Gunners Shot

The collapse of the ANA, the hasty withdrawal of USA and the rapid gains of Taliban in Afghanistan have major lessons for military and political leadership. ANA lost it completely due to poor motivation and training.  Its leadership was too political, corrupt, and unprofessional. Lesson: Nations cannot afford poorly trained and unprofessional Armed Forces dabbling in politics even if well equipped. The USA is facing yet another major international embarrassment.  Its political and military leadership were on the same page at combat level but on vastly different pages at political level. USA is facing a political defeat rather than a military one. The criss-crossed lines between successive White House administrations, State Department, Pentagon, and CIA, led to gross inaccurate assessment  about the enemy and ground situation. USA has been consistently blind to the fact that Pakistan was its real enemy while it was fighting the Taliban. Lesson:  lack of realistic and balanced politico m

Also Published @  https://thedailyguardian.com/disruption-in-military-affairs/   and @  https://cenjows.in/article-detail?id=388 Three months back I was approached to speak at the Army War College, Mhow, during the Doctrine  and Strategy Seminar on Multi Domain Operations. In this time many things happened. I corelated the topic with the current international military and strategic events. I realised that the actual scope was wider since the concept is evolving. I eventually spoke  up  on ‘Disruption in Military Affairs’ at the seminar. There was a lot  of resonance. I outlined the issue in my last article on  Undissuasive Leadership and Undeterred China .  Thereafter I  discussed this concept with some real military intellectuals. They found it interesting.  Hence I am attempting to give shape to the concept of Disruption in Military Affairs. That is the future and we might as well start seriously thinking about it.                                            Military Affairs have been

Also published @  https://thedailyguardian.com/dealing-with-dragon-effectively/  and  @  https://cenjows.in/article-detail?id=387 This article mirrors historical cracks which promise to be repeating themselves in future. It is not directed at any individual, appointment or political party.    Undissuasive   In 1971 India was a poor country with strong Armed Forces. It halved Pakistan, created  Bangladesh and cocked a snook at USA. Seventh Fleet threatening to intervene in Pakistan’s favour was taken in stride. In 2020 India is a rich country. Despite having large, internationally respected, well trained and battle hardened Armed Forces our territorial integrity is at stake. Our ill equipped forces have not been able to dissuade either China from unilaterally altering status quo at the LAC or Pakistan from interfering in our internal affairs with impunity for decades. Our dissuasive ability is obviously low. Leveraging China out entails great cost and risk in case dialogue fails. This s

Demand for fact-finding grossly premature & unfair as situation still volatile in eastern Ladakh July 10, 2020,  5:32 PM  IST   P R Shankar  in  Voices   |   India   |   TOI       published @ https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/voices/demand-for-fact-finding-grossly-premature-unfair-when-situation-still-volatile-in-eastern-ladakh/  144 veterans have addressed a joint statement to the President, PM, RM, CDS and Chiefs of Services drawing attention to the failure in the political, civil, and military establishments, especially in intelligence acquisition in the ongoing Sino-Indian military situation in eastern Ladakh. They have demanded, that a ‘fact-finding body’ be constituted to go into various issues raised by them. To demand a ‘fact-finding body’ when the situation is still volatile belays good judgement. Besides finding facts ‘the body’ will find faults with individuals who are currently handling a volatile and critical situation. It places a gun to the commanders’ heads

This article may kindly be read in conjunction with my earlier articles @  https://palepurshankar.blogspot.com/2019/06/generally-on-generals-by-lt-gen-p-r.html  and  https://palepurshankar.blogspot.com/2019/04/political-crumbling-of-last-bastion-by.html The Need to Examine ‘Theodore Roosevelt’ Incident Military leadership has been a subject of debate for long. The leadership conundrum in the Armed Forces is beautifully brought out in Herman Wouk’s classic - ‘The Caine Mutiny’. In the same context, the ‘Theodore Roosevelt’ incident brings forth the stringent and conflicting demands on leadership in the Armed Forces. I am delving into this, despite the Chinese Virus , since this is far more important than a transient phenomenon. At the end of the day unless the leadership of the Armed Forces is apolitical and professional, nations do not grow to greatness. History is witness to the fact that great nations have had great military leadership. Alternately nations have colla

WISHING ALL OF YOU A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR The Comment “L ong range artillery aided with precision can be a suitable complement for air-power and lack of fighter sqns of the IAF. The precision and low cost should be enough for us to procure the same. The precision element included in long range rockets will also moderate the myth of rockets being area weapon with limited use due to higher collateral damage, especially in times when collateral damage is frowned upon. Pinaka is a better system than Smerch rockets in its ability to be upgraded and having latest technologies, more importantly, indigenously developed. Thus, the need of hour is to go in for long range precise rocket artillery which can swing across the bandwidth of gun artillery at one end and complementary to airpower at another thus reducing need of guns for contact battle and freeing up airpower for air superiority ”. This response on my article ‘Pinaka in Conventional Non-Contact Deterrence’ [1] is from an off