General V.P. Mallik's three-doctrinal assumptions about deterrence are invalidated by ground realities.

China has recently announced its defence budget, which conceals the actual extent to which India’s neighbour has gone about modernising its armed forces. India has seen politicisation of its services and priorities which make its tasks tougher.

There are at least four operational flaws with the ITC overhaul. But they do not seem to bother the military leadership.

There are at least four operational flaws with the ITC overhaul. But they do not seem to bother the military leadership.

The Global South, barring India, is increasingly attracted by China’s cooperation-driven approach to global development and put off by the US’s emphasis on competition and confrontation.

Based on its achievements in key fields of technology, India is not in the global game. Yet, as a geopolitical pivot whose importance is derived not by its national power but its sensitive location, India is being courted by all three geostrategic players.

The Anantnag tragedy was waiting to happen because the Indian Army may have started believing the BJP government propaganda that the revocation of Article 370 had resolved the Kashmir issue. It started believing the crude sloganeering by retired army officers claiming that Pakistan is a walkover. 

The Indian Army’s relevance will be minimal in a war with the People’s Liberation Army.

If India chooses to be on the wrong side of history, it will end up as an observer and not as one of the drivers of  ‘once in a lifetime’ change.

As strategic autonomy makes way for a tighter military embrace with Washington, India will find that its room for manoeuvre in the face of emerging challenges has narrowed.

This is the moment of reckoning for India, especially Modi, who is the singular force behind India’s statecraft and diplomacy. Both the US and China want its support.

This is the moment of reckoning for India, especially Modi, who is the singular force behind India’s statecraft and diplomacy. Both the US and China want its support.

India needs to understand deterrence in its entirety and adopt strategy-based military modernisation, which the PLA has successfully done against the US military.

Two critical decisions taken at the recent Quad summit will increase the gulf between India and other countries of South Asia.

India has not managed to deter China, as the growing transgressions in Ladakh show, but has succeeded in bringing Beijing and Pakistan’s GHQ even closer together.

Believing its own rhetoric of major power status, and hence China’s peer competitor, India thought it could, like the US, combat, compete and cooperate on its own terms with China. But is that true?

The move will bring India closer to war with China, which it cannot win. The US cannot help in such a situation either.

Neither the Indian government nor the military has any comprehension of the worst that will happen – it’s no longer a question of if, but when.

From the role of drones, AI and civil-military fusion to his emphasis on boots on the ground, the former Indian army chief is looking at concepts that China has left way behind.

In his book 'The Last War: How AI Will Shape India’s Final Showdown With China', Pravin Sawhney imagines how an AI-supported Peoples Liberation Army might target critical Indian military assets.