Defence Secretary Dr Ajay Kumar released a book titled ‘FORCE IN STATECRAFT’, an edited volume by Commandant of National Defence College (NDC) Air Marshal Diptendu Choudhury and President’s Chair of Excellence at NDC Air Vice Marshal (Dr) Arjun Subramaniam (Retd) in New Delhi on November 13, 2021.The book is a compilation of essays on topics viz. counter-insurgency operations, conflict in North East, air power, nuclear posture etc. which give conceptual understanding and facets of India's national security.

The contributors of the book are all stalwarts of the Armed Forces, who have vast operational experience and understanding of several important cornerstones of forces and its application. Since national security impacts every citizen, there has long been a need for a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of the instrument of force in statecraft, which this book hopes to bridge.

In his address, the Defence Secretary praised the efforts of Commandant NDC Air Marshal Diptendu Choudhury and President’s Chair of Excellence at NDC Air Vice Marshal (Dr) Arjun Subramaniam (Retd) for obtaining the views of a galaxy of eminent authors and compiling them in the form of a book in a short period of time. He termed the launch of the book as a leadership act of NDC and called uponsimilar think-tanks and training institutes across the country to come out with such initiatives to provide an understanding on the fast-evolving nature of statecraft.

This academic endeavor, the first of its kind from NDC, gives a wider national security discourse which would generate better ideas to proliferate and morph into better policies, strategies and doctrines and how they can best be employed in current and future scenarios.It is a go-to book for policy makers, legislators, diplomats, academics, leadership at all levels in the various national security verticals.

The book has been endorsed by eminent personalities like former Governor of Jammu &Kashmir Shri NN Vohra;Director, Vivekananda International Foundation and former Deputy National Security Advisor Dr Arvind Gupta;Professor of International Relation, King’s College London & Director of Research, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi Dr Harsh V Pant and Prof Rajesh Rajagopalan, JNU.

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