ABOUT THE BOOK
fjrigjwwe9r0pp_Books:Description
Wars and
conflicts have become a near constant presence today, brought to us on a
real-time basis on myriad communication devices. A cursory scan of recent
conflicts reveals the blurring lines between war and peace, state versus
non-state, regular and irregular, and conventional vis-à-vis unconventional.
Over the past decade or so, the prevailing security environment in many regions
changed radically. Simultaneously, the probability of conventional conflict
between states or groups of states declined steadily while sub-conventional
conflict gained prominence. These small, niggling wars have been termed as
hybrid, non-linear, gray zone, or unrestricted, among others. It thus becomes
necessary to enquire ontologically and epistemologically into these terms to
understand if they allude to the same phenomenon through different frames.
Furthermore, are these an aberration or, increasingly, the convention? This
book tries to address this crucial research gap related to the changing
character of conflicts in the strategic discourse in India.
The book is
divided into three parts. The first part dwells on conceptual issues related to
hybrid warfare; the second comprises six case studies of conflict zones from
around the world; and the third concludes the exhaustive discussion on the core
theme. The contributors, including both scholars and practitioners, have
attempted to identify the various components of hybrid warfare at play in
contemporary conflicts. They have viewed these conflicts through the prism of
the changing character of war, as students of defence and strategic studies, to
draw relevant lessons for India.
It is hoped that
this book would initiate a debate and contribute to the discourse on the way
India will have to prepare for and fight conflicts in the future. It would be a
valuable reference for defence and military personnel, students and scholars of
defence, military and strategic studies, practitioners and policy makers, and
the informed reader.
ABOUT Author
fjrigjwwe9r0pp_Books:aboutAuthor
Colonel Vikrant Suresh Deshpande joined IDSA as a Research Fellow in September 2016. An MPhil in
Defence and Strategic Studies from the Devi Ahilyabai University, his research
focuses on ‘Notions of Victory and its Implications on Strategy and Capability
Development of the Armed Forces’.