Again and again, military men have seen themselves hurled into war by the ambition, passions and blunders of civilian governments, almost wholly uninformed as to the limits of their military potential and almost recklessly indifferent to the military requirements of the war they let loose. —Alfred Vagts, ‘The History of Militarism India...
The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected. —Sun Tzu, ‘Art of War’ For a country that had been...
The then US president John F Kennedy was an admirer of Indian democracy, and when he learnt that China was on its way to detonate a nuclear device, he wanted that it ought to be a democratic country like India, and not communist China, which should have nuclear capability. The...
Nehru’s policies resulted in thousands of kilometres of all land boundaries of India, whether in the north or east or west or northeast or northwest, becoming sensitive and insecure, requiring massive investments to protect them. What is noteworthy is that there were enough opportunities to peacefully settle the boundaries with...
This is our only foreign debt, and some day we must pay the Mantzu and the Tibetans for the provisions we were obliged to take from them. —Mao Zedong, when he had passed through the border regions of Tibet during the Long March In the 8th century, Tibetan King Trisong Dentsen had defeated...
With indescribable atrocities against Hindus in East Bengal going unabated, the GoI made an appeal to Pakistan to call a halt on the same. But, there was little response, till tit-for-tat brought Pakistan to the negotiating table. It is worth noting in this connection that Gandhian non-violent principles yielded nothing, as...
The Kabo or Kabaw Valley is a 11,000+ sq km highland valley on the Indian-Burmese border that is sandwiched between Manipur and north Myanmar (Burma), and is peopled by ethnic minorities like Kadu, Kanan, Meitei, Mizo, Zo, etc. It is very fertile, and is well-known for its wood products, like...
It is sad that even though the two peoples—the Sinhalese and the Tamils —spring from the same civilisational background, they have been at loggerheads. People from Gujarat and Sindh (some say Odisha) in India immigrated to Sri Lanka and formed the Sinhala dynasty. Chronicles— Mahavansa and Dipavansa—record the landing of...
Nehru unnecessarily internationalised what was purely an internal issue by taking the J&K issue to the UN, again under the influence of the British Mountbatten. Wrote V Shankar in ‘My Reminiscences of Sardar Patel, Volume 1’: ...
