UPHESC Assistant Professor Military Science 2025 PYQs

Concept: Elements of national power (Morgenthau) are tangible (geography, territory, natural resources, population, industrial and military capacity) or intangible (national character, morale, quality of diplomacy/government, leadership).

1. Leadership, quality of government and national character/morale cannot be measured physically – they are intangible.
2. Extent of territory is a geographical, measurable factor – a tangible element.

Short trick: Can you measure it on a map or in numbers? Then it is tangible – territory.

Concept: Deterrence means preventing an adversary from acting by threatening unacceptable punishment – the threat itself does the work.

1. Schelling called it the "exploitation of potential force" – the threat is used, not executed.
2. If the threat has to be carried out, deterrence has already failed; first strike and annihilation are actions, not deterrence.

Short trick: Deterrence = threat used, force unused.

Concept: This classic definition of national security is by Walter Lippmann (U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic, 1943).

1. It has two parts: no need to sacrifice legitimate interests to avoid war, and the ability to defend them by war if challenged.
2. Arnold Wolfers later built on it ("absence of threats to acquired values").

Short trick: Lippmann = "sacrifice / maintain by war" definition.

Concept: Military power rests on manpower, organised armed forces, natural resources, industry and technology.

1. Manpower, armed forces and natural resources directly add to military strength.
2. Inflation is an economic malaise that erodes defence budgets – it does not build military power.

Short trick: Inflation weakens, it never builds.

Concept: National security is comprehensive – economic, social, internal-security and energy policies at home shape the security choices of a state.

1. Budget priorities, industrial and technology policy, internal stability and social cohesion all feed into security decisions.
2. Options A and B deny any link; D is merely administrative and does not describe the relationship.

Short trick: Strong at home = secure abroad.

Concept: Here W.T.O. = Warsaw Treaty Organisation (Warsaw Pact), the Soviet-bloc reply to NATO.

1. NATO – 4 April 1949.
2. SEATO – Manila Pact, September 1954.
3. CENTO – began as the Baghdad Pact, 24 February 1955.
4. Warsaw Pact – 14 May 1955. Order: I, II, IV, III.

Short trick: N-S-C-W: 1949, 1954, Feb 1955, May 1955.

Concept: Collective defence = an alliance of states pledging to defend each other against an external attacker (UN Charter Art. 51).

1. NATO's Article 5: an attack on one is an attack on all – the classic collective-defence pact.
2. League of Nations was a collective-security system (all members against any aggressor, including a member).
3. BRICS and SAARC are economic/regional cooperation bodies, not military alliances.

Short trick: Collective defence = alliance against outsiders (NATO); collective security = all against any aggressor (League/UN).

Concept: The principles of war (Indian/British list) include selection and maintenance of aim, maintenance of morale, offensive action, surprise, concentration of force, economy of effort, security, flexibility, cooperation and administration.

1. Surprise, maintenance of morale and cooperation are all listed principles.
2. The principle is "Offensive action", not defensive action.

Short trick: Wars are won by offensive action – "defensive action" is the odd one out.

Concept: Major-General J.F.C. Fuller was the sharpest critic of the conservative, tradition-bound officer corps, whom he mocked as ‘military monks’; in military-thought texts this line about writing ‘not for military monks but for civilians’ is ascribed to him.

1. Fuller held that war had become the business of the whole nation, so its reform needed an informed civilian public – hence he addressed civilians, not the closed military caste.
2. Mahan wrote on sea power for statesmen and navies, Douhet on air power for military planners; Liddell Hart is linked with the ‘indirect approach’, not this phrase.

Short trick: Fuller vs ‘military monks’ – the reformer writing for civilians.

Concept: The moral condemnation of war belongs to the idealist philosophers, not to military writers. In defence-studies texts the view ‘war is a moral scandal (blot) of man’ is ascribed to Rousseau, for whom man is naturally good and war is the product of corrupt society and the state (The State of War).

1. Jomini and D.K. Palit wrote on the conduct and principles of war, not on its moral condemnation.
2. Quincy Wright (A Study of War) gave a legal/sociological analysis and definition of war.

Short trick: Moralist philosopher = Rousseau; military practitioners = Jomini, Palit.

Concept: Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (1957) was written by Henry Kissinger.

1. It criticised "massive retaliation" and argued for limited (including limited nuclear) war options.
2. Andre Beaufre wrote Introduction to Strategy and Deterrence and Strategy; Lenin and Marx predate nuclear weapons.

Short trick: Kissinger 1957 – limited war vs massive retaliation.

Concept: Kautilya's Mandala (circle of states) is drawn around the Vijigishu – the ambitious king 'desirous of conquest'.

1. All other states (ari, mitra, ari-mitra, mitra-mitra, parshnigraha, akranda, madhyama, udasina…) are defined by their position relative to the Vijigishu.
2. Hence the Vijigishu is the centre of gravity of the whole Mandala.

Short trick: Mandala = circles around the Vijigishu.

Concept: Hedley Bull (The Anarchical Society, 1977): "War is organised violence carried on by political units against each other."

1. Bull stresses that violence is war only when it is organised and carried out by political units (states).
2. Clausewitz: war is continuation of policy; Liddell Hart: indirect approach; Jomini: principles of operations.

Short trick: Bull – "organised violence by political units".

Concept: The Long March (1934–35) was the strategic retreat of the Chinese Red Army, about 10,000 km, from Jiangxi to Shaanxi.

1. It established Mao Tse-tung as leader of the Chinese Communist Party.
2. It became the foundation myth of his theory of protracted people's (guerrilla) war.

Short trick: Long March = Mao, 1934–35.

Concept: Match each classic book with its author.

1. Command of the Air (1921) – Giulio Douhet → III.
2. Deterrence and Strategy (1964) – André Beaufre → II.
3. The Absolute Weapon (1946) – Bernard Brodie → I.
4. Victory Through Air Power (1942) – Alexander de Seversky → IV.

Short trick: Air power: Douhet (1921) and Seversky (1942); nuclear: Brodie (1946); French strategist: Beaufre.

Concept: The INSTC was agreed in 2000 (St Petersburg) by India, Iran and Russia.

1. It is a 7,200 km multimodal (ship, rail, road) route: Mumbai → Bandar Abbas/Chabahar (Iran) → Caspian Sea → Astrakhan/Moscow (Russia).
2. It bypasses the Suez route and Pakistan, cutting time and cost.

Short trick: INSTC founders = I-I-R: India, Iran, Russia (2000).

Concept: Psychological warfare uses propaganda to break the enemy's will and morale without (or before) physical combat.

1. (A) is the standard textbook view: well-aimed propaganda can achieve more than armed force.
2. (R) WWI is the classic example – British propaganda (Crewe House, Northcliffe) undermined German home-front and troop morale; Ludendorff and Hitler themselves blamed Germany's defeat on its weaker propaganda.
3. So the WWI case illustrates and explains the power claimed in (A).

Short trick: WWI: British propaganda beat German morale – proof that propaganda is a weapon.

Concept: Arrange by period (birth years).

1. Machiavelli – 1469 (The Prince, Art of War).
2. Jomini – 1779 (Summary of the Art of War, 1838).
3. Clausewitz – 1780 (On War, 1832).
4. Marx – 1818. Order: I, II, IV, III.

Short trick: Renaissance Machiavelli → Napoleonic pair Jomini (1779) then Clausewitz (1780) → Marx (1818).

Concept: Match each strategist with his doctrine.

1. Douhet – theory of air power (command of the air) → IV.
2. Fuller – Plan 1919 (massed tank breakthrough to paralyse German command) → II.
3. J.F. Dulles – Massive Retaliation (1954) → I.
4. Liddell Hart – Indirect Approach → III.

Short trick: Air-Douhet, Tank Plan 1919-Fuller, Massive Retaliation-Dulles, Indirect Approach-Liddell Hart.

Concept: Strategy links ends, ways and means – it gives purpose and direction to action.

1. (A) is true: strategy is indispensable for purposeful action and for outwitting opponents.
2. (R) is true: without strategy action becomes random and directionless.
3. (R) states exactly why there is "no substitute for strategy" – so it explains (A).

Short trick: No strategy → no direction; that is why strategy has no substitute.