The Indian Air Force was formed on 8 October 1932. Tested in the Second World War and in subsequent India-Pakistan conflicts, the force enters its 90th year as one of the largest air forces in the world. However, it also faces enhanced challenges in the region as it seeks to replace legacy systems, upgrade its combat and support assets and to also expand its force levels. Despite many problems the IAF is facing the second decade of the 21st century with an increasingly rationalized doctrine, an improving air defense network, an array of new ordnance and electronics and a rejuvenated combat fleet. 90 Years of the Indian Air Force examines the Indian Air Force as it exists today and its moves towards modernization. Each element of the IAF, along with the current inventory of aircraft as they relate to its combat squadrons, its transport fleet, its helicopter forces and its training and electronic warfare and surveillance assets are discussed. In addition, the IAF's air defence network and its large SAM inventory are detailed along with the fledgling Defence Space Agency which operates with Air Force assistance. India's existing space assets are discussed as they relate to airspace surveillance and management. The ongoing modernization of the Indian Air Force is examined in terms of new acquisitions and the upgrading of older but viable platforms. Similarly, the ongoing efforts to improve the Air Defence network, ISTAR systems, AEW platforms and new SAMs are analyzed. Moreover, the focus on indigenous designs in respect of radars, aircraft, ordnance and SAMs are explored in detail. Two separate elements of this effort are discussed - license production of foreign designs and a renewed emphasis on local designs for combat aircraft, trainers, helicopters, weapons and SAM, this local production being key to the IAF's future modernization.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 80

Dimensions: 210 x 298 mm

Publication Date: 16-06-2022

In 1999, less than one year after both countries tested nuclear weapons, India and Pakistan found themselves locked in another armed conflict. In spite of a ray of hope for peace in February 1999, when the Indian Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee, visited Pakistan and signed the Lahore declaration, by April 1999, the two countries were effectively at war. From the prospect of improved relations and a chance for a peaceful resolution of differences, within one month the subcontinent was plunged into another war. In a brilliant tactical plan, Pakistan launched Operation Badr which saw a brigade sized force of Pakistan Army troops and Islamist militants infiltrate into Indian controlled territory. Supported by Pakistani artillery and well provided with small arms, mortars, and anti-aircraft weapons, these infiltrators were able to entrench along ridgelines with commanding positions over Indian lines of supply and communications. Once realizing the seriousness of the situation, the Indian government ordered its armed forces into a ponderous, but ultimately successful effort to evict the invaders. Facing treacherous terrain, and a well-supplied and entrenched enemy, the Indian Army troops supported by artillery and air force clawed their way up mountain heights to capture fortified enemy positions.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 88

Dimensions: 210 x 291 mm

Publication Date: 20-06-2020

Trinidad has the distinction of contributing the highest number of recruits per capita to the cause of notorious 'Islamic State'. The case of Trinidad and Tobago (usually abbreviated 'Trinidad') makes for an interesting study as on the face of it, a well-integrated Muslim population, a strong welfare state and an absence of political persecution on any religious or racial basis should not provide fertile recruiting ground for Jihadist ideology. However, the converse is most certainly the case as not only is attraction to such extremist causes growing but the numbers of Trinidadian nationals willing to fight for IS is also increasing. What is happening in Trinidad is symptomatic of a broader problem as Jihadi groups have widened their reach where apparently unconnected groups can now ally with the ideology and resource bases of better known groups without formally being part of them. The flirtation with Islamist ideology on Trinidad dates back many years and through a combination of incompetence, political naiveté and unfortunate compromises. Indeed, the country faced the only Islamist coup in the entire Latin America - Caribbean region and the hemisphere.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 68

Dimensions: 210 x 291 mm

Publication Date: 17-09-2020

In 1984, the Indian Army carried out a stunning operation that captured the Siachen Glacier in the northernmost regions of what is now the Union Territory of Ladakh. Since that time, a full brigade of Indian troops has faced off against a similar number of Pakistani soldiers in the highest battlefield on earth. Sustained by a combination of tenuous road supply lines and air support, where helicopter manuals have had to be rewritten, the two countries have had numerous skirmishes that have escalated into the use of artillery fire. Operation Meghdoot tells the story of this conflict. Beginning with the trauma of partition and the first Kashmir war that saw the region divided between India and Pakistan, it progresses to the 1962 Sino-Indian war which saw the Aksai Chin region lost to China and the Shaksgam Valley unilaterally ceded by Pakistan to China. The consequence of this was to allow the development of the Karakoram Pass and highway to link China to Pakistan.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 68

Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm

Publication Date: 22-04-2021

In 1988, the Indian Army and Air Force, ably supported by the Indian Navy, carried out a daring intervention in the Maldives. The government of the Maldives, led by Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, facing an attempted coup by PLOTE, a renegade group of Tamil insurgents from Sri Lanka, sent out a request for help, to which India responded. Operation Cactus details this, India's most ambitious out of area intervention to date. The book describes the history, economy, demography and politics of the Maldives with an emphasis on the government of the day and the strategic value of the islands to PLOTE as well as the geopolitical ramifications for India in respect to the need to secure its influence in the area. Operation Cactus details the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force of the 1980s, with particular emphasis on elements that could be used in out of area interventions and the transport assets of the Indian Air Force and the amphibious capabilities of the Indian Navy. The Maldives National Security Service of 1988 is also discussed and its evolution into the Maldives National Defense Force in the aftermath of the 1988 coup. The PLOTE attempt to overthrow the Gayoom government and the resistance it faced from the NSS, along with Operation Cactus itself are described in detail, along with the intervention by India, including operational planning, mobilization of forces and the force levels committed. The actual landing in the Maldives, the paucity of intelligence and the force selection are detailed along with the confrontation with PLOTE and the latter's desperate attempt to escape by sea and the Indian Navy's counter to this. Operation Cactus includes original color artworks of the aircraft and troops involved in this unique intervention.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 72

Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm

Publication Date: 28-02-2022

Since the 1998 nuclear tests and the publication of India's Nuclear Doctrine, India has continued to face endemic security challenges from both China and Pakistan. The latter, through the apparent induction of tactical nuclear weapons into the equation and a rapid expansion of its fissile material production capacity has introduced an additional complication into Indian security calculations while China has become increasingly assertive and intransigent in its conduct towards its neighbors, India included. In light of an evolving challenge, India's nuclear strategy, predicated on a credible minimum deterrence threshold needs to be looked at in light of the prospect of lowered nuclear thresholds in the case of Pakistan as well as potential coercive nuclear posturing from China. In neither case can nuclear strategy be divorced from conventional military strategy as any operation - offensive or defensive - will now have to be carried out with the potential of nuclear escalation in mind. Nuclear India details the evolution of India's nuclear journey, from the 1960s to the present day, the historical events leading to the 1974 nuclear test, the reluctant nuclearization that occurred thereafter and the first phases of an operational nuclear deterrent in the late 1980s.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 84

Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm

Publication Date: 28-12-2021

The Armed Forces of the English-speaking Caribbean have a rich, albeit brief history. This book will cover their story from the post-Second World War West India Regiment to the independence of the former British Colonies in the 1960s and 1970s. The failed West India Federation led directly to the formation of the national armed forces of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados while Guyana's forces had their roots in Police Special Services Units and a Volunteer Force. Shortly after Independence, Guyana's armed forces found themselves in a border conflict with Suriname as well as a far less salubrious operation to support a corrupt and racist government through rigged elections. Trinidad found itself facing a mutiny in the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment, redemption only coming for the force in 1990 when it played a stellar role in quelling an Islamist insurrection. Barbados and Jamaica's armed forces had a more subdued history, supporting police forces but playing an important role in the intervention in Grenada in 1983. The Bahamas, unique in having a naval force as its primary military unit, had the dubious distinction of having one of its patrol boats sunk by Cuban MiG-21s in 1980. This book, besides the historical background to the five armed forces in question, will examine the evolution, equipment and current status and plans of these forces. This includes the complete recapitalization of the Jamaica Defence Force, the resurrection of the Bahamas Defence Force as a capable naval unit, the decline and deliberate neglect of the Guyana Defence Force and the revival and near collapse of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force. Each country has a unique political, and in the case of Trinidad & Tobago and Guyana, racial, history and these have contributed, at least in part, to the evolution and employment of their respective armed forces.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 84

Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm

Publication Date: 28-02-2022