Special forces of India

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Special Forces in India

Historically, Indian Special Forces have been used for direct action type of roles during conventional wars. The hierarchal understanding of trans-border employment of Special Forces in India is short distanced physical or direct type of actions executed on a unit/sub-unit basis to achieve battlefield victories. There is no concept of them being used abroad other than in conventional war. While Special Forces should be central to asymmetric response including against irregular forces, asymmetric warfare does not automatically equate to a physical attack. A physical attack is only the extreme and potentially most dangerous expression of asymmetric warfare. The key lies in achieving strategic objectives through application of modest resources with the essential psychological element.

Indian history is replete with examples of special missions – from the Cholas to the Mauryas, from Shivaji to Rana Pratap and Maharaja Ranjit Singh and many others. In the aftermath of the Chinese aggression of 1962, independent India saw the advent of the Special Forces with establishment of the Special Frontier Force (SFF) amply covered in the media including during the 1971 Indo-Pak War and the conflict in Kargil in 1999 . In the Army, the initiative of raising a commando unit was taken in 1965 by Major Megh Singh with the blessings of the then Western Army Commander.
Recently, the Naresh Chandra Committee recommended the establishment of a Special Forces Command…
Over the years, a host of Special Forces have come up in India. Special Forces get mentioned periodically as part of counter-insurgency/counter-terrorist operations or events such as the United States Special Forces (USSF) raid that killed Osama-bin-Laden; but little has happened in India to optimise their potential in furtherance of national security objectives. Recently, the Naresh Chandra Committee recommended the establishment of a Special Forces Command.

Nomenclature – Special Forces
The term ‘Special Forces’ is often misunderstood. The word “Special” should be sufficient to understand that such forces are to be employed primarily for strategic tasks beyond national borders. In his book ‘The Idea of Pakistan’, Stephen P Cohen writes “The task of Special Forces is the proxy application of force at low and precisely calculated levels, the objective being to achieve some political effect, not a battlefield victory.” This fundamental concept is ignored in India perhaps because we still do not have a National Security Strategy and have not defined our National Security Objectives, leave aside a national level Concept for Employment of Special Forces.

Ignorance and inability to grasp the strategic environment, its setting and compulsion under which such forces are employed, are evident. The impact of Special Forces operations is not well understood. Either their effects are overstated or fixated on tactical aspects of their missions. Keeping the military out of strategic decision making is one major reason.

Ignorance and inability to grasp the strategic environment, its setting and compulsion under which such forces are employed, are evident. The impact of Special Forces operations is not well understood. Either their effects are overstated or fixated on tactical aspects of their missions. Keeping the military out of strategic decision making is one major reason.

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Special Forces in India » Indian Defence Review

Nice find, that first pic looks awesome, those guys are the nightmare for every terrorist

But please post this in the sticky Indian SF thread, this one is quite dead.