From India’s Wars, Five Lessons for the Present - Indian Defence News
As India matures as a democracy stakeholders must understand the conduct of war and the utility of force as an instrument of statecraft.
Editorial Staff
From India’s Wars, Five Lessons for the Present - Indian Defence News
Having spent eight years researching and writing in a focused manner on war and conflict in independent India, it is time to distil five big lessons for a diverse constituency of stakeholders in India’s National security matrix. These range from the policymaker and the practitioner to the academic and the common citizen. As India matures as a democracy and its aspirations to emerge as a leading power gains momentum, all these stakeholders must understand the conduct of war and the utility of force as an instrument of statecraft. Also Read: INS Vikramaditya: Everything you Need to Know about the warship The first lesson is that contrary to the largely peaceful trajectory of growth imagined by the drafters of the Constitution, India has been a “reluctantly warring democracy” to protect its sovereignty and internal fabric. It has fought four major wars and one high-intensity but limited conflict with its principal adversaries, Pakistan and China. It has quelled four insurgencies (Mizoram, T…
