INDIA'S STRATEGY FOR WAR

It is said that war dominates our lives more than anything else in the world. As a famous American novelist mentioned in 1861, “it is like a great tempest which blows upon us all, mingles with church organ, whistles through the streets, steels into our firesides, clinks glasses in barrooms, lifts the gray hairs of statesman, invades the classrooms of our colleges, rustles the thumped pages of our scholars.” Further, “it offers inescapable tests of our allegiances – of work and duty, private lives and public devotions, personal preferences and social ties. It challenges virtually every other institution of society – the justice and equity of its economy, the adequacy of its political systems, the energy of its productive plants, the bases, wisdom and purpose of its foreign policy. There is no aspect of our existence ……which is not touched, modified, perhaps completely altered by the imperatives of war.”

Most importantly, we must mention that war is not impromptu, it rather emerges out of the actions which individuals, statesmen and nations do or fail to do. It is the consequences of national policy or lack of policies. And once we are forced into battle, victory or defeat ensues what we do or fail to do.

These facts being self evident, it would be foolish to leave war in the hands of soldiers, statesmen or policy makers. A grand strategy involving the entire national mechanism is needed. This is aptly correct in terms of India when we are facing indirect war from within and across the boarders.

(Photograph: Soldiers of 9 PARA Special Forces, shot by Major Gill)