‘Know the enemy, know yourself’ is good professional advice

The Chinese general, military strategist, author, and philosopher Sun Tzu famously said, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the outcome of a hundred battles… nor yourself, then you will lose in every battle.” In view of the recent developments in military circles, this requires investigation, and some aspects of vocational military education (PME) in the Indian Armed Forces. has been evaluated.

a structured process

Knowing the opponent and the self is a three-step process. First, gathering information (opposition’s And your own), distilling it into knowledge and recommending alternatives to decision-makers in the end; The third phase is crucial for the national leadership.

Practical leadership takes advice from knowledgeable people. Thus, the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) and NITI Aayog advise the government and provide options on key issues. Each body should have domain experts in critical areas and when one considers the NSCS and NSAB, the three wings of the armed forces should be represented at the senior advisory level. Unfortunately, this has not been happening for many years now; It will be instructive to see how other nations perform in such apex bodies as the members are required to include both academics and professionals in one.

top institutes abroad

I had the privilege of doing two specialist courses abroad. At the Test Pilot School (EPNER) in France, which I attended in 1987, the chief ground instructor who taught us the theory of test flight was a civilian aerodynamicist. The commandant of the school was formerly a Mirage-2000 project pilot of the Air Force with the aviation company M/s Dassault; He was sent to EPNER to teach test flying. Can we replicate this kind of intermixing in PME institutions so that the personnel benefit from the expertise available within them? Incidentally, the examiner for my final exam was the chief test pilot of Aerospatiale, that is, a civilian working in the French aviation industry.

The EPNER example, one from the strategic level, shows how theorists and practitioners from different fields can be combined to holistically train junior professionals, who then make appointments in the operational and strategic sector. The United States Air Force has its own University of Air with a faculty of civilian academics, who have devoted their lives to studying only one particular area, the last word in their area of ​​expertise. His teachings are correlated with real-life experiences of uniformed service instructors. While I was doing my course there, Colonel John Warden came in as the commandant of the Staff College – an air power strategist, the colonel who had prepared the spectacular air campaign against Iraq in Operation Desert Storm in 1991; After the successful air campaign, it will be remembered, the ground forces had a free run. After his successful operational tour, he became an academician and enriched the staff college curriculum with his operational experiences.

status in india

How are we doing in India? It will be safe to say that most, if not all, trainers in our PME institutions are service officers posted from field/staff appointments who complete their two/three year tenure and move on; This is not the time to become an ‘expert’. Giving guest lectures is no substitute for having a subject matter expert on a full time teaching staff. Fortunately, we see a wave of change in some institutions. Naval War College in Goa invites an eminent academician from abroad to operate the capsule on operational arts. The college also has an adjunct faculty of tri-service retired officers who act as advisors in particular areas of learning. It is also heartening to see the National Defense College in Delhi being established by a retired scholar warrior as the coveted Presidential Chair; And, it should be the same elsewhere.

IDU project stalled

Defense Services Staff College with permanent chairs should be the starting point for subject experts teaching military history, strategy, geopolitics and others.; Service officers will be the link to the realities of the field. It is a composite body and therefore the Commandant should be a distinguished learned warrior from any of the three services and not just from the Army, as it has been so far. Army War College, College of Air Warfare, College of Defense Management etc should also take similar action. And as one moves up the learning hierarchy, one wonders where the Indian Defense University (IDU) project (formerly INDU – Indian National Defense University) near Gurgaon hangs after its foundation stone was laid in 2013. At a time when road infrastructure and additional Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management, All India Institutes of Medical Sciences etc. is being set up at a rapid pace, silence on IDU, which will be the cornerstone institution to guide. PME architecture in India, is immeasurable. While the home ministry has set up a National Defense University (RRU) in Gujarat (which is also headed by a member of the NSAB), one wonders why the defense ministry is delaying with the IDU, which has an all-tri-services plan. Institutions including the National Defense College under its patronage. Incidentally, the website of RRU states that it will have schools for Air and Space, Navy, Army, etc. and others.; But, someone thought that such schools of higher strategic education should have a charter for IDU.

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Which brings us to the highest policy advisory level, NSAB and NSCS. These apex bodies provide India’s political leadership with long-term analysis and perspective on issues of national importance; If ever there was ever a matter of sound academic attendance and a population of military professionals from all three services, here it is. In this age of galloping technology in the military sphere and in this age of re-shattering international relations, national leadership, both civilian and military, will gain immensely in knowing the enemy and knowing the ‘self’.

Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur is VM (Retd.), former Additional Director General, Center for Air Power Studies. Views expressed are personal