Referring to the assumption in military strategy that despite all efforts to prevent it, there may be a war, he said those who found it "irritating or doubtful, I would like to remind them of the Kargil war that broke out within two months of the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan signing the Lahore Declaration with much fanfare."     

This assumption, he said, was therefore "a reminder to the strategists to visualise security threats, the possibility and nature of conflict and to always remain prepared for such an eventuality."     

In a foreword to a book 'Indian Army Vision - 2020' authored by Brig (Retd) Gurmeet Kanwal, Malik also said that military history showed that "nations who neglect this historical determinism make themselves vulnerable to military surprise, defeat and ignominy."     

Without referring to the Kargil conflict, he also pointed out that it has seldom been possible to forecast the time, place, scope, intensity and the tenor of a conflict and stressed that security plans should cater to the "complete spectrum of conflict."     

Defending the Indo-US nuclear deal, the former Army chief blamed "lack of ability to generate hard power" and the tendency among politicians to "fixing each other than fixing outsiders" for the "hullabaloo" over the India-US Civil Nuclear deal.