Military History

The paper makes a case for the need for a renaissance of military history, and modern war studies in India. There is a wide gap in knowledge base of contemporary military history and war studies in India compared to advances made at global level.

• P. K. Gautam
• 2011
• IDSA Occasional Papers

This work establishes the need for relevance of Kautilya's Arthasastra to contemporary security studies. The paper provides an overview and an update of various academic and scholarly controversies on its age and authorship, and also on the misperceptions which abound on Kautilya himself.

• P. K. Gautam
• 2013
• Monograph

The Indian Army is at the cusp of a huge change. It has to concurrently manage the matter of Women Officers as seamlessly as possible. Success in this venture is predicated squarely on the mindsets of the seniors in charge and the WO community

• Alok Deb
• February 19, 2020
• IDSA Comments

This article posits that military science has been one of the most neglected subjects in Indian history in practice and in scholarship. Greater, popular scholarly focus tends to be mostly on subjects dealing with grand strategy and with it, abstract armchair theorising. While grand strategy is necessary at the political–military level, it is not sufficient as victory or defeat also depends on the capacity of the armed forces to achieve the desired results during the conduct of war.

• P. K. Gautam
• January-March 2018
• Journal of Defence Studies

In this first of two volumes, Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramaniam offers excellent and concise histories of India’s wars and military operations, starting with the rescue and partial liberation of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947-48 from depredating Pakistani irregulars and ending with the 1971 war for the liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistan’s genocidal rule. Based on published material available, and supplementing it with interviews, Subramaniam’s India’s Wars provides a layered perspective on the strategic, operational and tactical aspects of these wars and operations.

• S. Kalyanaraman
• July 2017
• Journal of Defence Studies

We recommend that the histories of the 1965 and 1971 wars be revised, updated and reprinted as proper official versions with the correct title and logo.

• P. K. Gautam , Rana T.S. Chhina
• October 16, 2015
• IDSA Comments

Civil society in general and the strategic community in particular must demand the release of documents pertaining to India’s security.

• Satish Nambiar
• July 06, 2011
• IDSA Comments