High-military leaders RARELY need to look at basic tactics; they have onerous responsibilities which demand that they leave micro-management to their subordinates and trust them with the execution. That is the principle followed by the Indian Army, and very successfully too. However, many a time, General Officers have premonitions and therefore, the temptation to get into a bit of micromanagement and see how the basics are in their areas of responsibility. In counter insurgency (CI) and counter terrorism (CT) operations, basics are a must as is respect for premonition. However, as a long-standing CI/CT commander, my deepest obsession is always with what is called the area domination patrol (ADP). This comes in the domain of micromanagement, the most innocuous and uncomplicated of military manoeuvres. How did I get this obsession?

On a particularly bad day in Kashmir in 1999, at a time when the average number of encounters per day in........

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