Experience (As of October 2020)

Captain (Dr.) Gurpreet S Khurana is a serving missile warfare specialist and ship’s diver of the Indian Navy with nearly 30 years of commissioned service. He has held a variety of key staff and operational appointments and commanded two warships, which includes the Fast Attack Craft INS Tarmugli, which he commissioned in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands in 2002.

Since his Research Fellowship at IDSA (2004-2008), he has authored more than 50 papers on China’s maritime strategy; naval, strategic and geopolitical issues; maritime law and maritime history. He formulated seminal naval doctrine and strategy documents like Indian Maritime Doctrine 2009 and Handbook on Law of Maritime Operations in three volumes (2013), receiving the naval chief’s commendation. Accredited to be the first to use the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ in the contemporary geopolitical discourse, he has authored three books: “Maritime Forces in Pursuit of National Security” (2008), “Porthole: Geopolitical, Strategic and Maritime Terms and Concepts” (2016) and “The Indo-Pacific Region: The Emerging Geopolitical and Security Environment” (2018). He has also co-edited 11 books. From 2014 to 2019, he was Executive Director of NMF. He represented India as co-chair of the CSCAP Study Group on maritime and aeronautical SAR (2015-16), and as leader of Indian delegation at 4th Indian Ocean Dialogue at Abu Dhabi in Oct 17. He takes lectures for military higher command courses, and for University students in India and abroad. He is currently heading the Navy’s Centre on China Maritime Studies at Visakhapatnam, and is also a visiting Professor at the Naval War College, Goa. His work is available at https://independent.academia.edu/khurana.