Military is an organismic being; not a switch on — switch off robot, mechanically obedient. It can remain unaffected, dutyful, disciplined and responsive only upto a point in the scale of mental stress, psychological strain and moral tension, beyond which it either runs amuck or disintegrates as surely as surely as it was monolithic. There is no possibility of experimenting with war and fighting in order to study the military and soldier’s behaviour; sanity does not permit such experimentation. The only avenues available therefore are studying historical experiences and cogitating about the military and the soldier in various scenarios. That is what one seeks — military man and civilian alike — in military literature.

There is an acute paucity of military writing, both in quantity and quality. Most of the scarce military literature we have is of narrative nature (description of campaigns, battles and regimental histories), but little of cogitative nature, e.g. addressing war and soldiering from social, political, psychological, structural and other angles.

Quantity is a modest but sure originator of quality. This book adds to that quantity. The articles herein reflect an average army officer’s quiet cogitative exercise during his career, a somewhat high average expressive urge, and an above average desire to see more and more contribution to military literature in its diverse fields so as to mitigate existing paucity and lack of awareness of the military and the soldier as organismic beings in the service of their people.