ABSTRACT
This book examines India’s foreign intelligence culture and strategic surprises in the 20th century.
The work looks at whether there is a distinct way in which India ‘thinks about’ and ‘does’ intelligence, and, by extension, whether this affects the prospects of it being surprised. Drawing on a combination of archival data, secondary source information and interviews with members of the Indian security and intelligence community, the book provides a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of Indian intelligence culture from the ancient period to colonial times and, subsequently, the post-colonial era. This evolutionary culture has played a significant role in explaining the India’s foreign intelligence failure during the occurrences of strategic surprises, such as the 1962 Sino-Indian War and the 1999 Kargil War, while it successfully prepared for surprise attacks like Operation Chenghiz Khan by Pakistan in 1971. The result is that the book argues that the strategic culture of a nation and its interplay with intelligence organisations and operations is important to understanding the conditions for intelligence failures and strategic surprises.
This book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, strategic studies, Asian politics and International Relations.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |5 pages
Introduction
section I|29 pages
India's Foreign Intelligence and Strategic Surprises
chapter 1|27 pages
Contextualising Intelligence Culture and Strategic Surprises
section II|84 pages
The Evolution of India's Intelligence Culture
chapter 2|25 pages
Kautilya's Discourse on Secret Intelligence in the Arthashastra
chapter 3|24 pages
From the Kautilyan State to the Colonial State
chapter 4|33 pages
The Birth of Post-Colonial Indian Intelligence Culture
section III|106 pages
Case Studies of India's Wars
chapter 5|40 pages
The Intelligence Bureau and the Sino-Indian War
chapter 6|34 pages
Indian Intelligence and the 1971 Indo-Pak War
section IV|50 pages
Indian Intelligence Culture in Perspective