A READY RECKONER : THE ART OF WAR Sun Tzu

‘Art of War’ by Sun Tzu, is an exceptional account of the military strategy and warfare ever written. Unfortunately, the chosen expressions and language, the flow of the text and elucidation of what Sun Tzu said and meant, is not easy to comprehend. The endeavour, therefore, in this ‘Ready Reckoner’, has been to reorganise it and make it more adaptive to a modern-day military mind. Further, to aid the DSSC aspirants, relevant questions which get thrown up as you read along, have been culled out and indicated at the end of each chapter. Wish you a happy reading!!
Major General Joydeep Bhati, SM, an alumnus of the National Defence Academy, was commissioned in December 1980 into the Mechanised Infantry Regiment. He through his illustrious career of 38 years has served the Indian army with distinction.
He has had the honour of commanding a Mechanised Infantry battalion in both Counter Insurgency environment and Op PARAKRAM. He also had the privilege of commanding an Infantry Brigade in a Strike Corps. In staff, he has been a Brigade Major of an Armoured Brigade, Colonel General Staff in the Army Training Command, Colonel Administration of a RAPID and Major General Operation Logistics in two commands.
Besides all the basic courses, he has attended the prestigious Defence Services Staff College, Wellington and Higher Command Course at Army War College, Mhow.
Post superannuating, he has settled at Agra where he continues to contribute to society in multifarious ways.

Colonel Shashank Kaushal has been a soldier for 23 years in the Indian Army. He did all his mandatory courses to include Commando, Infantry Young officer’s Course and Mechanised Young officer’s Course, Junior Command and prestigious Defence Services Staff College, Wellington. He was an instructor Class A at Indian Military Academy and later GSO1 at an Independent mechanised Brigade in western Sector. He also had a tenure as Colonel MS and Military Advisor to GoC-in-C in two different commands including Army Training Command. He has authored one fiction “Inspiration Stories on Wheels (Travel Short Stories)” and second book is in the pipeline with one of the big five publishers. Having taken voluntary retirement from army to pursue his literary passion he is settled in Gurugram and continues to write about various issues of social relevance.