StratNews Global

A lot of lessons from the Ukraine, Gaza wars, and the Ladakh standoff with China. In an interview with Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale, Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhuri, the Chief of Air Staff (CAS) dwells on lessons learned from the Russia-Ukraine war, the changing nature of war, and why the Indian Air Force will always be the first offensive choice in any conflict.

In this interview, the Air Chief lists the key takeaways from the conflict in the Himalayan frontier and wars in distant lands. Talking about lessons drawn from the standoff with China in Eastern Ladakh, the CAS highlighted leadership, ability to adapt, and training among other factors that the IAF has inculcated. The Ladakh experience has also boosted jointness.

According to the CAS, common platforms, and common systems will have common maintenance. Complete interoperability between the Army and the IAF.

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The Indian Army's Southern Command is not just the biggest but also the oldest Command of the force. It covers 41% of the Indian landmass, 11 States, and four Union Territories. The Command hosts a large number of training establishments too. In a way, Southern Command is the Indian Army's training hub.

In an interview with Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale, Southern Army Commander Lt Gen AK Singh speaks about how troops under him prepare for all contingencies, knowing fully well that there are no runners-up in war.

As he says, the Army must be fully prepared to take on conventional challenges, even while absorbing technology to fight in all domains. Tri-services exercises are run based on plans evolved jointly by all three services, as was done recently. In one of the largest exercises ever, equipment failure was rare, a very heartening situation, Lt Gen Singh pointed out. Watch the full interview conducted at the Army War Memorial in Pune at the Southern Command Headquarters.

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The Russia-Ukraine war refuses to wind down, and the West keeps imposing sanctions on Russia-linked entities but human tragedy is piling up. Over a third of Ukraine’s population has fled their homes, reconstruction is getting costlier and the aftereffects of the conflict may last generations. So how does one assess the conflict as it stands today?

One way is to map the first three months of the war with the three months that led into the second anniversary, says eminent journalist, author and commentator MJ Akbar.

Speaking to StratNews Global Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale on ‘The Gist’, Akbar said the world needs to factor in the fact that Russia has the capacity to defend its strategic interests and that the Cold War hasn’t stopped.

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The World Bank recently released its annual tracker on global remittances for 2023. It showed that globally remittances at $669 billion grew higher than forecast. India, like always, was the top recipient with $125 billon—accounting for little under fifth of the global remittances in 2023.

According to the World Bank, a distinctive feature of remittances to India is the shift away from blue-collar workers to white-collar workers based in Europe, Australia and the United States.

To unpack this trend, Anil Padmanabhan spoke with Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder of TeamLease.

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Iran is more sinned against than sinning, is the message from Seyed Mohammad Marandi, professor at Tehran University and a political commentator.

Marandi gave a bird’s eye view of how Tehran sees the regional situation at a time when the US has carried out air strikes on armed groups in Syria believed to be loyal to Iran. The US classifies these groups, from Hamas to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen as terrorist but Marandi disagrees. In his view, the real terrorist groups are Al Qaeda and its off shoot the Islamic State, both of which are Western creations.

He claims the US military presence at Al Tanf in Syria is intended to help the Islamic State simply because it is a useful tool against Iran. Marandi says Israel along with the West is carrying out genocide in Gaza and insists that its withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territories is the only way for peace in the region.

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India and Australia already share a robust defence relationship but that can be deepened, says Philip Green, Australian High Commissioner to India.

We are not only looking for interoperability between the many platforms that we share but we could hope to go beyond interoperability, to interchangeability, the envoy told StratNews Global Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale.

He also advocated a new level of intimacy: “more Australian servicemen working on and with Indian platforms and Indian defence personnel in our headquarters”.

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Nobody is speculating on the next meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Emmanuel Macron, but with six meetings last year alone, there is clearly a lot going on in the India-France relationship, says Arun Kumar Singh, former ambassador to France.

Ambassador Singh was on The Gist, talking about President Macron’s recent visit and the many takeaways, from a defence industrial roadmap to cooperation in space, and technology transfers in key areas that could well be unprecedented.

In that sense, France is a useful partner, providing steadfast diplomatic support in international bodies while also being rock solid in its strategic relationship with India. Paris also helps India leverage its relationship with the US, helping Delhi ensure balance.

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A “dangerous separatist”, as China calls William Lai, will be Taiwan’s next president, which means the arsenal that Beijing deployed, including military exercises and propaganda, failed to make a difference.

There is a growing body of people in Taiwan who now feel that they have a separate identity which is not identical to that of the mainland, says former Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale. “Today you have a position in which China has no option but to deal with its worst case scenario for the next four years, at least in political terms,” he told StratNews Global Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale.

In the interview, Vijay Gokhale also talks about his latest book ‘Crosswinds: Nehru, Zhou and the Anglo-American Competition over China’ that offers insights into Indian foreign policy in the first decade after Independence and why India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, did what he did when it came to dealing with China and the United States.

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The armed exchange between Iran and Pakistan targeting their respective halves of Balochistan was sudden and unexpected. But it is not that they haven’t clashed before in that region, says Tilak Devasher, author of a book on Balochistan and former special director Cabinet Secretariat.

Devasher says the Pakistanis have been backing the Sunni militant group Jaish-e-Adl formerly Jundullah for many years. It has killed and abducted many Iranian border policemen forcing the latter to respond with their own brand of violence. Could the clashes be the result of the US and Saudis egging on Pakistan against Iran?

It cannot be ruled out although the speed with which hostilities ended underscored that neither side saw any purpose in escalation. But it has also emphasised that the longer the Gaza War continues, the greater the risk of it spilling over into new areas. Lebanon is already a flashpoint given Hezbollah provocations against Israel; the Houthis are another.

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India’s premier defence research body — the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) — which was set up over 60 years ago needs to change the way it operates. That’s what a committee headed by K. VijayRaghavan, former principal scientific advisor to the government, has recommended.

So what is wrong with DRDO and what changes has the committee recommended? StratNews Global Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale explains.

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