Lt. Gen. (Retd) Prakash Menon is the Director of the Strategic Studies Programme.
Lt Gen Menon joined the Indian Army in 1972. He has extensive operational experience in commanding counter-insurgency operations in Central, North and South Kashmir. He was the Major General Staff of the army’s Northern Command responsible for operations in J&K and the Commandant of the National Defence College, New Delhi. After his retirement in 2011, he continued in government as the Military Advisor and Secretary to Government of India and from 2015 as Officer on Special Duty in the National Security Council Secretariat.
He has a PhD from Madras University for his thesis “Limited War and Nuclear Deterrence in the Indo-Pak context”. He was appointed by the Union Cabinet as a member of an expert group for the creation of the Indian National Defence University.
Lt Gen Menon has been decorated with three Distinguished Service awards – PVSM, AVSM and VSM.
Post-retirement, he continues to teach and research, with a special focus on the role of force in statecraft.
The Strategy Trap: India and Pakistan Under the Nuclear Shadow
Non Alignment 2.0: A Foreign and Strategic Policy for India in the 21st Century
‘Mending India’s Civil Military Relations’ in Strategic Year Book 2019, United Services Institution of India (USI)