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Sunday, March 15, 2026
TopicCounterinsurgency

Topic: Counterinsurgency

Stop obsessing over ‘leading from the front’. It doesn’t justify sacrifice of Army officers

The ethos of ‘leading from the front’ is being used by the Army as an afterthought to cover up undue haste and violation of tactical norms and standard operating procedures.

Spare Army counterinsurgency tasks, police does it better. Look at Punjab, Andhra, Tripura

Indian experience points to the need for a nodal role for the state police in counterinsurgency operations. Military involvement is neither necessary, nor desirable.

Take Indian Army out of counterinsurgency. It has to tackle leaner, modern PLA

India’s defence planners need to ask themselves what the purpose of the Army is — to fight internal battles or external?

On Camera

Menstrual leave doesn’t work in ‘real world’. And that real world is designed by, for men

When a woman menstruates, when/if she decides to marry, when/if she decides to have kids, should not be factors when looking at a woman’s potential from a hiring standpoint.

US strike on Iran’s key oil export island Kharg raises fears of wider supply disruption

President Trump said the US had bombed military targets on Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf, but spared oil infrastructure.

Supreme Leader Mojtaba, the man Iran must keep alive & the secret force ‘tasked with it’—all about NOPO

The Nirouyeh Vijeh Pasdaran Velayat, or NOPO, was the only force Ali Khamenei trusted.It was founded in 1991 and is more feared than the Revolutionary Guards.

Peaceful power transfers followed uprisings in India’s neighbourhood. It’s a sign of mature democracies

Rating democracies is a tricky business. I am only using the simple metric of who in the Indian subcontinent has had the most peaceful, stable, normal political transitions and continuity.