Strategic Analysis

IDSA in Retrospect

The former defence minister Shri Yeshwantrao Chavan led a delegation to the United States in May 1964 to discuss American support for the Indian Defence Five-Year Plan. The delegation included among others, the then defence secretary Shri P.V.R. Rao. Both Shri Chavan and Shri Rao were very impressed by the quantitative and analytical approach adopted by the US Defense Department and on their return, initiated discussions in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to explore the possibility of setting up a ‘think tank’ on the lines of the RAND Corporation.

K. Subrahmanyam and the IDSA

K. Subrahmanyam, who passed away on 2 February 2011, has been hailed as one of India's leading strategic thinkers. Having joined the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1950, his career graph turned out to be unique. He was one of those rare bureaucrats who came to be recognised more as a strategist than as a typical government official.

Some Thoughts about K. Subrahmanyam

I vividly remember my first encounter with K. Subrahmanyam in 1974 in Washington shortly after India had exploded its underground nuclear device. I was then country director for India in the state department and we had a lively and at times contentious debate over the wisdom of the test. As you would expect, Subbu stoutly defended India's action while scathingly criticising US policy. ‘Who do you Americans think you are, telling us what to do and trying to make us second class nuclear citizens’, I recall him saying.

K. Subrahmanyam and Indian Strategic Thought

In the end an intellectual's life is judged not only by those who mourn his passing, but also by those who challenged his ideas. K. Subrahmanyam, the undisputed doyen of India's strategic community, had his share of both, and his death at the age of 82 on 2 February 2011 leaves behind an immeasurable void. In his professional career, K. Subrahmanyam faced much criticism for his views, at various times, from within the military and among civil servants, the academic community and foreign observers.

On Subrahmanyam

The best way to remember and commemorate K. Subrahmanyam is to do it in a way he would have approved – by examining his own career and ideas, and their impact on the larger questions of Indian security and defence policy, and India's relations with the rest of the world. Above all, we need to ask why he was so important. To do this would require much more than a brief note. It would require a deep and broad discussion, which will hopefully include a biography by someone who takes his life and work seriously but does not engage in uncritical adulation.