As the world has evolved, so has the manner, style and the nature of this national apparatus for conflict been revised. This is due to both cultural development and technological advancements. Military history is, therefore, punctuated by fairly frequent reviews of concepts, reorganization and reassignment of roles and tasks of the various fighting units that constitute a nation’s military might. These revisions allow the fighting forces to assimilate changes in all fields of human endeavour, be they technological, scientific, social, political or relating to any of the many disciplines that influence human behaviour. While the casual observer may term this “ficklemindedness”, the more observant would realize that it is this very aspect of the military that is perhaps its best attribute. This dynamic process ensures that a nation’s combat potential is always maintained at the cutting edge of perfection.

This process, however, incorporates a major danger in that the original rationale and philosophy becomes obscured and may indeed be forgotten as the concepts are revised and as people and personalities change. It, therefore, becomes necessary that, as nations go about the business of “honing” their military machines, a review of the basic, founding principles that led to the creation of an armed force be made. In order to do so, it may actually be necessary to start by reviewing the need and nature of armed combat before one is able to establish the various fighting arms that may be needed or the roles that need to be assigned to each such arms.

War is a continuation of policy by armed means. Whenever human beings interact and disagreement occurs, if all other means fail to resolve the dispute, violence is used. Use of violence creates a winner and a loser and, as a result of this process, the victor is able to impose his will on the vanquished. This fundamental truth does not change irrespective of whether it is a street fight between two juveniles or a major war amongst tribes, races, nations or groups of nations. While this may appear a frivolous and unnecessary statement, it is relevant because it embodies two major corollaries which equate the most gigantic clash of forces to that of the street fight. And they are:

(a) For victory to be achieved the immediate physical presence of the victor over the vanquished is an absolute necessity. Patently visible in a simplistic scenario such as a street fight, it has proven itself true in all conflicts on any larger scale. History is replete with instances where victory has been sought at distant ranges and nations have tried to achieve victory without aiming for physical proximity to their opponents. Such attempts have invariably failed. The success of guerilla warfare can largely be attributed to this factor; the guerillas denying those fighting a conventional war the much needed requirement of physical proximity. The euphemism coined by the United States in reference to the 1991 Gulf War as it being the “unfinished war” is a tacit admission of this principle. More recently, despite having conducted a horrific bombing campaign in Afghanistan, real victory remained elusive until troops were physically positioned in that country (much to the distaste of the Americans) because of this unavoidable need for physical dominance. Despite this, a lack of sufficient numbers continues to prevent the Coalition forces from ensuring a satisfactory and enduring “victory”. Indeed, the massive campaign against an amorphous Al Qaeda bears testimony to the fact that unless there is a recognizable, tangible, enemy, winning any war or battle shall remain an elusive goal. Closer to home, the horrendous expense of maintaining the icy outposts in Siachen and Kargil are graphic reminders of this fact.

(b) This physical proximity needs to be maintained for as long as there remains the basic disagreement that led to the conflict. Unless direct physical contact persists, enduring victory in any battle cannot be claimed. One may impose all the sanctions that are possible, one may create no-fly zones, one may board ships on the high seas and divert cargoes, indeed, one may take all steps possible to bind the vanquished but, unless the victor remains physically present to ensure that he is acknowledged as such, the eventual outcome shall be that the vanquished shall prevail and the victor may well not have bothered to fight!

If these facts are recognized, it then becomes very easy to find equation between the largest of conflicts and a street fight. Because, in its pristine form, success in either must finally be a result of an eye-to-eye finale where, while the victor of a street fight towers over a (hopefully) supine enemy, the successful general ceremoniously strips the defeated one of his arms in the battlefield. And, for as long as the original differences remain (until resolved more permanently by other means), the physical presence of the conqueror is just as necessary as is the presence of the street fight victor over his opponent.

Any nation intending to embark upon a hostile adventure therefore needs to possess a body of trained manpower first to fight the enemy and then be able to assure physical dominance. It is a historically accepted convention that manpower for the first part be pooled together and termed the Infantry. Nations that have to transport this force over sea may choose to call them Marines but that terminology does not detract from the fact that these are men that come into direct contact with the enemy troops and achieve that essential physical proximity. The gun carrying, foot slogging soldier may arrive by air, by ship or by an armoured personnel carrier but arrive he must and, having arrived, must stay in direct contact with the vanquished sufficiently long for other less destructive means to ensure the imposition of national will. The second requirement, that of physical dominance, was in early times, assigned to the same body of men that fought the war. This assignment was, however, gradually handed over to quasi-military forces and, in more recent times, it has further been delegated to financial institutions and multinational businesses and this proximity exercised through their pinstripe suited, laptop carrying executives!

In any armed conflict however, the foot soldier or the infantryman is the Centrepiece of the Battle; he always has been and shall always remain so. All other military force that a nation possesses is supportive, be it integral to the army in the form of artillery, tanks, attack helicopters, surface-to-surface missiles or be it embodied in another service such as the Air Force or Navy. All these assets are orchestrated together with the final aim of making the physical presence of the fighting men tenable in a hostile environment.

War can, therefore, be best described as a national endeavour to achieve this aim i.e. bringing fighting men in close contact with the enemy for the purpose of achieving physical dominance. All the air, sea and land battles are simply the means of achieving this aim. The end that is sought is the enduring ability of the fighting person to remain in place to ensure dominance. Any force structuring that is done and any strategy that is developed by a nation must incorporate this fundamental truth. It is worthwhile keeping this in mind when the Navy or Air Force project their usefulness or whenever arguments take place about the three Services.

One truly pertinent illustration of this premise is the Falklands campaign of 1982. Here is what can be considered to be the unquestionable proof of the unique supremacy of the infantryman. It is also a modern case study of a nation using all its available resources, military, political, diplomatic etc in an effort to impose its will on a distant nation. The will of Great Britain could not be imposed by its surface and submarine fleet establishing of an exclusion zone; it could not be imposed despite the sinking of General Belgrano; it could not be imposed by a most complex and impressive projection of Air Power thousands of miles away from home, it could not be imposed through carpet bombing of Argentinean targets. It could only be imposed when foot soldiers “yomped” their way into Port Stanley and a Royal Marine NCO shinned up a flagpole to replace the Argentinean flag with the Union Jack! It could only be imposed when the Argentinean General signed the surrender in the presence of his British counterpart. Physical proximity of the uniformed combatant had to be achieved for the attainment of the military objective. The continued physical presence of that military force (albeit a token one) until today is a silent testimony to the second truth that such presence is necessary until any conflict is permanently resolved by other means.

Iraq is naturally the latest, most graphic and stunningly vivid proof of this principle! Over a decade long attempt by the United States and United Kingdom to keep Iraq in check through no fly zones, economic embargoes, financial restrictions and a host of other “stand-off” processes could not enable the ‘victors’ of Operation Desert Storm to impose their will over an obdurate Saddam. An obscenely powerful aerial assault using the most powerful of conventional weaponry replete with ingeniously termed actions such as “decapitation strikes”, “shock and awe tactics” etc. could not subjugate Iraq. Saddam and his regime could only be toppled by creating a physical presence of coalition troops in the cities of Iraq and the pulling down of Saddam’s statue in Baghdad! Lest it be forgotten, just as in Port Stanley the Union Jack was hoisted, the Star and Stripes was similarly raised in Baghdad to signify a US victory but, being politically unacceptable, this was soon replaced by an Iraqi Flag and victory consummated through the physical toppling of Saddam Hussein, albeit in his concrete and steel version!

The need for physical presence and the importance of the Infantryman having been thus emphasized adequately, we can now proceed to examine the force structure needed for any military pursuit.

In early times conflict was restricted to contiguous land masses. Villages fought villages, fiefdoms fought fiefdoms, warlords fought their similarly disposed neighbours. As such an “army” of men, (armed with farm implements or any conceivable instrument of injury) was the standard medium through which fights took place and wars were waged. The theory was simple and so was its application. If a sufficiently large group of armed individuals set out against another such group, the one that remained more powerful after the inevitably bloody encounter would naturally emerge triumphant. In fact, in some cases, the clash was only restricted to the two leaders or, at best, a group of representatives while the rest of the two armies stood by as spectators!

As technology developed, man was able to build platforms that floated. Ships came into being and it did not take Man too long to realize that these could be used to transport a fighting force to distant shores. Water, which was until then an insurmountable barrier, could no longer insulate a nation from aggression. Ships provided an ideal means of projecting national power in distant lands. Navies were formed and as ships became bigger, better and faster they were able to venture further across the globe and were better able to support the troops they had deposited on distant shores. Ships were soon upgraded from being simple general purpose human and cargo carriers to specialized vessels and a waterborne equivalent of mobile artillery. (While the emergence of airpower will be discussed subsequently, it is relevant at this stage to point out that further technological development enabled ships to become mobile airfields thereby allowing carriage of elements of an Air Force also).

It was, therefore, a logical development in military tactics to prevent these carriers of troops, guns and other war making machinery from reaching their destinations. Nations developed ships that could prevent other hostile ships from arriving at their coastlines. The generic term of battleship gave way to precise distinctions of cruisers, destroyers, frigates, etc. When the surface environment became untenable, solutions were sought by going underwater. Submarines were developed.

The power of its Navy thus determined a nation’s capability to wage war against distant nations. Tiny nations such as England, Spain, Portugal and Holland became global powers by virtue of their advanced seafaring skills and nautical capabilities. These nations were thus able to impose their will on others by exercising naval might. In most cases, ‘flag-showing’ was sufficient. In situations where both forces possessed sizeable navies, sea battles took place. Victories were nonetheless achieved by the physical presence of the victor over the vanquished, terra firma being replaced by a rolling deck and the khaki-dressed, mud-plastered soldiers by blue coated, gold emblazoned sailors. Following such naval encounters, the victorious nation then proceeded to provide its physical presence on the defeated navy’s country through its political machinery. A naval victory at sea meant political conquest of a Nation.

It is worth reiterating that, for the sea-faring nations, naval power simply provided the vehicular means for carrying troops to distant lands for the express purpose of creating conditions for that stated physical contact. Not surprisingly, those that had the wherewithal to, elected to prevent the arrival of the hostile forces by engaging the enemy en route. (In some cases, sea battles were fought by two imperialistically inclined naval powers fighting for dominance of the waves). The legendary sea-battles, if viewed in this perspective of an overall national aim do lose some of their charm! It would also be realized that victories at sea did not obviate the need for the physical presence of the victor, achieved in some cases by providing a political presence as opposed to a purely military one.

A stage came when naval power became potent enough to provide a very credible statement of intent (force projection) in that the mere sailing of an Armada would force a distant country to submit to the will of the country from where the ships sailed. The primary purpose was thus forgotten. The means became the end and the original end was lost in a blaze of ceremony and grandeur.

On December 17, 1903 an epochal event took place. Oliver and Wilbur Wright successfully conducted the first flight of a heavier-than-air machine. As they toasted their success, little did they realize that they had just opened up a unique spatial dimension which would soon be exploited for military purposes. Airpower had arrived.

The emergence of Airpower is fundamentally different from the growth of naval power. While the latter developed from an initial troop transport requirement, Airpower evolved very specifically as a weapon of aggression, (not withstanding its initial short lived role as an observation platform). The aircraft was, is and will continue to be a uniquely potent weapon of offence embodying all the prime attributes of attack. Despite its short life span, the rapidity of development and the inherent excellence of Airpower as a military instrument have made the Air Force of any nation the pivotal service. Armies and Navies, steeped in tradition, capable of tracing their origins into remote pasts, secure until now in their unquestioned superiority within their individual domains have viewed the growth and ascendancy of this prodigal upstart with a certain amount of awe and a considerable amount of caution. More so because Airpower has forced a major revision of the roles and tasks of their own concepts by not only challenging but rendering obsolete proven precepts and doctrines.

The ability of aircraft to reach out and strike at tremendous distances, with surgical precision and with devastating effect has forced nations to realize that this is the force that, if structured properly, provides them with not only credible deterrence but also a potent, responsive and effective means of making the actual conduct of war a short and successful venture. Air Power has achieved the distinction of becoming an instrument of such deadly magnitude and of such tremendous responsiveness that it has become accepted as the primary means of fulfilling both the roles of the military i.e. providing deterrence and repelling aggression. Equally important, it has been recognized through a series of very damaging policies and costly experiments that Airpower can be best exercised through the medium of the manned aircraft. The short-lived concept of deterrence based on surface-to-surface missiles (as practised during the Cold War period) and the necessarily restricted success of cruise missile attacks over distant targets more recently, should dispel any doubts that may remain in the minds of skeptics.

Having said this, it is essential to recognize that any Air Battle, however spectacular and howsoever grand, is but a sideshow, an unnecessary but unavoidable adjunct to achieving the main objective which must always remain making the ground forces successful in their objective. It must be reiterated that like the glorious Naval encounters of the past, like the historic clash of the Armoured columns of the last century, an Air Battle or indeed any employment of Airpower must be viewed for what it really is; an unnecessary, expensive and complex prelude to making the presence of the land forces tenable. The ship was always but a troop transporter, the tank was and still is essentially a replacement for horse drawn cannon and an aircraft is but a weapon delivery vehicle operating in the third dimension. Or indeed, a troop delivery system! All exist to make the presence of the infantryman tenable as he engages the enemy.

Ego shattering and humiliating as it may sound, the ship, the horse, the tank, the aircraft; all these are vehicles and their only usefulness is enabling this tenancy. Nations that tend to forget this essential truth are doomed to suffer monumentally. Strategists that glorify these vehicles and make the Service that provide this support an end in themselves lead their Nations into costly and devastating consequences. The 1991 Gulf War is a classic example of this. Having butchered a fleeing Iraqi Army and killed thousands of Iraqis (both uniformed and civilian) the ‘victorious’ coalition troops retreated to the safety of their countries leaving behind a token presence in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Ten years later those very strategists who orchestrated that conflict were unabashedly calling it “an unfinished war” and are now, after a horrific and truly obscene use of overwhelming force, finally making an attempt to achieve that physical presence. It has been belatedly realized that physical presence and visible dominance is a must for any meaningful and enduring victory. “He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day” should go on to include “he who wins and goes away, lives to fight another day!

At the risk of sounding repetitive, it has to be stated that it is the infantryman that is the intrinsic combatant and indeed, it is the infantryman who is the enforcer of the will of a Nation over a subjugated enemy! Everyone and everything else is supportive. True, there is an undeniable need for the other services and arms; without these the infantry would not survive but the aim of all these supporting services is exactly that...to support the foot soldier in establishing and maintaining his presence in hostile territory. Indeed, if these supporting arms do a reasonably thorough job, the foot soldier need not even fire a single round. He could saunter in at leisure to establish his presence.

It is ironic in the extreme that the supporting services have, for exactly this reason (making the job of the infantryman easier), been lured into the self-laudatory yet mistaken belief that it is they who are the arbiters of the fate of nations. They do not determine the fate of nations: their performance does, however, determine the fate of the infantryman! And, if the entire national war effort cannot make the presence of the infantryman tenable, the nation shall have lost the war. It is just that simple. It may have pulverized the enemy beyond recognition, it may have put in effect the most stringent of embargoes, the most aggressive of no-fly zones, the most effective of sanctions, it will not be successful unless it can create and maintain that inescapable physical presence over the vanquished.

Examples of this rather simple yet essential truth abound in our daily lives. There is no such thing as an absentee landlord. Or an absentee business owner. Or an absentee husband! Or indeed an absentee wife! Likewise there cannot be an Absentee Victor. Physical presence is needed to ensure one’s rights and privileges; the only other option is to relinquish all such benefits. Rule by proxy means that the person holding the proxy is the real ruler. War by proxy similarly means that the persons who do the actual fighting (and dying) shall be the victors or the vanquished. This is the lesson that history has taught all that tried otherwise; this is the lesson that the American armed forces have so bitterly learnt afresh in Afghanistan. It is ironic in the extreme that having pushed the Russians out of Afghanistan through a long, costly and bloody campaign lasting over ten years, the Americans literally carpeted the way for the return of the Russians and their camp followers (the carpet being made of daisy cutters instead of silk and wool)! The Russians were back, completely at ease, roaming the Afghan countryside while the victors were still debating the merits and demerits of injecting ground forces into the conquered land!

In essence, therefore, any nation intending to create a credible military force must primarily organize a body of men trained to achieve direct, physical contact with the enemy in a manner that ensures sustainable dominance. This group is the enforcer of National Will. All additional force structuring must simply aim at enabling safety and security of this body of men as they set about their intended goal. Once physical dominance is achieved, the National Military Force should be so structured as to ensure that the state of proximity and dominance endures until the reasons for conflict have been satisfactorily resolved