My Years at IDSA

This year, the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses celebrates 50 eventful years of its existence. In my association with the Institute, between 2005 and 2011, an effort was made to strengthen the Institute’s overall capacity to contribute to strategic thinking in India. In this effort, I was ably assisted by the Institute’s scholars and my other colleagues. There was clear emphasis on institution building, rather than individual research efforts. It was felt that enabling a large number of scholars at the IDSA to contribute to strategic thinking more substantially would be a better strategy than focusing on individual performance. This article reflects on this effort and its outcome. It concludes with some suggestions about what can be done to augment this capacity in the future.