FAUJI INDIA - November 2018

I dette nummeret

Today, India as a nation is in a state of churn. And the Armed Forces are in the news for all sorts of reasons - from the Rafale deal to the restructuring of the Indian Army. Many are yet to come to terms with the announcement that our army will soon depart from the organisational structures we had inherited from our British colonial legacy, to pave the way for a leaner and stealthier fighting force, apparently better prepared to deal with wars of the future. However, many within the serving and Veterans community are yet to figure out the details of how this vision will be implemented.
The challenges of dealing with Pakistan over Kashmir are yet to be resolved by successive governments. There is no blue print to deal with the Kashmir issue - only lots of promises and hollow rhetoric. So the situation remains the same over the years. Since large scale conventional wars in the present context is quite unlikely, we have to better reorient our forces to endlessly fight proxy-wars. And cyber warfare is emerging to be a new dimension in national security. It is about time we built a new robust corps within our Armed Forces, of cyber warriors, to counter this imminent threat.
In all this, the role of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is of great importance. But with virtually all roads on national security leading to the NSA's office, there is a view that the MoD could soon be left with routine administrative matters. And as its bureaucracy is averse to any major engagement - beyond those they have to undertake – with the service brasshats on strategic issues, perhaps the MoD could engage with experienced Veterans and domain experts on deputation.