The second major issue that comes up is that of intelligence and its failure. The problem here is not so much of information (which undeniably has been deficient), with the IAF not being in the picture and Army HQ receiving photo-recce confirmation of Pakistani army helicopters on our side nearly 72 hours after they were located by R&AW. But there is the larger problem of a lack of independent assessments, especially of military-significance data. We still don’t know which is the institution that undertakes national and/or military assessment of information and intelligence. Unless the Defence Intelligence Agency now builds up a large cadre of analysts and is regularly fed with data by the agencies, and it provides its output directly to the Chiefs of Staff Committee, we will keep suffering from this crippling deficiency.

The writer, a retired air-commodore, is director, Centre for Air Power Studies