Africa’s continental aspirations are well documented in ‘Agenda 2063’. With a laid-out implementation plan for well-articulated goals to meet the aspirations, Africa is moving in the right direction, albeit a little slowly. The main reasons are intertwined and interrelated—conflicts and slow economic growth. To top this, African governments are splurging on building military capabilities without clearly defined strategic goals.

War, when all else fails. The reasons for war could be ideological or for greater control over finite resources but war invariably has violence at its epicentre. Ethics and wars have rarely been concentric in human history; therefore, wars have seen the employment of all possible means. Victory, as the ultimate aim, has forced warring sides to look at multiple options and biological weapons are one such method. Biological weapons are as old as war itself and their primitive recorded use was centuries ago.

The armed forces are one of the most powerful tools to ensure safety and security of the state from external aggressions. This duty may call upon armed forces personnel to undertake missions with a very high risk to life. To motivate a human being to perform the allocated duty even at the peril of his/her life is an art that armed forces across the globe have mastered. For sustaining such a high level of motivation and to undertake missions in a very organised fashion, military discipline is a key attribute.

Defence, a subset of national security, is an intricate subject. Primarily, defence policy and plans of a state emerge from its national security strategy to achieve its national goals. What happens when a state does not have a declared national security strategy? All stakeholders interpret the security scenario in their way and invariably pull defence policy and plans in multiple directions. Such has been the tale of Indian defence policy and plans since independence.

Draft DPP 2020 needs to cut out obfuscation, repetitions, and bring out core issues for the consideration of the decision-makers in a concise and clear manner.

The proposal to create an Air Defence Command is a bold move. Rather than resorting to less contentious issues to commence the integration process, the CDS has selected a very pertinent and significant operational issue. However, the way the proposed Air Defence Command is structured will be crucial as it will set the tone for further integration of all three services.

Desire (kama), anger (krodha), greed (lobha), attachment (moha) and ego (ahankar) are the five basic causes of human irrationality. In violence, one of the most significant human irrationality, intertwined strands of all these five factors can be seen. In Why We Fight, Mike Martin, a soldier and scholar, goes beyond these five tenets to look at the root cause of violence in societies. He attempts to describe connections between individuals and their social behaviour.

The conceptual and capability changes in a kinetic force remain intertwined with the prevailing and emerging security scenarios. Air power, a key kinetic capability, being technology dependent, needs continuous re-equipping and up gradation. The force structure and organisation too need to adapt to ensure optimal exploitation of available capability. Indian air power has transformed in the last two decades and expanded its capability in all critical facets.

For the first time in the history of military aviation in India, helicopters have surpassed fighter aircraft in terms of sheer numbers. Are the Indian Armed Forces reorienting for helicopter dominated air operations?