Rajiv Chopra

“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

“Afghanistan was not an end in itself; the jewel was India which had to be protected from the lusting Russian eyes. As J.R. Seeley noted, …we have the possession of India, and a leading interest in the affairs of all those countries which lie upon the route to India. This and this only involves us in that permanent rivalry with Russia. Two of the world’s greatest powers then, Victorian Britain and Czarist Russia, were engaged in this tournament of shadows; the so-called permanent rivalry which profited neither country. When they started in the beginning of nineteenth century they were 2,000 miles apart. Within a hundred years they were within sniffing distance of each other; some Russian positions were just about 20 miles away from India.”
― Rajiv Dogra, Durand's Curse: A Line Across the Pathan Heart

“According to Colin Gray, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at the University of Reading in the UK, ‘Making strategy is by far the most difficult and risky than making policy and war plans. By its very nature strategy is more demanding of the intellect and perhaps the imagination. Excellence in strategy requires the strategist to transcend simple categories of thought. Success”
― Pravin Sawhney, Dragon on Our Doorstep: Managing China Through Military Power

“More than any other time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. —Woody Allen”
― James Barrat, Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era