Air Vice Marshal (Retd) Rajesh Isser, AVSM,VM (G) was commissioned in the Indian Air Force (IAF) in Dec 82 and has over 8000 hours of flying to his credit, including combat experience in Sri Lanka (Indian Peace Keeping Forces 1987-88), Siachen Glacier, Kargil (1999) and Congo (UNPK 2003-04). He is a Category A flying instructor. He has operated with all Special Forces of the Indian Armed Forces in various operations since 1983. He has also trained with the NSG as helicopter crew for special missions. He has held numerous operational commands and staff appointments in his career of 37 years.

He has been the IAF’s HADR Task Force Commander in many rescue and relief ops all over India, including Uttrakhand 2013, Ladakh-Leh 2010, Andhra-Karnataka 2009 and Arunachal Pradesh 2000. He has also done HADR coordination in Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan over the years. He has commanded an Aviation Unit in UN Peacekeeping Mission in DR Congo (MONUC) under Chapter VII. He flew and coordinated a number of humanitarian missions in DRC, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda.

As a Director of Net Assessment at HQ IDS, he has coordinated numerous strategic projects and has authored strategy reports on many critical issues. He is an author of three books and has a number of articles to his credit in national and international journals on diverse subjects such as disaster response, peacekeeping, airpower in counter-insurgency, irregular conflicts etc. He is currently pursuing doctoral studies on leadership challenges in disaster response.

Contributions 
The Russian Airpower Dilemma General Observations The ‘fog of information war’ challenges any meaningful analysis at this stage. The western narrative with connivance of the corporate sector has virtually silenced the ‘other’ narrative. It is clear that everyth...

US-China: Moving Towards War or Cut-Throat Competition? Abstract This paper explores the realm of the brewing competition between the US and China, which can easily escalate to military confrontation. India has been forced to make choices away from its long-held belief in hedging and non-allia...

VIF Papers 
Exploring Indian Airpower Doctrine & Debacles in The Himalayas This is an article exploring some of our wars in the Indian Himalayas to derive correct lessons for future conflict management. In light of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) and future theatre commands, restructuring and reorientation for the future i...

India at Crossroads - Part I Covid-19 was a predictable and avoidable event, if the world had been more transparent and accountable, and less greedy and ambitious. It is important to analyse fast-evolving international developments, thoughts and trends to grasp the choices and i...

Preparing for A Post-Corona World The Novel Coronavirus has not only taken over the year 2020, it will have ramifications for decades to come. Changes to societal norms and developmental priorities, and de-globalisation forces gaining momentum are just some of the expected uncertaint...

Warring Minds & Cognitive Ammo Warfare’s most visible element is blurring of lines between wars and peace, competitors and adversaries, future friends and foes, and such like. It is an age of perception shaping and dominating the ‘truth’. The Chinese have embraced this for c...

Indian Airpower in Irregular Conflicts: A Conceptual Framework … Indian airpower has almost continuously been involved in less-than-war and low-intensity or limited conflicts … military helicopter and transport aircraft fleets have put in yeomen service over decades towards this and continue to do so … the...

VIF Briefs 
The US-China Bout: Who’s on the Ropes The world is witnessing momentous shifts in geopolitics, and in fact, in every facet of human life. The US-China zero-sum game for dominance may well define pathways nations take to bring prosperity to their people in the next decade. This paper atte...

Is Indian Airpower Preparing for Tomorrow’s War? … the first step in looking at future threat scenarios is posing some uncomfortable but right questions .. these affect all agencies that contribute in a whole-of-nation approach to conflict management .. An over-investment in current doctrines, co...

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