Rs 52,508 crore) MMRCA contract commenced at Bangalore in mid-August 2009, Read More »

Kargil Controversy: Sorry State of Higher Defence Management

During the Second World War the British Army’s operations in Greece ran into near disaster and to save the army, its immediate evacuation by sea became imperative. During this phase of the war, the Atlantic was dominated by the German U boats and the naval commanders

Read More »

Myanmar Going Nuclear

There has been an unmistakable spurt in the development and acquisition of nuclear weapon capabilities by the Military Junta regime in Myanmar. Given the level of progress in this regard, it is reckoned by various agencies that this would be realized by the year 2014. Read More »

India 1998-2001: Neutralizing Its Military Power

Crises of Command. Each year India sustains a gigantic military power. Continuous. Dedicated. And capable. But the leadership since Independence, in its ignorance, has been neutralizing it with equal ferocity. Unwittingly. Illogically. Read More »