How To Train Your Dragon

A timely pointer to how India’s foreign policy falls short of the challenges posed by China’s growing potency.

- Ananth Krishnan

Let alone China, India cannot even win a war against Pakistan” is the stark warning delivered in the very first few pages of Dragon on Our Doorstep. It sets the tone of what is to follow in the subsequent 400-odd pages: an exhaustive overview of the growing military challenge India confronts from its two troublesome neighbours, and a clear prescription of what needs to be done.

There is certainly no shortage of books on India’s China threat (or, alas, of those determined to unimaginatively insert ‘dragon’ or ‘elephant’ into their titles, seemingly at all costs). The title notwithstanding, this new book by Pravin Sawhney and Ghazala Wahab is a welcome intervention in this genre, eschewing trite comparisons between the neighbours to provide a hard-nosed reality check on the challenge India faces from across the Himalayas. Sawhney, who retired early from the Indian Army, is an accomplished defence journalist and author of books on India’s defence reforms and Operation Parakram. His co-author Wahab is a journalist who edits, along with Sawhney, a magazine on national security and defence issues.