Military

The March 2011 triple disaster in Japan obligated a response from the US, its long-time ally. The US disaster assistance to Japan went beyond the customary nature of the countries’ relationship, and was conspicuous for the scale of military involvement that was embedded in the US-Japan alliance. The success of the US asistance programme Operation Tomodachi is attributed to interoperability between the defence forces of the two allies.

• Preeti Nalwa
• January 2012
• Journal of Defence Studies

China’s 12th Five Year Plan, approved by the National People’s Congress on March 14, has effectively tied up the PLA’s defence modernisation with overall national growth.

• Bijoy Das
• March 25, 2011
• IDSA Comments

The changing security environment calls for re-fashioning the use of hard power, which may have to be managed differently in the future.

• Harinder Singh
• January 24, 2011
• Issue Brief

The Services have been doctrinally fecund over the past decade, with each Service bidding to pursue relatively distinct campaigns, which would amount to lack of synergy and the whole failing to rise higher than the sum of its parts.

• Ali Ahmed
• August 16, 2010
• IDSA Comments

Even though the respective military exercise held by Pakistan and India are about handling of respective offensive reserves, the message that emerges is that their employment is best avoided.

• Ali Ahmed
• May 07, 2010
• IDSA Comments

Major powers have tried to use military training programmes, manifested through military-to-military cooperation running the gamut of training exchanges to joint exercises, to defence-related dialogues through seminars and the like, in order to engage and influence other countries in the furtherance of their strategic interests. The US model is notable for being innovative, flexible, scalable, and broad in its approach, and this has fetched it considerable dividends.

• Cherian Samuel
• March 2009
• Strategic Analysis

Wars are not fought only by the armed forces, but by the entire nation, the government and all its organs, the media and the people in an integrated and unified manner. The Kargil war was one such event that unified the nation. The political, diplomatic and military insights gained during the conflict have tremendous learning value for our politico-military structures and processes. It was with this purpose of learning lessons and sharpening our higher defence management that the Kargil Review Committee was formed in the aftermath of the Kargil War of 1999.

• Vinod Anand
• Winter 2008
• Journal of Defence Studies

The attitudes of the military globally towards revolution in military affairs (RMA) have largely been influenced in recent times by the US Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq which have demonstrated the technological prowess of the US military. In the former campaign the employment of Special Operations Forces (SOF) to direct precision air power was a vital component of US operations to achieve rapid success in combination with the Northern Alliance ground troops and it was perhaps the first time that the world saw a transformed US military in action.

• V. K. Kapoor
• Winter 2008
• Journal of Defence Studies

Historically, the use of intuition by commanders to anticipate events in battle to exploit fleeting opportunities has remained obscure. One likely reason is that it has not been a fashionable subject for the great military commanders to talk about, being outside the realm of a logical thought process. Recently researchers have begun to unravel the aura of mystery and give scientific explanations to intuition.

• S. K. Saini
• Winter 2008
• Journal of Defence Studies

“Victory smiles upon those who anticipate changes in the nature of war.”
-- Giulio Douhet

Introduction

• S. K. Saini
• Summer 2008
• Journal of Defence Studies