"Never trust your enemies, be alert on all their moves even if they pose to be friendly with you".
India’s greatest geostrategic thinker and the ideal and inspiration of the Defence and Security Alert (DSA) team – Chanakya – has only one
contemporary legend Sun Tzu of China whose treatise Art of War is of
perennial contemporary relevance. How many Indians know about them? I am
sure not even 5 per cent of the total population knows about Chanakya
and may be hardly 1 per cent is aware about Sun Tzu in our country. Our
people are ignorant about these world famous great thinkers who changed
the entire gamut of the socio-political situations of their times with
their thoughts and their edicts and we can see that their thoughts are
perhaps even more relevant to the geopolitics of today.We see the situation in our immediate vicinity as one in which all the neighbouring countries be they small Nepal and Sri Lanka or the bigger China and Pakistan exerting a negative influence on India’s geopolitical interests and all that we see ourselves doing is compromising with them on their terms. The aggressiveness of China towards India and other South East Asian countries is increasing day by day. We see how it has been bullying Japan and Vietnam on issues of suzereignty over offshore resources; and how it has been supporting Pakistan by providing it nuclear and conventional weaponry and encouraging it in the use of Islamist jihadi terrorism to try and delink the Kashmir Valley from the rest of India. The way China has constructed road and rail networks leading to the Line of Actual Control all along the Himalayas and its involvement in Gilgit and Baltistan in the name of supporting Pakistan’s infrastructure development is a real India-specific threat.
The most recent intrusion across the Line of Actual Control in the Daulat Beg Oldi sector of Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir coming as it did on the very eve of the visit of the newly elected Prime Minister of China to India had raised grave doubts about Beijing’s intentions vis-à-vis India. It appeared to be a threat to warn India to keep out of Pacific Ocean littoral geopolitics. But New Delhi was unfazed and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made it a point to visit Japan as part of a Look East policy that has acquired a defence and security content involving Australia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, South Korea and Mongolia. India is holding military exercises with all of them on land and sea over the years. If this is construed to be an anti-China phalanx by Beijing it has only itself to blame for its hectoring and hegemonistic attitude. Hopefully, the Chinese Premier’s visit to India soon after the intrusion episode will dispel such interpretations. Nonetheless, we appear to have taken a leaf out of Chanakya’s Neetishastra and his sage advice that “Never trust your enemies, be alert on all their moves even if they pose to be friendly with you”.
In July 2011 I proudly informed you of DSA becoming the first and the only ISO certified magazine in India in the defence and security domain. Now in July 2013 I have another great news for DSA lovers and our friends in the defence and security fraternity worldwide. DSA has once again become the premier defence and security magazine available on the Intranet of Indian Air Force. Now DSA is at the fingertips of and reaches each and every officer and soldier of the Indian Air Force. This will be a great incentive for all companies in the defence and security arena doing business in India or planning to foray into the burgeoning Indian market.
I take it as an honour for all our contributors, advertisers and of course the entire team at DSA for their excellent support which has made this possible. The quality of the content and the presentation of DSA has proved to be the best in the past and now its outreach h
