Categories for Defence Watch
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CDS – A Long Way to Tipperary
Irish soldiers marching off to the Western Front in World War I sang It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long, long way to go; a longing for home but underlying the near certainty of death or disability and... View Article
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A Road Map for the New Defence Minister
Like Mr. Modi’s googly in the general election, the shifting of Rajnath Singh to the South Block is nothing short of a Chinaman. And the country he has to checkmate in the coming years in terms of strategy and defence... View Article
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The F-16 vs Mig-21 Bison More Questions than Answers
The analysis of the much-reported dogfight between the IAF and the PAF on 27th February as a fall-out of the Balakot strike the previous morning has thrown up a number of theories, conjectures and scenarios particularly with regard to the... View Article
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Towards a More Vigorous Make-In-India in Defence Manufacturing
The government of the day must take the country out of its asphyxiating bureaucratisation that seriously afflicts its defence production segment. The UK did it in the 1980s by privatising British ordnance factories. This really turned around their performance in... View Article
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Oil, S 400, CAATSA A Test of Diplomacy for India
There is never a dull moment in world politics. International relations are in a constant state of flux with many an extraneous factor causing shift in alliances, changes in priorities and even worse. The only ‘constant’ as immortalised by Lord... View Article
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IAF Fighter Fleet in Crisis
Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa, Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Indian Air Force (IAF), speaking at the Air Force Day Parade on October 08, 2017, said that the IAF was prepared to fight a war at short notice. He... View Article
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Self Reliance in Defence Production A Mirage
Understandably, India does not wish to be a 70 per cent import-dependent nation. Yet, at the same time we cannot be 100 per cent self-sufficient nation. It is just not feasible to be an isolationist in a networked world of... View Article
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Navy’s Minesweeping Woes Going Critical
From the very beginning of his tenure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave priority to visiting countries in the Indian Ocean. Addressing the valedictory function of the International Fleet Review during 2016 he had also stated, “The Indian Ocean Region is... View Article
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Armed Forces: Suicides, Welfare and Morale
A recent editorial in a national daily titled ‘An Unhappy Army’ states that unflattering information on the internal “atmosphere” in the armed services is seldom made public: the bad-for-morale argument serves to keep things under wraps. It drew attention to... View Article
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Has the Time Come to Replace Manned Combat Aircraft With Armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles?
Aviation, which started with the Wright Brothers’ first controlled flight of a heavier than air machine on 17 December 1903, has come a long way in the last 114 years. As is true for many technological developments, aviation too quickly... View Article
