Ravi Rikhye Curzon 1962 batch needs no introduction to many OCs. For those who are reading about him for the first time, here is what he has to say in the Introduction of his latest book “Analysis of India’s Ability to Fight a 2-front War 2018” :

I’ve spent 58-years studying defense, either full-time or part-time depending on the job situation. My output has been small for all those years, perhaps 30 books including four novels, ten annuals, two co-authored, and five refused publication permissions by Government of India. The reason is I study mainly what I want, and mostly that doesn’t translate into a monograph or book. I dropped out of college in my senior year; since I planned to go back I did not get my first degree until 29-years later. Subsequently, I’ve acquired a second bachelor’s and am working on a seventh masters. After completing one doctoral thesis (not submitted as I have been unable to pay the fees), I began another in conjunction with study for a third. Degrees are simply pieces of paper saying the holder has completed prescribed work. They don’t prove one knows much. Studying continuously has a negative side: the more one learns, the more one finds how little one knows. My intention was to have this up on Kindle by March, in anticipation of the next round at Doklam. For readers’ information, there will be no resumption of the Doklam crisis. China has built its road to Jampheri Ridge, which is where the trouble started in the first place. And China has moved in a combined arms brigade, plus reinforced its previously minimal fighter air presence. Meanwhile, GOI has been busy diplomatically and politically kow-towing to the Chinese. In my opinion, the next crisis will be at another point, perhaps…..”

[Editor: We are including a link to Amazon India, for those in other locations – please search by the book title or ASIN: B07HM5LKWG ].

Here is an excerpt from the book:

“The analysis asks one question and has one answer: Can India fight a two-front war against China and Pakistan? The answer is it cannot. Because of the China-Pakistan alliance, we cannot fight even a one-front war: engaging in a war with either adversary runs the risk of weakening the other front, leaving it open to exploitation. The solution, fortunately, is straightforward: build a 2-front war capability. The next problem is equally straightforward: The Government of India is determined not to spend money on defense. Today spending is down to 1.56% of GDP, lower even than in 1962. And we know how that ended. It takes little imagination to foresee what would have happened if 1962 had become 2-front: Pakistan would have walked over Punjab, perhaps all the way to Delhi, and we would have lost Kashmir too. If we chose to defend Punjab, we would have lost the North East Frontier Agency, now called Arunachal. If we tried to defend both fronts, we would have lost both.

For a strong defensive posture, we need to spend the 3 – 3.5% of GDP we spent 1963-1990, both to modernize and to raise eight more divisions that is the minimum needed. To negotiate from strength, we need 4%+ and to recover our lost territories we need 6%. Our spending is 1.6% of GDP, lower even than the 1.9% of 1962….”