Volume 2  Number 3 ● Monsoon 2007 (Jul-Sep 2007)

All Files are in PDF Format - Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0 or above required to view them. -  - Click Here to Download Adobe Acrobat Reader

AEROSPACE POWER IN A CHANGING NATIONAL SECURITY ENVIRONMENT 

Air Chief Marshal F. H. Major PVSM AVSM SC VM ADC, chief of the Air Staff Indian Air force (IAF), in his address on Aerospace Power in a Changing National Security Environment emphasises that there is a host of vital interests that lie way beyond the homeland and determine that we refer to as our “strategic boundaries”. These remote interests must be protected and that is a largely military function in which the IAF would play a critically vital role. 

WINNING THE NEXT WAR – JOINTLY

Air Commodore Jasjit Singh AVSM VrC VM (Retd) has argued that joint operations would required deep abiding trust among the three Services which has been a problem even in military forces like those of the United States, organizationally integrated for decades. The core of building professional institutional trust is to remove professional tensions, especially between ground and air forces.

PRINCIPLES OF WAR: DO THEY REQUIRE A RETHINK?

Air Marshal A.V. Vaidya VM emphasises that changes in the nature of war and advance in modern technology, besides other factors us to reexamine the long-standing principles of war and see that changes are required to meet the requirements of fighting a future war and sinning it.

EFFECT – BASED OPERATIONS

Air Marshal Vinod Patney, SYSM PVSM AVSM VrC (Retd),  former AOC-in-C Western Air Command, writes that intelligence information about the adversaries can never be complete. And if EBO is to be used for contingency planning by the armed forces, the adversary must be viewed as a complex adaptive system.

FROM WINNING TO DETERRING: CHINA’S CHANGING DISCOURSE ON DEFENCE

Professor Srikanth Kondapalli examines China’s White Papers on National Defence to interpret the change taking place in China’s defence policy and posture. The central conclusion is that China continues to believe in Sun Tzu’s precepts of influencing the behavior of the adversary as a prelude to fighting and winning wars. A modern military force able to conduct high-technology warfare remains integral to this philosophy.

PAKISTAN’S NUCLEAR DOCTRINE AND STRATEGY

Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine and strategy has been clouded by a great deal of obfuscation and ambiguities. What we can do is to arrive at some assumptions on which Pakistan would base its nuclear strategy. Dr. (Mrs) Manpreet Sethi explores the direction in which Pakistan has been moving in shaping its nuclear doctrine and strategy, wherein rhetoric and substance have often over lapped. What has been amply clear is that its policy of brinkmanship that exploits uncertainty and rests on a perception of irrationality, however, carries the risk of deterrence breakdown.

IRANIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM AND THE IRGC

Iran’s political system is complex and unique in terms of the overlapping roles and functions of its various components. Shelly Johny examines the complexities of the political system and concludes that the IRGC actually wields power and influence that transcend the formally established system of check and balances.

RUSSIA’S AIR DEFENCE STRATEGY

As was to be expected, Russia’s air defence strategy has under gone many changes after the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Wing Commander Atul K. Singh VSM identifies that the current air power doctrine flows from the concept that the success of ground operations increasingly depends upon air force missions, from achieving air supremacy until the moment the enemy surrenders.

THE INFORMATION-BASED RMA AND THE PRINCIPLES OF WAR

Major Leonard G. Litton, USAF, examines the principles of war from a different perspective: that of the implications of the information-based revolution in military affairs (RMA) on the traditional principles of war. Litton argues that he revolution of the information-based RMA has shown us that as the times have changed, so must the paradigm we hold of the principles of war. Essentially, the information-based RMA will reinforce the principle of the offensive. This implies that the age-old requirement for the offence to concentrate forces in order to break through the defence is greatly reduced under the information-based RMA. Other charges demand a review of the traditional principles of war.