Defence From The Skies 80 Years Of The Indian Air Force

Indian Air Force now completes 80 years since it was formed as an independent component of India’s armed forces. Time and again, the air force has performed magnificently even against severe odds, and built up a professional reputation that is the envy of leading air forces of the word. This volume, as the Second Edition of the earlier volume published in 2007 has been extensively revised and updated. Air Forces are unique in the sense that they are the only national military institution exclusively devoted to military operations in the aerospace continuum. The Indian Air Force is no different. But their dominant role in modern warfare, the high costs of aerospace power, and a host of other factors demand closer attention to their role in modern defence and the protection of national interests. Air Forces don’t win wars by themselves; and no one in the Indian Air Force has ever claimed it. But no war can be won without them. We learnt that seminal lesson the hard way when we did not use the potent force of the IAF’s combat fleet in the Sino-Indian War of 1962. It is from this perspective that this study — or rather an interpretative essay reflecting on the significant issues and events of the past 80 years — approaches the challenges the Indian Air Force faces in the coming decades. IAF combat force levels have slumped while its commitments are rapidly growing in consonance with our expanding economic and political interests well beyond our territorial boundaries.

The Indian Air Force (IAF), from a humble beginning in 1932 with four Wapiti aircraft, six Indian officers and 22 hawai sepoys, has traversed a long journey and crossed noteworthy milestones to become the fourth largest air force in the world. In the past 81 years, while facing several limitations/challenges, the IAF has met all the national defence requirements, and made several strategic contributions. The 1948 Kashmir airlift, Tangail paradrop, heli-bridging in East Pakistan and many other achievements are historic examples of its sterling performance. The only war independent India has lost was the one in which the IAF was not employed in a combat role. With growing economic interests and national aspirations, expanding interests well beyond our territorial boundaries and prevailing internal security challenges, India’s national defence requirements are also increasing. Reliance of sovereign nation-states on aerospace power is essentially growing. The first Gulf War was a monumental turning point in the war-time employment of aerospace power. Ever since, the significance of aerospace power in war, crisis and peace-time has been gaining ascendency. Kosovo and Libya are the two pertinent examples of the allies virtually relying on aerospace power, without committing any soldiers on the ground. Scrutiny of the emerging global and national trends suggests that employment of aerospace assets, as well as the nation’s expectation from the IAF, will continue to rise. Alongside, there is an unplanned fall in flying platforms, weapon systems and pilot strength of the IAF. This study is an attempt to analyse the history of the IAF in war as well as ‘other than war operations’; to appreciate the emerging trends in geopolitics, aerospace technology and doctrine; and to identify the likely challenges the IAF would be facing in the next two decades and beyond. A roadmap for transformation of the national security framework, the indigenous aerospace industry and the IAF has also been suggested.

In recent years, India has asserted its desire not simply to be a balancing power but to become a leading power on the world stage. As India's economic development has steadily progressed, so too have its foreign policy and security ambitions. However, India's ability to sustain high rates of economic growth at home and project power overseas rests on unsteady state capacities. Despite widespread concerns over the severe institutional constraints that India faces, there is a lack of scholarly research on the administrative and organizational effectiveness of India's security institutions. Myriad inadequacies related to both procedure and personnel continue to hamper the Indian state's ability to perform one of its most essential functions: protecting Indians from security threats at home and abroad. Institutional Roots of India's Security Policy aims to deconstruct and interrogate disparities in India's security institutions through high-quality analytic examinations of more than a dozen foreign policy and national security institutions spread across four domains: the armed services, intelligence, border and internal security, and police and investigative agencies. A one-stop resource on India's security institutions, this volume demystifies secretive institutions that have long eluded careful scrutiny, including India's paramilitary forces, the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

THIS BOOK IS WRITTEN FOR THE AWARENESS OF INDIAN AIRFORCE. EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT IS INDIAN AIR FORCE AND WHOLE WORLD HAS SEEN ITS, PROUDNESS AND ITS STRENGTH, BUT WHAT ARE THE COMPONENTS USED BY THEM ARE, NOT KNOWN PROPERLY. THE INTENTION OF WRITING THIS BOOK IS TO SHOW THE WORLD, INDIA’S PROUD SOLDIERS OF INDIAN AIR FORCE. I HOPE YOU LIKE THIS BOOK. PLEASE READ IT FROM CORE OF YOUR HEART. READ MY PREVIOUS BOOK ON AMAZON ‘INCREADIBLE SUPPORT INDIAN DEFENCE’. --PRANAV ZOPE.

The book is the story of the Indian Air Force, its growth and development from its nascent days to its pre-eminent position as the fourth largest Air Force in the world. It is a remarkable story of those magnificent men who laid the foundation of the Ind

“I have not lately read a finer book than this—on any subject at all. . . . A masterpiece.” —Simon Winchester, New Statesman The photographs of three young men had stood in his grandmother’s house for as long as he could remember, beheld but never fully noticed. They had all fought in the Second World War, a fact that surprised him. Indians had never figured in his idea of the war, nor the war in his idea of India. One of them, Bobby, even looked a bit like him, but Raghu Karnad had not noticed until he was the same age as they were in their photo frames. Then he learned about the Parsi boy from the sleepy south Indian coast, so eager to follow his brothers-in-law into the colonial forces and onto the front line. Manek, dashing and confident, was a pilot with India’s fledgling air force; gentle Ganny became an army doctor in the arid North-West Frontier. Bobby’s pursuit would carry him as far as the deserts of Iraq and the green hell of the Burma battlefront. The years 1939–45 might be the most revered, deplored, and replayed in modern history. Yet India’s extraordinary role has been concealed, from itself and from the world. In riveting prose, Karnad retrieves the story of a single family—a story of love, rebellion, loyalty, and uncertainty—and with it, the greater revelation that is India’s Second World War. Farthest Field narrates the lost epic of India’s war, in which the largest volunteer army in history fought for the British Empire, even as its countrymen fought to be free of it. It carries us from Madras to Peshawar, Egypt to Burma—unfolding the saga of a young family amazed by their swiftly changing world and swept up in its violence.

This is an analytical account of the entire operational history of the IAF. Within five years of its creation the fledgling Flights of No 1 Squadron were undergoing trials by fire in the NWFP. During the World War II, the IAF expanded nine-fold and made valiant contributions in turning the tide of Japanese onslaught. Hardly had the guns fallen silent across the globe and India emerged independent breaking the centuries old yoke of colonialism, once again the IAF was called into operations in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) war in 1947-48. The IAF was at its innovative best in the un-chartered virgin territory of Himalayan heights. From 1948 till 1962, the IAF witnessed slow and lopsided growth. The debacle in 1962 Sino-Indian war and refusal to use the combat component of the IAF was the nadir of Indian integrated decision-making. The realisation of the need for having well-structured defence forces and resultant expansion of defence forces including the IAF had begun. This reorganisation measure was disrupted half way by the Pakistani attack in J&K. The 1965 war was on. The IAF was launched into conflict at an extremely short notice of one hour and stemmed the advancing enemy tanks from severing the lifeline of J&K. It was only the 1971 war, which enabled the IAF to prepare itself properly and prosecute a well-crafted war plan. The exceptionally swift victory in East Pakistan in a matter of 12 days and with 93,000 Pakistani troops surrendering revealed the might of the Indian Armed Forces. The IAF contributed a lion’s share. Its precision attacks on Governor’s house had strategic results. Pakistani intrusions in 1999 in Dras, Kargil and Haneef sectors again saw restricted committal of the IAF along with the Army. Despite restrictive rules of engagement IAF operated with innovations and was the major reason for Pakistan to vacate the intrusion. In its history of 80 years the IAF has also operated in counter-insurgency role on many occasions.

This book explores what military strategy is and how it is interconnected with policy on one hand and military operations on the other. In the process, it traces the transformation of the notion of strategy from its original military moorings to a more policy-oriented and-influenced conception and elaborates upon a tripartite framework of policy, strategy and doctrine to think about, understand, and analyse the use of force. The book explores the politics of India-Pakistan conflict in order to root the study of Indian military strategy in the political sphere. It discusses three main issues that have ensured the persistence of conflict: incompatible national identities, Pakistan's congenital quest for parity with and compulsion to challenge India, and irreconcilable positions on the Kashmir issue. The book argues that India has invariably pursued limited political aims that did not threaten Pakistan's survival or form of government or regime in power albeit containing a counter offensive elements. It states that India employed the strategy of exhaustion during the Indian Army's campaigns in the 1947-48 conflict and 1965 war, which made way to strategy of annihilation during the 1971 war (East Pakistan), but after Pakistan's acquisition of nuclear weapons capability the strategy is back to exhaustion. The book highlights the importance of designing an overall military strategy for waging limited war and pursuing carefully calibrated political and military objectives by creatively combining the individual doctrines of the three services by establishing a Chief of Defence Staff system.