This book examines the determinants of India’s National Security Strategy. The author brings out that National Military Strategy should envisage employment of all the nation's military and civil capabilities at the highest of levels and this should facilitate long-term planning, development and procurement to create the requisite capabilities to assure victory or success. He states that if not enunciated by the politico-military establishment in peace, and if not planned, organised, structured, developed, trained-for or forces created in peace, then inadequacies in the achievement of political aims during war will be a national loss. This paper is accordingly laid out in six chapters examining the changing strategic geography and geo-strategic context; strategic threats and challenges; strategic culture and civil-military relations; envisioning of prospective warfighting; guidance of National Security Strategy and finally, the formulation of National Military Strategy. The author concludes that If the oncoming era is of back-end warfare ─ combat by programming computers, launching missiles or operating drone swarms ensconced thousands of miles away, in safe environments, then so be it! Assuredly, warfare has a future, the all-important question is the typology of warfare, and what it would take to accept it as inevitable, and assiduously work to acquire the capabilities. The strategic conclusion is that technology has fundamentally transformed the character of war, and maybe its nature too, in a significant measure.
The Determinants of India’s National Military Strategy
Lt Gen (Dr) Rakesh Sharma was commissioned in Gorkha Rifles in 1977, and had a career spanning forty years in the Army. He has had extensive operational experience in Jammu and Kashmir, North East and on the Western Borders. The officer had trained the Botswana Army for three years in Africa, and attended the National War College at Abuja, Nigeria. Lt Gen Rakesh Sharma attended the NDC at New Delhi. He was Research Fellow at Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses and has done PhD in Defence Studies. General Rakesh Sharma commanded the Fire and Fury Corps in Ladakh responsible for Kargil, Siachin Glacier and Eastern Ladakh – facing both Pakistan and China.
The General was the Adjutant General of the Indian Army responsible for the Human Resource Management and superannuated in 2017. He has been awarded with Param Vashisht Seva Medal, Uttam Yudh Seva Medal, Ati Vashisht Seva Medal and Vashisht Seva Medal. He is a regular participant in seminars, lectures in various institutions, and regularly writes for newspapers and military journals. Lt Gen Rakesh Sharma was Chief Defence Banking Advisor with the Punjab National Bank. He is currently DISTINGUISHED FELLOW with the Centre for Land Warfare Studies.