It is time to operationalise the Indian Defence University

The Greek thinker Thucydides is said to have remarked that a nation which makes a distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools. It is no surprise that several nations have established ‘defence universities’ to promote academic rigour and enhance strategic thinking in their armed forces. While the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act, 1986 brought wide-ranging structural reforms, the U.S. military’s professionalism is perhaps owed in large measure to ‘Ike’ Skelton, whose report to the U.S. Congress significantly reformed military education in the U.S. armed forces. This report advised the Department of Defense to focus educational institutions on specified learning objectives, enhance the quality of both civilian and military faculty, establish a two-phased system for the education of joint officers, and form an Institute for National Strategic Studies at National Defense University, among other things. Neither does the RRU Act specify education related to ‘defence’ in its objectives, nor is its curriculum focused solely on military requirements for management of war and execution of plans.