 Well, good afternoon, everyone. I am Ashli Telus. I'm a senior associate here at the Carnegie Endowment. And I want to welcome all of you to the Endowment this afternoon. We have a very special set of guests with us. I want to extend a very warm welcome to Avis Marshall Arjun Subramaniam, whose book has recently been published in the United States, which was published earlier in India. And he is going to walk us through the thesis of the book and relate the thesis of the book to the challenges that India faces in terms of its national security. I'll say a few words about the book. I also want to extend a special welcome to Colonel Jack Gill, who is an old friend and someone who has been deeply associated with the work that I have personally done in Indian national security over the years. Just a few words by way of introduction to the two gentlemen on the stage. Avis Marshall Arjun Subramaniam very recently retired from the Indian Air Force after 36 years in uniform as a fighter pilot. He holds a PhD in strategic studies from the University of Madras in India. And he is a prolific writer on issues of national security. The book that he is going to present to us today is actually his third book. And it's a book if you haven't had a chance to look at, I would commend to your attention for three reasons. He has first, he has made a special effort to do as much original research as possible. He has trolled the secondary literature obviously, but he has done a good bit of interviewing, looked at sources that people generally tend to discount in order to write as comprehensive a history as someone in his position could have. Secondly, he has tried to write a history that is a joint perspective. So it's not a history that focuses on just one particular service or another, but tries to capture the totality of the Indian military experience, bringing it to account the contributions made by the different services. And third, he has written the book really as an effort at bringing scholarship into the service of policy. Because through the telling of the story of India's wars, he's really tried to unpack what India should be paying attention to, what has worked, what is not. In the hope that that will somehow both spur the reflection and spur the debate. So this is really a contribution that I would commend to your attention. And I hope you'll get a chance to read and hopefully buy, because we have books outside the room for sale. Arjun is currently at Harvard. He's going to be there for several months as a visiting fellow before he moves on to Oxford for another six months of sabbatical. After Arjun speaks, I'm going to invite Colonel Gil to offer a few thoughts on the book and on the issues that the book raises, particularly for Indian national security. Jack Gil is currently an associate professor at the NISA Center at the National Defense University. He has been in the service of the US Army for many decades as well and has worked South Asia issues for at least 20 years, in my telling. He served as the defense intelligence officer in the Pentagon and actually played a critical role in advising US policymakers at the time of the Cargill crisis in 1999. Subsequently, he served as the military advisor to Ambassador Jim Dobbins at a crucial moment after 9-11 when the United States was deeply involved in reconstructing the politics and the government of Afghanistan. And Jack served Dobbins and worked for Dobbins to help that process work itself out. Jack also has a different life beyond his interest in the Indian military. He's actually one of the nation's leading scholars on Napoleonic warfare and has written a series of very substantial battle histories relating to the Napoleonic wars. So I'm not quite sure when he gets the time to do all of this, but he somehow manages to do it. So I think we are going to be in for an intellectual treat this afternoon. I want to thank all of you for coming. I want to extend a very special welcome again to Arjun for coming to Carnegie. I will give him about 20 minutes or so to walk us through the thesis of the book. And then we will move into comments by Jack and then a brief conversation between us before I open it to the floor. So thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm delighted to be here in DC to be able to share perspectives of war and conflict in contemporary India through the lens of my book, India's Wars, a Military History from 1947 to 1971. Now the book, as Ashley mentioned, was recently published by the US Naval Institute Press and was last year published in India by Harper Collins. And before I dive headlong into the book, I must thank the US Naval Institute Press for bringing it to readers in the United States, as well as to Dr. Ben Lambeth, who's a dear friend and a mentor for the last 10 years, who's not here with us today, but who convinced them to do so. I'd also like to thank Ashley, General Deptula, and Admiral Stavridis for having very generously endorsed the book for the US edition, and also to the CEIP, the Carnegie Endowment, and Ashley for hosting this event. And also, I'm particularly pleased that somebody like Jack Gill found the time to be here with us this afternoon. Because not many of you know that Jack's monograph on the 1971 war, particularly in the Eastern theater, is one of the most objective, analytical, and compelling pieces of military history or military writing that I've read in recent times. And it's unfortunate that it isn't as widely read as it ought to be. And if you look at the maps that he's put together, you will realize why maps are so very important to understand context when it comes to military history. Thank you, Jack, for being here. And of course, I'm delighted that my wife, daughter, and family members are also here. Now, you know, when I set out to write this book in late 2012, I never imagined that I would be here in DC speaking with such a distinguished audience and sharing perspectives. And strange things happen, but I'm not complaining. And finally, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for being here and sparing your valuable time to listen to what I have to say. Now, I'm not going to talk so much about my book, because I guess many of you are going to read it. And instead of walking you through the book, I'd like to share why I think such a book needed to be written and why did I, in particular, decide to write this book. OK. Now, let me put things in the correct perspective from a strategic landscape. Now, when I started writing this book, I was convinced that India was a power in transition. And when I talk about a power in transition, India was a power which had serious aspirations for being somebody to reckon with in the years ahead. And if it wanted to do so, I felt that it needed to reflect a lot more on what it has done in the past and what it needs to do in the future when it comes to issues of force projection and national security and its own armed forces. The second overriding issue when it comes to a larger perspective is how is India in the years ahead willing to look at the military and force as a tool of statecraft without being apologetic? And I will come to this later as to how India over the years has used force on a number of occasions. But generally, it has been at times apologetic and at times it has been diffident about the use of force as a tool of statecraft. But it is only in recent years that it has started looking at force, at deterrence, and coercion as very, very acceptable tools of statecraft that needed to be studied seriously. And I thought by looking at military history, I would be able to contribute to that evolving strategic culture in contemporary India. And lastly, something which has been very close to my heart for over two decades. And that is the need to raise intellectual capital within India's armed forces. And I know that many of you who have been, who are either in the US military or who have served earlier in the US military, will remember that about a couple of decades ago, I think the US military also went through the same transition as to how do we cope with the changing nature and character of war? And how do you raise intellectual capital to be able to cope with these rapid changes? And I think the same thing holds good for India today. India's military, if it wants to be a tool of statecraft or a significant tool of statecraft, has to build intellectual capital. And I thought that this kind of a work was essential to tell people within the establishment, to tell younger soldiers, sailors, and airmen that it's important to write, it's important to read, it's important to reflect, and military history is important. OK. Now, let me get a little personal. From the time I was a kid, I always felt that contemporary Indian history has been dominated and rather unfairly so by political, social, cultural, and economic historians. And military history was invariably seen as a sideshow, probably because it was seen as a forgettable legacy of our colonial past. And this whole idea of India as an idealistic, altruistic state that is going to blaze a trail in the international arena by adopting means other than what is established, what established states have been doing or what they call realism was something which did trouble me a lot. And I felt that military history needed to be dovetailed and fused into our overall historical discourse much as it is done in the West. The second issue which actually troubled me was it's not that nobody's written about military history in contemporary India. But whenever military history has been written, it's been written in silos. And let me explain a little bit. You know, we have very accomplished scholars and historians like Srinath Raghavan, Kanti Bajpayee, Sumit Ganguly, and the others who've spoken extensively about war and conflict and written extensively about war and conflict. But they've done so primarily from a structural, a strategic, and an academic perspective. Then you have a whole lot of retired generals, admirals, and air marshals who've written about their own perspectives of wars, battles, and campaigns, biographies, autobiographies. But they've all written in single service silos. You haven't had anybody really attempting to tell a joint story. And what better time to tell a joint story than today when India's armed forces are actually grappling with this whole issue of improving synergy between all three arms of the service in order to focus on the larger core national interest. And you know, jointmanship is what we call it in India's armed forces. So I thought this kind of a work would be significant. And it would contribute significantly to jointmanship. And I must, again, stay at the personal level and say that I think I have been vindicated on this count. Because the number of Indian army officers who've come up to me after I've written this book and said that, sir, we've enjoyed your book, and it's remarkable how you've managed to research so much into the army and the navy, and how you've shed your blue uniform while writing this book. And that was something which pleased me immensely. And lastly, and this is something that will actually, which has also troubled me and which will surprise you, that taking forward this notion as India as this oasis of peace, a very, very vibrant, multicultural, multi-ethnic, secular, multi-religious, multilingual society as having progressed over these last 70 years like no one else has in terms of the manner in which it has progressed. I just wanted to have a look at this slide. Now, this, sir, and these are the number of occasions, since independence in 1947, that the Indian state has had to use force either to protect sovereignty, to protect geographical boundaries, or to prevent internal schisms and fissures and cracks from expanding further. This is something that tells a story, that Indian democracy and what is dear to the Indian people has not come easy. And India's armed forces have played a very, very important role in preserving what is dear to us and what has been enshrined in the Constitution. And therefore, I honestly believe that the men and women in uniform who've contributed to this, their stories needed to be told, and their contribution needs to be acknowledged in a far better manner in society at large. And this brings me to another issue about Indian society. Many young military history enthusiasts in uniform and out of uniform have come up to me and said that we want to know more about India's armed forces. Why have India's armed forces over the last so many decades stayed away from civil society? Was it intentional, was it structural, or was it convenient? So these are the kind of larger issues that I have attempted to sort of answer. I won't go so far as to say answer, but throw up in the book through various stories of the conflicts that India has fought from 1947 to current times. OK. Now, I also want to touch upon this whole aspect of the changing contours of military history. Now, military history, as most of us knew in the past, was mainly a very, very detailed and finicky study of wars, battles, and campaigns. You have arrows and force on force engagements and all that business. But the new military history today that is gaining immense traction both in the West and elsewhere is that military history is not just a study of wars, battles, and campaigns. It is a study of nations and peoples at war. Military history feeds into multiple disciplines. It feeds into political science. It feeds into sociology. It feeds into public policy. It is a tremendous resource for psychiatry. So therefore, I honestly believe that military history needs to be studied in some form or the other, whether in a liberal arts education or whether it is in other forms of education. It's important. And that's another thing that I've tried to sort of bring out in the book. OK. So what then, again, from the perspective of a nation that is breaking out or which is emerging from a strategic closet or which is looking at a force application may not be completely differently but with a new perspective, with an attempt not to be diffident anymore but to be confident. And when I talk about a confident strategic culture, I am not abandoning the time-tested Indian way which is being also restrained and responsible. So if in the past India was diffident, restrained, and responsible, I would say that India is now making a transition when it comes to application of force and understanding force to being confident about it but yet being restrained and responsible. And I would not go so far as to say that we are anywhere close to being assertive or aggressive. And I don't think one needs to go that path very soon. But what I'm happy about is that at last, I think the Indian strategic establishment is reasonably confident about the application of force, whether it adds value in pursuit of strategic goals and yet at the same time retaining the tag of being a responsible and a restrained power. Now neglect of military history could adversely impact the relevance of the military in a prosperous and vibrant democracy. Now you know, there are at least two generations in India that have not experienced or seen war, war in the classical sense. It's constant 24 by 7 skirmishers, constant tension along the line of actual control and the line of control. But it is a force that is the Indian Army, the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy, which is actually 24 by 7 in operation. But the country at large, a 300 million youth bulge, doesn't really know very much about what the armed forces do. And I thought this is one way of bringing the armed forces to a large constituency of young readers, both in India and abroad, about what the Indian armed forces are all about. And this I've mentioned is that neglect of military history could certainly lead to a different strategic culture until circumstances force us to review it. I mean to say, you see, 1962 was a rude awakening for the Indian strategic establishment. It worked on it. 1965 was a work in progress. And 1971 was a fructifying of the effort that was put in from 1962 to 1971 to build military capability. Similarly, after 1972, the Indian strategic establishment and the Indian military went into a bit of a slumber for the next couple of decades. And then there was this rude awakening in Kargil. Then Kargil was followed by some pretty focused capability buildup. And I feel that one can't afford to repeat such mistakes again and again. And one of the ways to avoid repeating mistakes, as all of you realize, ladies and gentlemen, is that you need to know your history. I think so that is a larger picture. And I think I'll quickly run you through my book, because and some of the more nuanced aspects of the book. The first portion of my book is that despite a number of people advising me against offering a personal perspective up front, many people whom I dialogue with and discussed said that if you have a personal opinion, let it come right at the end. I said no. I said I've been in uniform for over 35 years. I have a clear picture or I have a clear understanding or I believe I have a clear understanding of what has happened in front of me over the last 30 years in the military domain. I think I need to state it up front. So the first section has my personal perspectives on war, conflict, strategy, military history. And then what I do is that I said that I can't introduce a reader straight to campaigns and wars of the 1947 or the 1948 war. I need to provide an overview of the DNA of India's armed forces over the last couple of centuries. So I walk the reader through the evolution of the Indian Army, the Indian Air Force, and the Indian Navy before. And these are some wonderful photographs that I managed to gather and which are in the book. These are some Indian soldiers in World War I in France. Now this is very interesting. The photograph on the left, bottom left, has the first three Indian battalion commanders in Burma, in the Burma campaign. On the left, you have Lieutenant Colonel Thorat. Next to him is Bogi Sen. Both of them later on became lieutenant generals. And on the extreme right is General Thimaya, who later on became the chief of the Indian Army staff and a very illustrious and accomplished leader and very highly regarded. Now you would like to believe that the Indian Army was the first to get Indianized. But I think, you know, I myself was surprised to know that it was the Indian Air Force which got Indianized before the Indian Army. And this is a photograph once again in the Burma Theater of six Royal Indian Air Force Squadron Commanders, all Indians. They were all Hurricane and Spitfire Squadrons and from the left to right, all Indians. So the Indian Air Force Indianized much more rapidly than the Indian Army. And of course, the last to Indianize in terms of its manpower and in terms of its constitution was the Indian Navy. Now, after that, I take you through the 1947-48 war in Jammu and Kashmir plus the accession of Hyderabad and Junagad. I look at 1962 in its entirety. And I would like to believe that these four chapters that I've written on 1962 don't throw up anything new. But what they do is that they are pretty critical. They're pretty hard-hitting in terms of apportioning. I wouldn't say blame, but where mistakes were made and what we need to learn from them. But also, I throw in a word of caution to say that it was not all negatives in the 1962 war. There was much to learn from the 1962 war. There was much bravery. There was much courage. And those were the issues that also that need to be taken away by regiments and young readers. I then walk you through the transitory period in India's armed forces, which is the 1965 war. And there's one thing that I attempt to do in all my writing. And that is to retain respect for your adversary. And there hasn't been, I haven't attempted to engage in any kind of chest thumping in any one of our good moments or bad moments. There has been respect for your adversary because as a military man, I think that's the way it is. Because 1965, India was surprised, really surprised initially. But then it rallied well. And though many people call the 1965 war a stalemate, but actually if you look at it from a larger perspective, 1965 was a clear cut strategic victory for India because none of Ayub Khan's objectives were achieved. And that actually was a starting point for the accelerated buildup of capability that led to what happened in 1971. Okay, if you look at it, the book also has some very nice sketches by a retired Air Force officer. And I think I've done enough justice to our adversaries in battle. And of course then we come to the showpiece of India's recent military accomplishments. I wouldn't say not so recent, but the period that I have covered is the 1971 war and I've done six chapters on that. And I have attempted to do it a little differently with a lot more lessons that need to be relearned in today's context. And of course, needless to say, my book is dedicated to some of India's warriors past and present. On the top row are some of our heroes from both World War I and World War II. And in the bottom row are the Parambir Chakra winners from the 1971 war. And of course, this book would not have been possible with the tremendous mentoring support and the encouragement that I got from many of our veterans who have participated in many of the conflicts that I've written about. I was one of the last people to speak with Air Chief Marshal Mulgaukar who still remembered his strikes on Skardu in 1948, leading an eight aircraft mission. And he talks about going into the dive at 15,000 feet and pulling out after firing his rockets with the aircraft screaming and appearing as though it's going to crack up. Those were the kind of loads and that the aircrafts were operating on. And there is this, he showed me a photograph of the kind of gloves that they wore in 1947, 48, freezing even with those Shamoyil other gloves. Then of course, Admiral Arun Prakash was a source of inspiration all along. Admiral Natkarni, who was a former Chief of the Naval Staff, General Satish Nambiar, a veteran of both the 65 and the 71 war. In the center in the bottom row is General Pinto. He's called Wag Pinto. And he calls himself an infantry officer with a maneuver mindset. And at the extreme right is Air Marshal Patni, one of the Indian Air Force's most accomplished fighter pilots and a veteran of the 62, 65 and 71 war and who orchestrated all our air resources in the Kargil war. So I think with that, I will call it quits. And I hope many of you read the book and I would welcome feedback, whichever way it is. And now I think it's over to Jack. Thank you, Arjun, that was great. Thank you. Well, good afternoon, everyone. It's a real great pleasure to be back here at Carnegie. As always, thanks to Ashley. I appreciate the invitation, especially to discuss a topic near and dear to my heart, which is to say military history with an audience that I take it, at least I trust, takes as a given that grounding ourselves in India's military history is a fairly important task, particularly given the conflictual and now nuclear history with Pakistan, the relations with China, also nuclear and recently marked by another crisis or not so crisis or something over the past summer and the crucial role that India plays and could play in the broader Indian Ocean region, a role in which India's armed forces are destined to play a major role, be a major factor. And I would strongly endorse, sir, the comments you made at the very beginning regarding the understanding of our past in order to try and understand where we might be headed, where we're going and building intellectual capital, certainly a feature that any armed force has to pay attention to. At the start, I have to stress that although I am affiliated with the US National Defense University in the Miri South Asia Center, I speak in my own capacity and do not in any way reflect any US government entity, so please take my comments good or bad as coming for just from me. I thought I would divide my comments into three principal sections and some concluding thoughts. I hope to be that, be fairly brief and then leave a lot of space for discussion afterwards. And those three will be the very notion of writing military history, especially in South Asia, the virtues and a few small, perhaps less than virtuous points in the book and some themes that I think Air Vice Marshal Subramanian has brought out, some of which you've already heard, that I thought were particularly relevant and significant in his book. So I'll start with the challenges in writing military history, especially as far as post-independence. India is concerned, although I think largely these comments apply to almost any country or to all countries in South Asia. For many people, there's the challenge to write military history in the first place and to be taken seriously within academia at large. I think you've encountered some of that yourself, at least from the introductory comments in your book that I think you have had that similar experience. But the challenges in South Asia in general and Indian specific are even greater. The first and most important of these in my view is sources. There appears to be almost no access to military archives and other primary sources upon which military history is grounded for events that are even five decades or deeper into the past. The 62 war with China, the 65 war with Pakistan, et cetera. Shujin Nawaz, where he here I would highlight as being someone who's had some access to resources of that nature in Pakistan. But in India, it's extremely difficult. Archives, of course, have their own challenges and working with those can pose serious problems for any historian in any era. But when you can't access the archives at all, that is a particular, a particular problem. Much of this seems to stem from the lack of a clear declassification policy in the Indian government. A problem that another Subramanian, that is the late K Subramanian Subbu, the Doyan of the Indian strategic community used to lament frequently, loudly, and in his usual articulate fashion. But unfortunately, with little to no success, even with his gravitas in moving the system to some sort of a declassification process that would be regularized and grant access to materials from foreign India's independent India's past. So with no archival in material, the researcher is left with secondary sources and interviews. And we can be very grateful, I think, that Air Force Marshal Subramanian has tapped a number of retired officers, as he just mentioned, for their insights in his book. But interviews too, of course, are a challenge by themselves. Faculties of recollection, any of you trying to remember at least for me what I did a month ago, let alone what I did 20 years ago, is quite difficult. And of course, there's always the remembering with advantages problem. So memoirs, interviews and such have to be used with considerable caution. The second major problem in looking at military history in South Asia is what Wellington referred to as the other side of the hill. That is, we have very little access to Pakistani or Chinese primary materials to portray the enemies that India faced in its various wars. For the Pakistan side, as I say, barring Shuja Nawaz's work, crossed swords, 1947, 48 is almost unknown. And as both he and Christine Fair pointed out, he did an article on 47, 48 about three years ago that most Pakistanis had paid no attention to and knew very little about. And beyond kind of the heroics of minor tactical actions from Pakistan, there's very little regarding 1971. As far as China is concerned, as the Air Vice Marshal quite correctly points out to the opaqueness of contemporary Chinese military history, especially in English. Luckily, some Indian researchers from the United Services Institute have recently begun to mine some available Chinese literature, albeit very limited and now apparently not on the web as it once was. And they have published some of the results of their work in a book appropriately titled In English, A View from the Other Side of the Hill. So Wellington's words continue to live on. Lastly, in this area of challenges, let me mention maps. And I was really pleased to hear you mentioned maps. That was right up my street. It's perhaps an item of personal peak and pee, if I suppose, but maps to repeat your words are essential to military history. Sadly, in most of those works published in India and Pakistan, the maps are of limited value. They're usually imprecise, sometimes just sketches and almost always annotated not to scale. So as someone who was in the army and for whom scale mattered a lot, makes a big difference whether that target is 800 meters or 1200 meters. Not to scale is rather difficult to grasp. And they commonly do not include all the terrain features that are mentioned in the text. I cannot tell you how many times I've sought for remote hilltops that have such standout names like ring contour or obscure distributaries and canals and other water courses that no one outside of some district on the edge of Ludhiana might have ever heard of but are referred to in the text repeatedly and yet not shown on the map. Luckily, India's wars has some very clean maps, nice graphics of very high production value or quality in the book that allow the reader to at least from a strategic perspective follow the events that the Air Vice Marshal outlines. And with that, let me turn to some of the other virtues of this volume, some specifics on India's wars. In the first place, I agree with the comments on the dust jacket that the Air Vice Marshal here has done a remarkable job and is to be congratulated on writing a tidy and very readable single volume history of India's conflicts from 1947 to 71. One can debate his views and conclusions on specific issues, but that's what history is all about. And he has achieved something quite notable, I think, in providing a platform upon which to discuss and debate history as you outlined in your introductory remarks. The book's also notable for generally avoiding hagiography of the Indian military as an institution and demonstrating, as you pointed out, respect for the adversary under all circumstances. There are plenty of heroics and maybe a few too many exploits, but there are also strong doses of criticism and questioning consistent problems such as poor or absent intelligence being the one example of the problems that the Air Vice Marshal highlights throughout his text. Third, you provide a lot of real historical service, I think, by incorporating the interviews that you have done. Even as we exercise caution in considering these, they can indeed be invaluable. And they are regrettably, but inevitably, fading and vanishing resource. So just as we try to mine the, historians have tried to mine the last of the World War II generation, you have done a great service in providing some insights such as the very vivid recollection you just related to all of us who are interested in South Asia and India in particular. Fourth, the background provided in the book connects independent India's conflicts with its historical heritage, such as, in your words, the slowness in shaking off colonial attitudes and legacies. World War II is especially important in this regard, and I did not see his comments or his presentation before writing up my notes the earlier this week, but there's an interesting correspondence in what you just said in the things that I was writing as I thought about the book. Because World War II does provide an important foundation for the subsequent military history of the subcontinent and India in particular. I especially appreciate your treatment of the Royal Indian Air Force and the Royal Indian Navy prior to independence. Because even those of us who have been spent a lot of time looking at the British Indian Army and its vast contributions to this first and second World Wars, largest ever volunteer army in world history as far as we know, and certainly in World War II, we don't know much about the Royal Indian Air Force, the Royal Indian Navy, so that the capsule histories you provided there I think are quite useful. Finally, there are two specifics I'd like to mention and both of those relate to different parts of the book. In the first place, you talk about, as you mentioned in your presentation, Hyderabad in 1947 and Goa in 1961 and other actions that often get lost or neglected when people look at the military history of the subcontinent, but you've nicely placed those combat operations in the civil military interactions within India's military history. The other areas of particular note relate to 1971. First off, the chronology that you offer is very straightforward and historically useful as it locates the combat that took place in November. So before, if you will, formal hostilities. And secondly, your repeated references to the Indian Fourth Corps as it was at the time under General Sagat Singh. Though Sagat Singh was crucial to India's operational success in then East Pakistan in 1971, he and his corps have only recently, which is to say the last year or two really, begun to receive the attention they deserve and the significance they played for the part they played in that conflict. And I'll return to that in a moment. In addition to the books, many virtues, of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention a few things that I thought at least might have enhanced this otherwise valuable work. In the first, I think we would have benefited from more of an institutional examination of the development of India's armed forces during this period. Force structure, training in doctrine, incorporation of technology, that is some of the things, I know you were a flyer during Brastax. Some of the things that Sundarji was trying to do in 1986, 87 in this massive exercise, Brastax, to change the nature of the Indian military. Second, I personally value what you might call strategic order of battle. Now, order of battle is very technical. For those of you who are not military or military historian types, that is to say how many divisions, how many brigades in division, how many men in a brigade, et cetera, et cetera. Things that sound like they're really mundane and probably not too important. However, I would argue that this is a crucial factor when you're looking at the deployment or disposition of national resources if you look at it in those kind of terms. Which is to say when India was fighting Pakistan in 65 and 71, what forces were left on the China border? When it was fighting China in 62, what forces were still in Kashmir or still in the Pakistan border? Just like you look at the United States in World War II and think about where did we deploy forces? Where was the priority? Where did the naval forces go? Our ground forces, air forces, the same applies to India. So what priority, what sense of threat was there from China in 71? How was that sense of threat reflected in actual deployment of assets and resources? So I think that it would be very useful. And finally, I worry that many in India missed the enduring significance of 1971 for their co-inhabitants of the subcontinent across the border in Pakistan, especially in the Pakistani armed forces. One does not have to accept, by any means, the content of the Pakistani view to recognize its lingering preeminence in the worldview as seen from Raul Pindi. This is one of the areas to me where India and Pakistan do not understand each other, but where a greater historical consciousness might bridge some of the perceptual gaps or at least make clear that there is a perceptual gap to think about. But these are kind of minor quibbles in an otherwise very helpful tone. Tone in some of these may have been difficult for you to address at the time anyway as a serving officer. Let me, and besides, there's always page constraints, right? The editor's always saying, well, that's nice, but you cut it by 100,000 once. Let me conclude with three themes that I found very noteworthy in this book. The first of these is your stress on the importance of secularism, democracy, and the rich multi-ethnic society in India. And one cannot agree more. This is perhaps an especially useful reminder of the virtues of tolerance and inclusivity as core values when those virtues seem to be under threat from what you termed a diminished liberal discourse in India. Second, and a more specifically military context, is your emphasis on the importance of joint operations. And you certainly refer to that as did Ashley in his opening comments. That is, the Army, Navy, and Air Force working together as a team rather than training, planning, or fighting as separate entities that who just happened to occupy the same theater of operations. You cite a lot of instances, but to me, illustrating the absence of effective joint operations in the first 30 years of independence is truly valuable. And in particular, highlighting that even the instances of clear success, and those do exist, there are a number of them, have been more a result of cooperative personalities rather than institutionalized processes. That is to say, for those of you who don't deal with this sort of thing, that in situation X, general Y happen to know Air Marshal Zed from their time as course mates in some program or another. And therefore, he could call up Dickie and say, oh, we really need to cooperate on this, and why don't I do this? I'll send an officer over, great. We'll have the flight ready, et cetera, and it works. But it's because X knew Y, and not necessarily because there was an institutionalized process to force those things to happen on a routine basis. So I'd be very interested to see where you think that stands in India today. You also are very helpful in reminding that this lacuna in joint operations, at least as I read the book, relates to what you called conservative mindsets and an excess of caution in many cases. What one point you call the static, attritionist, and defensive attitudes. And third and last, I think this book is to be commended for stressing the importance of understanding and learning from our histories, again, as you've related in your opening remarks. Whether this is in the form of tactical operational matters, such as the study of army and air force collaboration under Saga Singh in 71, see I said I'd come back to it as you recommend. Or in larger issues of civil military relations and peace and war. It's difficult to see how any country in its armed forces can adapt to changing circumstances while remaining true to core beliefs if we do not have a firm grounding in our heritage with all of its good, bad, ugly dimensions. So with the firm conviction that it's important for us to ground ourselves in India's military past, if we wanna understand challenges and opportunities for India's future, let me conclude with thanks to you for the book and for meeting you and Ashley for the opportunity to offer a few comments. Thanks very much. Thank you. Thank you, Jack. Thank you, Jack. But let me start by thanking both of you again for really a presentation that I thought was really gripping. And Arjun, thank you for leaving the readers with the job of actually reading the book, which I think is great because you wanna resist the temptation of telling them everything. I have three broad sets of issues that I wanna put on the table and sort of get your thoughts on before we engage the floor. Both of you made the argument that doing military history in India is a risky business. It's not done, and when it's done, it's sort of done haphazardly and incompletely. The question that I have is, so, to the degree that it is done, what is the impact of this military history on the armed services and on policy makers? Where does military history get done in India outside the academy? And are there sort of channels in which this military history gets either reproduced or sort of socialized within the military? And how effective is that process? Is there a process whereby the services can sort of learn from their own limitations, their failings, and so on and so forth? And I asked this particularly because both of you made the point that the business of writing this history is not always encouraged, it's not always as effective as it should be. And the second half has to do with policy makers because at the end of the day, I think one of the things that comes through from your book is if you have to understand India and its wars, you have to understand it all the way from the highest levels of political decision-making to what the guy in the foxhole does. So as you sort of think back at least of this history from 47 to 71, do you have the sense that policy makers when confronted with the decisions they had to make, that their decision-making was shaped in any way by some understanding of the past? And if so, how? So if we could sort of just get a conversation started on those two questions to start, I think that would be, you know, where do I go back to? I can think of 47, I can think of 47, 48. Now this whole dilemma, whether to rush troops to Srinagar in October or not, the delay mainly took place because of Nehru's preoccupation with what was going on in the rest of the country, that is the riots and the partition problems. It was also influenced by his general initial reluctance to use force and to use the military. But then reason dawned on him a little too late. But still he managed to save Srinagar. So there was an understanding that he would need to employ force, but that understanding came in late. Similarly, the understanding to use the Indian military to coerce the Nizam of Hyderabad to secede, to secede to the Indian Union. Now I can't think why he waited so long till the Razakars they managed to engage in so much of widespread looting and killing. And then when things were going awfully bad, he stepped in. So there was this diffidence and reluctance to use force, primarily because what I said in my opening remarks that the military was seen as a forgettable legacy of our colonial past. And if there is a way of doing things without using the military, let's try that before we use the military. And many times by then it became late and actually was detrimental to India's position. Let's look at Goa. Goa, why did Nehru have to wait for 14 years before sending in the army? It's because the Congress didn't have much of a stake in Goa. And that Goa was a blip on the horizon. And that what happens to Goa, whom it is under, doesn't really make sense to the overall Indian state. I'm sure the army could have been sent into Goa much earlier. But then we waited, waited, waited till it was a little too late. And then when Krishnamayan wanted re-election in Mumbai, that's when they decided, okay, let's send in the military to evict the Portuguese from there. So there was a certain amount of diffidence. There was a certain reluctance to use force. Whether it was a lack of understanding, I'm not so sure. Because Nehru was widely read. He was a widely read person. So I'm sure he understood the military very well. So I think it was a conscious decision to be seen as a very, very liberal and a very, very restrained and responsible leader that he didn't use force. Maybe, Jack, maybe you'd like to add on to this perception of did they understand the use of force or the military? I had actually a different angle. But I think they're, although it's somewhat dated, if we look at how the Indian military, if you go back to the late 80s, early 90s, and look at the chief of defense staff discussion, debate in India. And as many of you know, there is no chief of defense staff. There is a, one of the three service chiefs serves temporarily as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. So there's no chief of defense staff that's been under debate for 30 years. If you look at the debate at that time, the people who argued against having a chief of defense staff would routinely say, oh, but look at 71. Everything went so well. We had a great victory, big triumph. And we didn't have any chief of defense staff. Who needs that? Not necessary. We'll make it happen. So I think this was a constant argument against this notion of whether there was a chief of defense staff necessary or not. 62 and Cargill. There is a steady debate, and you address this in the 62 situation, on the role of the Indian Air Force. The Air Force let us down. No, we didn't. We did everything we were supposed to do. We don't have a sense of history and can't go back and look at the decision-making and would it have made a difference or not, which you take on that topic head on, which many people don't. Then how can you even think about whether it makes sense to use the Air Force in X situation or Y situation? So I think those are two cases where the role of history and how it's socialized and our danger, of course, is that you socialize the history in a mythological kind of way. And here's something that relates more to the use in policy, perhaps, and that's the absence of activity. And that the Indian Navy has generally played a secondary role in the conflicts thus far and understandably so given the way things were conducted at the time and the kinds of threats and operations that were feasible. But if that was the case in the past, then people might look to the future and say, well, look, you know, why do we need an enhanced Navy? And yet, if you look at India's position in the world and where it might want to be in the future, one would think that investment in the Navy makes a lot of sense. But if you look at the history, you have to kind of change your thinking to get to a place where investment in the Navy becomes a higher priority. Let me ask you the other half of the question, which is, okay, so it appears that policy makers sort of encounters with military history are accidental and episodic. What about the armed services themselves? How much of their own thinking is shaped by their understanding of their own history? And to the degree that it is, in institutional terms, what are the mechanisms not through which these understandings are sort of reflected? Most of the reflections or most of the understanding of military history is experiential and word-of-mouth hand-me-downs. And that is something that has adversely impacted our understanding of history and our understanding of learning from the lessons of the past. You know, like, for example, when we were in Vietnam, we saw how closely the Battle of Dien Bien Phu is even today studied in their war colleges. But you know, the 1971 campaign itself is not studied very widely in our war colleges. It is studied, but episodically. And therefore, I believe that not enough is done in our war colleges to understand our own past and to ensure that we don't repeat our mistakes. So there is definitely room for a lot of improvement to take place. There is definitely a room for departments of military history to be opened up in our war colleges. There is definitely space for civilian researchers, for civilian faculty members to be there on a permanent basis who would then have the time to go in and understand the nitty gritties. You know, what happens now is that I am a faculty member at the Defense Services Staff College or the war college. I am interested in military history, so I delve deep into a particular campaign or a particular set of battles. I do my bit in two years and it's time for me to move off to an operational assignment. There's nobody to take over from me and do it with the same kind of commitment or passion that I have. That can be done if you have something institutional, if you have more civilian faculty members, if you have more of military history being taught at some of our flagship universities, civilian universities itself. I can't understand why the Jawaharlal Nehru University or some of our larger universities don't have a department of military history. But yes, they have a department of strategic studies. They want to think more about the future. They're not really interested in the past. So this reconciliation of the past with the future actually needs to be bridged a little bit within the Indian academic system itself. You would know better than me, sir, but I wonder if sometimes there's not a continuing residual reverence for the Second World War. And in particular, the sort of what I have called in the past, maybe this is now diminished, but the sort of Monty and the Desert Syndrome. There we were in the 4th Indian Division and we did these things and that. That in fact on the Pakistan side where there's a similar educational background, one of the commentators who in criticizing the Pakistan Army will often refer to them as our Rammels and Guderians. Now that's not to say there's not a lot to learn and it's important to understand things in the Second World War, but a lot of time has transpired also since then and there might be other things to be incorporated that has less importance now here in the first quarter of the 21st century than it might have done 20, 30 years ago. No, I think I couldn't agree with you more. For example, Burma is still discussed more than probably the Bangladesh campaign. Maybe General Slim, Field Marshal Slim is discussed more than Sagar Singh or Manik Shah or Sundarji. So yes, there is a residual impact of our colonial past and I think that's something that will gradually fade away. You know, it's directly related to the archival availability. If more is available about Sundarji, about Thimaya, about Sagar Singh, people will read and understand them better, but if more is still available about Slim, Field Marshal Slim or Montgomery, they will read Montgomery and they will understand Montgomery. It's as simple as that. And there's almost a selection bias in the process, right? I mean, if you have more material on X, that by definition comes to dominate the understanding and then hopefully, listen. I wanna ask you a question about strategic diffidence because you mentioned that in the briefing and it's also touched on in the book. When most people talk about strategic diffidence in the Indian context, they are trying to reconcile the public commitment to an idealistic foreign policy with the harsh reality that India has used for us, right? And then people sort of tie themselves up and not trying to explain away whether India is as genuinely idealistic as advertised. The question that I found very interesting in reading your book was whether strategic diffidence actually has operational effects. That is to what degree does this sort of national self-image of diffidence shapes first the way the military thinks about offensive operations and to the guidance to the degree that there is guidance and that's a whole different discussion actually that I would like your thoughts on. To what degree is there actual guidance from civilian policy makers in the context of operational planning? So two questions. Does strategic diffidence affect military activities at the operational level? And two, does do policy makers actually shape choices that the military makes with respect to say war plans or the way forces are committed because there is this perception or there's a self-image of diffidence? No, the answer to your first question is yes, it does. Strategic diffidence at the political level percolates down to the operational level. Much to the dismay of operational commanders. But then ultimately the armed forces are a, you know as Klausowitz says war is nothing but an extension of politics. So if politics dictates that war needs to be waged in a particular manner, war will be waged in that manner. And there are a number of instances in all the battles that I've or all the campaigns that I've written about that there has, that either a diffident policy or no policy at all has had an impact on operational planning. And it's only when you have operational commanders who are willing to take risks and who are straining to break free from this, you know, from these limitations that something has happened. Sagat Singh is one of those guys who did it in 1971. You know when Sagat Singh wanted to cross the Meghna river and do that Haliban operation of his, there wasn't immediate acceptance or permission from the army commander. And then he tells the army commander, he says, look, you've given me this aim, I'm willing to give you aim plus. Come on, dammit, let me cross the river. And that's when Sagat Singh ensured that those helicopters crossed and the Haliban operation was executed. So the answer to your first question is yes, it does have an impact. For example, another classic example. This whole issue of air power in Kargil, coming in as late as it did, was because of a broader lack of understanding of what air power can do and what it cannot do. There was no requirement for a political directive to be issued to use air power inside your own territory. If you have an incursion in your own territory, you will use all, you ought to use all military means available at your disposal to ensure that those intruders are addicted. So I for one, even today, can't imagine as to why one needed to go back to the political establishment to say that, look, can we use air power? No, the enemy is in your territory, you use whatever means you have to evict him. So there is a certain amount of percolatory effect of policy making diffidence in military strategy and in operational processes. Yeah. I think it's perhaps not strategic diffidence, but the overall sense of caution and the way the narrative has been built over India's independent period that you cannot lose a single inch of territory is perhaps not, doesn't fall in the category of strategic diffidence, but does fall in the category of a political expectation, a common societal expectation that has a direct impact on military operations. Because if you can't lose a single inch of territory, then every time you do, you have to strain every sinew to regain it and you're going to be limited in the forces you can employ offensively because you're dedicating everybody to hold on to this or that nulla and this or that headworks and every village and town on the border. I just wanted to go back to this issue of policy guidelines and let me relate it to my book. You know, from 2012 to 2014, when I was researching for the book, everybody whom I met said, like hell you'll be able to publish this book because you're just not going to get permission to publish this book. I'm actually surprised you did that. Yeah. And then, and I must, you know, I'm not carrying a brief for the current government, but I must say that in 2014, when Mr. Jetley was the defense minister, and I read a whole lot of articles in the newspaper as to how the current government was going to support the study of military history and bring out campaign descriptions and books on that, that gave me heart. Now I didn't, that didn't directly rub off on my book but the very fact that a serving officer was able to publish this book itself speaks volumes for the current government's desire to change the way in which it looks at the armed forces, the way it looks at force as a tool of statecraft. And going further, let me just translate that same transition which I mentioned in my presentation of diffidence to a certain amount of confidence is the manner in which the recent strikes were carried out, both on the west and a few of them on the east. The strikes meaning? The surgical strikes, yes. And even whatever action, whatever you call it, you know, on the border with Myanmar against the NSCNK, there was no diffidence, there was no, you know, there was no apology. It was just something that had to be done to send a message which means to say that there is a willingness to understand this particular tool which I think is very, very important a lot more. And I must also again get a little personal. Both Mr. Parikar and Mr. Arun Jaitley have read my book page to page and they have been gracious enough to come back to me and give me a feedback saying that we enjoyed reading your book. And so I do believe that there is a greater understanding and whatever be the trajectory of what's going on in Jammu and Kashmir. But I think that if there is a clear policy guideline that has been issued to the Indian Army in Jammu and Kashmir today, we're seeing the results. The number of high profile, the number of high profile Hisbul or Lashkar militants who are being taken out on a daily or weekly basis is indicative that there is a lot more focus and a lot more firmness when it comes to that particular issue. So there is, again here, this is the flip side of where policy leads to action. It's happening. Well, I wanna open this to the floor, so just wait for a microphone to come around and sort of identify yourself and keep your questions as brief and pointed as possible. So give our speakers a chance to answer. Hi, my name's Max and I'm a student at the Elliott School. I'm curious what your view is with how you addressed recently mentioning Jammu and Kashmir, what you could see happening in the near future with that. A lot of people view it as a stalemate where nothing will really transgress, that the status quo will just continue, but that obviously won't work. As you just mentioned, there are Indian soldiers dying weekly, it seems. So what you feel in terms of military strategy could be done in that region in order to change the situation for better or for worse on both the Indian and the Pakistani side. And this is focused on Jammu and Kashmir specifically, right? Yeah, so you want to go one by one? Yeah, sure. You know, Jammu and Kashmir is a long drawn and protracted conflict and I think it's still going to be a long haul, but I think the key issue at this particular moment is to ensure that the levels of violence, the levels of, you know, the levels of cross-border infiltration has to be plugged. For any kind of normalcy to start coming back into the valley. And it's a cyclical process. It's happened two or three times in the past that there has been concerted action. The number of cross-border infiltrations have come down. The platform has been set for normalcy to return and then something happens and then there is a cyclical. So the cyclical process goes on and I think it's going to take some time before some kind of normalcy comes, but I do see some light, you know, in the near future on that issue. Back, you want to find them? No, nothing really. Otherwise, man. Yes, sir. Mark Bucknham from the National War College. Good to see you again, sir. My question is, it's a little bit off the topic of the book, but I'm sure you've probably thought about this. With the advent of nuclear weapons, which sort of is the period following your book, how does that change things? What is the trajectory going forward in terms of thinking about how to take the lessons of the past from the period that you looked at and apply them in a new era with nuclear weapons? Oh, that's a tough one, Mark, because I'm not much of a nuclear strategy man, but I'd only like to say that I think the levels of deterrence is playing up reasonably well in the subcontinent, not withstanding talk about the tactical nuclear weapons and whether there is a threshold. Will India call Pakistan's bluff in terms of a tactical nuclear weapon? What is the context of minimum credible deterrence? Whom is it minimum vis-a-vis? Whom is it credible vis-a-vis? So I think there is reasonable amount of stability in the subcontinent as far as nuclear deterrence is concerned, so I don't share the same kind of alarm which exists in the West about that place being a nuclear tinderbox. I think both the Pakistani and the Indian establishment understand nuclear warfighting pretty well, and I think deterrence is in place. I wouldn't be too alarmed with the nuclear situation in South Asia. Hey, Rice Marshall, I just want to thank you for a wonderful presentation. My name is Amitahucha. I am from I teach at UC Santa Barbara. I have a couple of questions for you. My first question goes back to the initial comments on India's use or lack of use of military statecraft. Post-economic reforms, India has acquired a capacity today to rely on economic statecraft. And if one sees how India is going about its foreign policy, even it's in its immediate neighborhood, somewhere the military statecraft has taken a backseat. And here is the question that I have. If you look at emergent powers or countries that have wanted to become great powers, they have converted their economic power into military power. And they've done that because of a defense sector. We don't have that in India. And most of the weaponry is still imported. Do you see in the near future, India's military statecraft keeping up with its economic statecraft? My second very quick question is about the last comment that you made about India's more confident stance on declaring openly or talking openly about their surgical strikes. In the past, the rationale given was that surgical strikes were carried out, but they were not talked about because you didn't know when the next terrorist attack was going to happen. And you didn't want to raise expectations given the neighborhood you were in and given the prevalence of nuclear weapons. Now as we've begun to talk openly about surgical strikes, when the next Mumbai happens, if it happens, won't there be political expectations which the leaders are going to find difficult to handle? Okay, let me look at your first question and which is to say that will India's economic heft be accompanied by an equally accelerated buildup of military capability, right? Okay, I think that's already, and will it also translate into a more robust defense, indigenous defense production capability? I think that's already happening. If you look at the next perspective plan of all the three services, you will find that the capability buildup is in place. Rather than numbers, it's capability that India is looking at, whether it is the expansion of maritime capability, whether it is stuff like artillery being beefing up the Indian Army, or whether it is the acquisition of the MMRCA and other force multipliers in the Indian Air Force? Yes, certainly. Now, you know, very many times, even India's finance minister has said that we would like to allocate more money for defense. But until, but you see, there are still too many mouths to feed. And therefore, if you look at India's defense budget, I think it's again, it conforms to its restrained and responsible, you know, responsible status. And it gels well with Prime Minister Modi's vision of economic development first, and everything else concurrently will catch up. So the answer to this is yes, they will be. The second issue is, if you could, yeah, surgical strikes. You know, expectations, the argument that not coming openly about the surgical strikes earlier and because they would lead to a greater number of terrorist attacks doesn't actually hold water. Because the kind of terrorist attacks and the kind of networks that are now available has no respect for these kind of pronouncement, government pronouncements. If there has to be a strike and if a strike will have to be planned, you could, government states, nation states could do anything they want. But the possibility always remains. So I don't think the Indian government will find itself expectations from the public. Anything unusually difficult to handle should there be another terrorist attack. They would handle it in the manner in which they've handled whatever has happened in the recent past. So I don't think it's that big an issue of government having to grapple with that expectation of the people. No, I don't think so. I don't think that's an issue. Good evening, AVM Subramaniam. Thank you for a great talk. I'm Mini and I'm from the elite school. So my question is with the recent standoff that we had at Doklam with China and them putting pressure on us in Bhutan and the Chinese now moving into Humbar Dota and having the naval base there, very soon to have one at Guadar as well. So are the Indian armed forces geared up for an ever rising or rapidly rising China and how should our policy be with regards to that? With regards to whether the Indian armed forces are ready with their capability, I think with whatever we have, I think they're ready. And the reason why I say that is because you look at the trajectory of events over Doklam. Doklam was a long face off and then there was a very smooth pullback on both sides. That smooth pullback would not have taken place had there not been a mutual recognition of capability. Probably the standoff would have continued for a little longer. Now both... So that's your question that I don't think another 1962 will be repeated. If you recollect in 1967, but at the same time, you've got to look at this whole context of the India-China face offs that take place repeatedly. That since 1967, not a single bullet has been fired across the line of actual control. It's been what? Now, it's been 50 years. So that talks a great deal about deterrent or deterrents measures being fully in place along the line of actual control. It's just a question of when will that next major step be taken to resolve the boundary issue. But otherwise, deterrence is in place. I don't think one need to think I don't think one need to be worried about a large scale, even a high intensity, localized conflict taking place. The maximum I would anticipate, if at all something has to take place, are small skirmishes and encounters that constantly take place. But otherwise, I think deterrence is in place along the line of actual control. Gentlemen, at the end, please. Oh, all right. Young lady here, please. Midway. Hello. My name is Liv Dallin. I'm with the Stinson Center, a South Asia program. You spoke about the status of jointmanship. I was wondering if you could speak to how that project is going in your current opinion and whether the sort of subtle recognition of the Cold Start Doctrine has anything to do with this project of jointmanship. Firstly, I think it's been often said in the past few years that let's not read too much into this Cold Start Doctrine. You see, you've got to look at the Cold Start Doctrine from the context of India's Contourment Culture. India's Contourment Culture is a legacy of our colonial past which says that you locate all your forces in depth, wherein they have a peaceful and a comfortable time with their families. And when conflict is imminent, it pulls them up slowly into the conflict zone. So all what the Cold Start Doctrine or the proactive stance that the Indian Armed Forces have been talking about is just to say that, look, we just want our forces to be able to react a little quicker in tune with established military norms across the world. That's it. It's not any, you know, it's not any muscle flexing doctrine vis-à-vis Pakistan. Absolutely not. It's just a proactive method of being able to get your combat forces into the combat zone in acceptable timeframes. That's it. And your first part of the question was... How does that kind of join us? Okay, jointmanship. Yes, a proactive strategy contributes significantly to jointmanship because a proactive strategy means that you need to orchestrate your air, land and naval assets to be able to move together into the operational area and be able to operate simultaneously and synergistically. So in that context, jointmanship is up and is alive and kicking. But whether it is optimal or not is a question that we ask every day. Can we do it better? Of course we can do it better. Why do we need to do it better? Because we need to ensure that 2 plus 2 is not 4, but it becomes 5 or 6. That's putting it very, very simply. Why do we need to do it? Because military assets are expensive and if we want to ensure that capability is orchestrated and focused in the right direction, it needs to be more joined. So does that... Are you happy with that? Okay. Chiefs of staff get together, their subordinates get together and they plan operations for maximum synergy. But when you think of jointness, the way we think of it in the U.S. is that there are institutional mechanisms that make certain that everything from acquisition to training to war plans to execution all is synchronized. Now despite all this, we often aren't as joint as we would like to be. But in the Indian case, if I were to sort of apply the test of jointness and try to suss jointness out, where would I be looking for proof that this jointness is actually occurring? You know, you don't have to go further than the kind of assignment that I've done a couple of years ago. You know, contrary to widespread belief that jointmanship in the Indian Armed Forces only takes place at the chief of staff committee level is not entirely correct. You see, every operational command, every operational army command in India has an organization called the Advanced Headquarters located alongside the Army Command. And the Advanced Headquarters is commanded by a two-star Air Force officer. So at the Army Command level and at the core level, you have something which is known as a tactical air center which is commanded by a group captain. So if there are any plans that need to be sifted and need to be discussed further at an operational level, they are discussed at the Army Command level wherein you have a two-star Air Force officer, generally a fighter pilot or a helicopter pilot who is there to advise the Army Commander on how best he can orchestrate air resources within his area of operation. And which means to say that Army Commander knows exactly which squadrons are there in his area of responsibility, what he can call upon, what is the kind of resource he can get from D1 to say D10 or D12, those kind of things. So joint planning. In the years gone by, we used to laugh and say that oh, we don't have any joint planning, we have plans that are joined together. Over the years, we've developed a system of joint planning wherein from the word go, the Air Force is actually dovetailed into Army plans. So, you know, there is this, there is a fallacy to say that there is no jointmanship in India as Armed Forces, it is merely talk. But no, I'm afraid it's not that way. Jointmanship is strong, synergy may need to improve. And at the higher levels, maybe turf needs to be shed a little bit. And like in all Armed Forces, whether it's in the United States, whether it was in the UK, turf is always a strong issue. And it's a work in progress. But please don't go away with the impression that there is no jointmanship in India as Armed Forces. It very much exists at the strategic level, at the operational level, and at the tactical level. It can be done better, of course. Seema Sirui, I'm a columnist with the Economic Times. I wanted to ask you about civil-military relations. You know, at the societal level, we all admire the Armed Forces a lot. But it seems to me that at the political level, the distance has been maintained very harshly to the point where some politicians even seem to have contempt for the uniformed officers. And that sometimes hampers in, you know, changing things or building better policies. What's your view? No, no, no. Seema, I know you've written extensively on this and that was a wonderful piece a few weeks ago on this. And I was just talking about your piece with Ashley a couple of hours ago. Now, that's a tough question, particularly for somebody who's just shed his uniform one month ago. But I think, you know, I would say that the answer to your question is both yes and no. At a particular level, there is a lack of understanding, but at another level, there is a desire to know more. And I think it is individuals, you know, systemically, we have a problem. But when it comes to individuals, yes, there are many, many people who do understand India's Armed Forces and so I think I will leave it at that. I hope you understand. Hello, my name is Utsav and I'm a political observer. Regarding Pakistan and Indian Army and Air Forces responses, so over the decades it's been observed and a lot of people have commented on it that the Pakistani Armed Forces have been progressively radicalizing and Islamizing. And it is something that is accepted by a lot of people. So how do you think that affects their postures at the operational and the tactical level and how do you see Indian forces responding? Good evening, Puneet Kundal, minister from the Embassy of India in Washington, but here purely in my personal capacity because I'm a great fan of Mr. Telles and I have your book which I'm here to start reading. I just wanted to inquire whether in your book you've looked at the various weapon systems and the weaponries and the sources thereof that we have been using in our various wars from 1948 right up till today. And whether you recommend, of course you would, indigenization and to what level of indigenization would you recommend in keeping the future of India's conflict scenario in perspective. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Raj, in the stand times, from your remarks I gathered you were worried about a lack of institutional memory in the armed forces and at the journalists, of course, I would like forces to open up more but could you give us an example of where Indian armed forces suffered a setback because of this lack of institutional memory and this anecdotal... Oh yes, certainly. You see, as far back as 1947-48 the Indian armed forces realized the importance of infrastructure creation in Ladakh as a means to induct your forces quickly into the theater. If you recollect, that road was built by the Madrasapas Zozila Pass and then it was the lack of infrastructure that completely isolated our pickets that were deployed during the forward policy in 1962. We realized and you look at you look at the kind of Philip that has been given to infrastructure in the Northeast area and in Ladakh it's just in the last couple of decades that it has accelerated. Now if that is not a neglect of institutional memory then you know what is then the other lack of institutional memory is that in and where institutional memory helped in resolving an operational situation. You see Harbakh Singh, left-hand general Harbakh Singh who was the army commander of western army command in the 1965 war was a battalion commander in 1947-48. He commanded a battalion in the Tithwal region in Kashmir and he realized that that was what Pakistan is going to repeat in 1985. He was ready and it was not because of any institutional memory but it was because of personal experience and an experiential thing. So wherever experience has been extracted and exploited it has resulted in operational successes. Wherever institutional memory has faded it has resulted in operational failures. So are you are you getting the connect with Pakistan? Yeah. So that is one. Answering your question about where do you see talking about weapon systems I didn't mention to this audience is that I am well into writing my sequel for this particular book and in my sequel one whole section is on how Indian military capability has developed from 1972 to current times. And one of the issues that I would be sort of dwelling on is the slow pace of indigenization and our over reliance on western equipment or Russian equipment for that matter initially and then Russian and then western equipment and I do believe that it has to be as long as we continue to face the kind of threats that we do today across the spectrum. Our build up of capability has to comprise both accelerated indigenous development and selective acquisition of high technology from particularly the whether it is from the Soviet Union or from Russia or whether it is from the United States or whether it is from Europe but it has to be a selective strategy. I don't think this I don't think any one strategy in isolation is going to help us develop capability over the next couple of decades. Beyond that well I would not like to you know prognosticate but I think beyond that maybe what you are saying would eventually emerge but for now for the next couple of decades I think it has to be a balance if you want capability not to suffer and yes you know I am doing a long a very long chapter very large section in my sequel on the proxy war and I think I think the radicalization of the Pakistani army has had a very telling effect on the nature of the proxy war the brutality and the focus with which some of the operations are carried out I think is a direct result of the rapid radicalization of the Pakistani army and that directly results in a certain amount of motivational issues creeping into the manner in which training of the jihadis is carried out so I think it has a direct impact and it is of concern okay okay you know earlier on what used to happen was that when outfits like the Hezboil Mujahidin in the late 90's were taken across and trained and sent back they were not sent back with the same kind of motivation and zeal in order to cause damage and to cause attrition and over the years many will say that this escalation or this escalation of violence, brutality was caused because of the introduction of the Afghan jihadis in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion but I would say it was a combination of both it was both the jihadis from Afghanistan what the Indian army calls FTs the foreign terrorists and the rapid radicalization of the Pakistani army that has resulted in the intensity and the brutality of attacks in Jammu and Kashmir increasing significantly and it is a cause of concern yes you know but that has to be seen that has to be seen in isolation that has to be seen in isolation because it was a it was a fear that a significant portion of your country is gradually slipping away from your hands and that unless drastic measures are instituted things will completely go out of hand and that resulted in a mass in mass killings in Bangladesh but I don't think they were influenced by any ideological by any ideological driver but my contention is that the current situation or the situation over the last few years in Jammu and Kashmir has sort of taken an extremely virulent ideological flavor that's the difference between Bangladesh you know like for example you will say mass killings mass killings can be attributed to numerous drivers you know you had the mass killings in Rwanda those were ethnic you had similarly the mass killings in Kosovo those were also ethnic in nature here you had you had the fear of a state being broken up but this is systematic extremism yes