Valleys and Valour

  CHINA’S ‘ SILENT ’ WAR FOR GLOBAL DOMINANCE “ The Chinese board game Weiqi gives unique insight into their theory of statecraft. The game employs abstract strategy to encircle the stones of the opponent. The essence of its play is on encirclement through positioning strategy, rather than on destroying the opposing pieces as in Chess. ” – Col RS Sidhu   Backdrop “ Of war, there is open war, concealed war, and silent war .” – Kautilya ka ‘Arthashastra ’ Kautilya aka Vishnugupta aka Chanakya, the author of ‘ Arthashastra ’, the 3 rd century BCE ancient treatise on statecraft, is perhaps the first military strategist and master practitioner of realpolitik to theorise on ‘ silent war ’. The ‘ Arthashastra’ describes the ‘ silent war ’ as that where a country while maintaining overt peace with its target state, recruit fifth columnist to engage in subversion, orchestrate information war to create violent discord and rift in the body polity, sow misinformation to discredit

  ‘ FOG OF WAR ’ & BOOBY TRAPS IN THE KILLING OF ISMAEL HANIYEH   “A General with ‘ winning ways ’ is one who is as proficient in the science and art of covering the battlefield with the ‘ fog of war ’ as also in piercing through this veil, while employing it as a key strategy to strike at the ‘ OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Action) Loop’ of the adversary.” – Col RS Sidhu   Backdrop “… An enemy should be destroyed without a trace .” - Chanakya Obfuscating the battlefield is a strategy as old as Mahabharat, where the Pandavas employed grey zone propaganda to spread the half-truth of ‘Ashwathama is dead’, to neutralise Guru Dronacharya, the leading general of the Kauravas army, and Krishan orchestrated a fake sunset to set the stage for Arjun to kill Jayadrath.    During World War II, the detailed planning and execution of Operation ‘ Overlord ’ to invade Nazi Germany occupied Europe, was matched by an equally meticulous deception plan codenamed Operation ‘ Bodyguar

  SPREADING WEST ASIA CONFLAGRATION “ The Mediterranean, Red, and the Caspian Seas region has overtaken Ukraine as the most geopolitically combustible region currently in the world .” - Col RS Sidhu Backdrop Nearly ten months into the ongoing Gaza conflict between Israel and Hamas, more and more Iran backed extremist groups, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis from Yemen have entered the fray, by employing surface launched and aerial projectiles to attack the state of Israel. Israel on its part has unequivocally declared its war aim to exterminate Hamas and its top leadership. The Israel Defense Force has been employing a two-fold military strategy against Hamas militia, by launching conventional military operations against Hamas armed cadres and logistics infrastructure, and launching targeted strikes against senior Hamas political and military leadership. These military operations have severely degraded combat potential of the Hamas. Liquidation of Ismael Haniyeh Isma

  KEEPING ALIVE THE LEGACY OF 1171 KILLED IN ACTION IN OPERATION ‘PAWAN’ “In today’s highly factitious domestic polity of democratic countries, geopolitical stance of a country is no longer a matter of purely national interests, but is quite often modulated to suit perceived domestic political payoffs.”   - Col RS Sidhu   Backdrop The Emerald Isle, a group of IPKF veterans, is performing yeomen service to keep alive the legacy of Operation ‘Pawan’, which the Government would rather forget. Faced with continued Government apathy to publicly commemorate the supreme sacrifices of the 1171 Indian soldiers Killed In Action (KIA) during Operation ‘Pawan’, the IPKF veterans have reached out directly to the fellow citizens. Operation ‘Pawan’ is an important interlude in the geopolitical framework which beckons India in the coming decades. Yet it has been swept under the carpet, thereby, precluding study of its acts of omission and commission to derive learnings for the future. More t