Rajat Narang

A tour-de-force take on the fabled Airbus vs. Boeing arch-rivalry and decrypting the relative strategy playbooks of the two Transatlantic rivals & aerospace giants from 1970s to 2020. It deciphers Airbus' meteoric rise in the narrow body aircraft market from a virtual industry underdog to a worthy & equal adversary within a span of 3+ decades and Boeing's fall from grace following the 737MAX disaster. Business & Product Strategy have been the core pivots & anchors around which it has been structured. It analyzes as to how the battles have panned out with the decryption of tactical execution as well as strategy brilliance and faux-pas'. The book is meant for anyone seeking actionable insights & practical lessons in Business Strategy from the two Aviation Giants operating with highly contrasting playbooks and is going to be akin to a thrilling ride in a barnstormer's airplane providing a bird's eyeview of the high octane aerial action from the top. If you love aviation and/or are smitten by strategy then this is the passenger seat for you to grab... Hop in!

A tour-de-force take on the fabled Airbus vs. Boeing arch-rivalry aimed at decrypting the relative strategy playbooks of the Transatlantic arch-rivals and aerospace giants over the half a century period starting from the early 1970s till the outbreak of pandemic in 2020. It traces & deciphers Airbus' meteoric rise; starting with the global narrow body aircraft market in the mid-1980s with the A320; from being a virtual industry underdog to becoming a worthy & equal adversary and a leading market force within a span of 3+ decades, in an almost David vs Goliath manner, despite Boeing going all out to thwart that and Boeing's eventual fall from grace with the colossal 737MAX disaster. Business and product strategy analysis have been the core pivots & anchors around which the compelling, almost edge-of-the-seat narrative has been structured. Using a neutral & unbiased approach, it analyzes & unravels as to how the aerial, high-G battles panned out over the decades with the decryption of strategy masterstrokes and tactical brilliance from both sides along with gaffes & faux-pas'. The book is a must read for anyone interested in commercial aviation and/or seeking deep insights and practical lessons in Business Strategy from the two Aviation Giants operating with highly contrasting playbooks.

If you love Aviation and/or are smitten by Strategy, then, this is the business class passenger seat for you to grab...Hop in!

Key Excerpts

1. How the launch of the A320, after deregulation of the U.S. market in the late 1970s duly established Airbus as a capable & reliable European OEM, which tactically outmaneuvered Boeing in the U.S. narrow body aircraft market, and created the runway for itself to become an equal-sized arch-rival by the turn of the century?

2. How Boeing's missing out on the development of 7J7, as a replacement for the 727 in the narrow body segment in the late 1980s, was a goof-up which ultimately precipitated the colossal 737MAX blunder almost 2+ decades later?

3. How Airbus' decision to develop the A340 in the wide-body market as a quadjet was an outright tactical blunder with Boeing winning the dogfight effectively with the launch of its 777, as a twin-jet, right after Airbus had committed to the A340?

4. How the A380 was at least a decade behind its time at launch itself in the late 1990s and how Boeing made it irrelevant by launching its classic, two-front pincer movement attack on the A380 spearheaded by the 787; which disrupted the market by offering direct, point-to-point connectivity between city pairs while sporting more efficient engines; and the 747-8, which, too, had next generation GEnx engines developed originally by GE for the 787?

5. How Airbus' decision to disrupt the middle-of-the-market segment with the development of longer range variants of A321, namely, the A321LR & A321XLR; was truly a game changer, while capitalizing effectively on Boeing's weakness, and almost a gaping hole Boeing's product line-up in the narrow body market; especially in the absence of 757, effectively has led to its current, sustained hegemony in the middle-of-the-market segment now?

6. How a majority of Airbus's tactical errors over the decades, so far, have mostly been made in the wide body aircraft market while Boeing's have mostly been made in the narrow body aircraft market?

7. A detailed and relatively lesser known account of how the acquisition of McDonnell Douglas by Boeing in 1998 actually scripted Boeing's eventual fall from grace with the 737MAX almost two decades later?

The development of nuclear weapons by humans with 'Trinity' and their gradual evolution within a decade into megaton-class thermonuclear weapons has almost taken mankind onto the verge of a potential nuclear apocalypse on multiple occasions so far over the course of the Atomic Age. However, almost all global nuclear powers consistently maintain and still swear by the extremely dangerous & absurd doctrines of 'nuclear deterrence', 'mutual-assured destruction' and the 'launch on warning' strategic posture, despite being acutely aware of the existential threat they pose to the entire civilization. The 'Atoms of War' and 'Atoms of Peace' aspects of the Atomic Age have been extensively elaborated upon, demonstrated & effectively propagated by nations, world leaders and other stakeholders since its dawn in 1945. However, the 'Atoms of Doom' aspect has barely been discussed, not given its due consideration & has rarely been debated publicly while having been conveniently brushed aside, effectively disregarded & swept under the carpet to ensure continued global acceptability, dominance and reliance upon of nuclear juggernaut as the linchpin of deterrence & national security globally in the geopolitical power games of one-upmanship and relative/overall power calculus. This effort zooms-in upon and takes a close & behind-the-scenes look, based on recently declassified facts & information, at some of the most pivotal moments in world history when the 'Atoms of Doom' had almost effectively brought the mankind onto the verge of a potential doomsday with humanity just minutes away from the onset of a chain reaction to extinction, which were, somehow averted and humanity managed to be lucky and survive through the Cold War years. However, Hibakusha,as the survivors of Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings and millions of other unsuspecting victims of radiation & atmospheric nuclear testing & nuclear disasters globally, are still around with their lives upended & altered forever irrevocably for generations to come. Further, around 3 million people are poised to lose their lives prematurely over the coming multi-millennia owing to Carbon-14 emissions released cumulatively by the 2,000+ atmospheric & below-surface nuclear tests already conducted through the course of the last century. The gravity of the threat posed by the 'Atoms of Doom' to the mankind has been quite effectively captured by two quotes, by former Soviet premiers, namely, Nikita Khrushchev, with his remark, "the living will envy the dead (following a nuclear exchange)" and Mikhail Gorbachov, who had said, "It is my firm belief that the infinite and uncontrollable fury of nuclear weapons should never be held in the hands of any mere mortal ever again, for any reason." At this moment, think of Adolf Hitler & the Nazi War Machinery; which were dangerously close to developing nuclear weapons during World War II and, further imagine the likely, ensuing fate of mankind in that scenario, given the unfathomable scale of devastation & human suffering they could have easily & without remorse unleashed at the free world to subjugate it to their evil designs, had they managed to succeed in developing nuclear weapons and launch them, mounted on their V-2 rockets, which were a functional reality for the Nazis, in an era, wherein, missiles were practically non-existent and ballistic missile defenses being stuff belonging to the realm of science fiction... May God forbid that kind of a situation from recurring & confronting mankind ever again. May God forbid that kind of a situation from recurring & confronting mankind ever again. However, with massive nuclear modernization underway globally and the prospect of 'Fire & Fury' & the 'Little Rocket Man' still around, history runs a serious risk of repeating itself once again...

The Maverick is back after a long span of 36 years and so has been his need for speed. However, he has been missing his old steed, the formidable F-14 Tomcat and its unmatched capabilities with its Mach 2.34 top speed, complex variable sweep wing system and the powerful APG-9 radar capable of tracking & engaging multiple targets from beyond-visual-ranges with its lethal AIM-54 Phoenix missiles.

In this high octane tactical dogfight and aerial battle among the birds of fray, we lock on to the USAF's latest & Top 4.5 and 5th generation fighter jet aircraft programs to analyze their abilities to meet Maverick's need for speed in the 21st century as a truly worthy successor to the venerable F-14 Tomcat.. We compare the venerable F-14 Tomcat with the other in-service, comparable twin-engine, twin tail U.S. fighter jets on technical specifications, armament & capabilities, in order, to zero down on to the supersonic flying machine which would come closest to matching the Tomcat's speed & maneuverability given that 5th generation modern tech, including, super cruise and stealth abilities have become critical for survival in a radically altered threat environment where multi-layered air defenses have become ubiquitous and long-range stand-off weapons norm of the day...

Fighter jets have remained the traditional backbone & core pivot of the fighting capabilities of Air Forces globally with their unmatched capabilities for conducting a broad range of critical missions. In term of capabilities, the 5th generation aircraft programs are already proving to be clear favorites to replace the legacy platforms with the F-35 Lightning II spearheading the charge & the generational shift towards stealth.

This work is intended to be a quick yet comprehensive resource on the World's Top Fighter Jet Aircraft Programs with a comparative, head-to-head comparison & match-ups on technical specifications & capabilities, in almost virtual dogfights, followed by comparative analysis based on technical & business perspective.

For Military Aviation Buffs, it will be akin to a joyride at high supersonic speeds full of High-G aerobatics, while for the Pros, it will prove to be an unmatched & invaluable domain resource.

So, put your flying gear on and simply Hop In!

Aircraft Programs Covered:

1. Boeing F-15E Strike Eagle/F-15EX Eagle II

2. Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet

3. Lockheed Martin F-16V Fighting Falcon Block 70

4. Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II JSF

5. Dassault Rafale

6. Eurofighter Typhoon

7. Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor

8. Sukhoi Su-35 Super Flanker/Flanker-E (NATO)

9. Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon

10. Sukhoi Su-57 Felon

A tour-de-force take on the key aspects, attributes and nuts & bolts of M.S. Dhoni's leadership playbook which effectively paved the cricketing legend's journey from the swashbuckler & firebrand Dhoni at the outset who gained the cricketing world's attention by leading a bunch of rookies to the T20 World Cup win in 2007 to the highly revered & Captain Cool MSD who has truly become a legend of the game having won the triple crown of Cricket.

In the early 1960s, after the onset of the jet age in commercial aviation, Pratt & Whitney, with a clear head start, had an almost dominant market position in the commercial aircraft engines market while GE lagged behind P&W by a fair margin despite of being a strong, capable & leading market player in the military aviation engines market. However, a GE engineer, Gerhard Neumann, was tired of losing to Pratt by then, and chose to shake things up and change the status quo effectively. Neumann, along with a team of GE engineers, created the GE1, a revolutionary aircraft engine demonstrator, by mating a huge diameter fan to a relatively much smaller, efficient engine core, which resulted in significant fuel efficiency gains, a key determinant of engine selection by the airlines. The GE1, subsequently, became the building block for more than a dozen GE commercial & military engines over the subsequent decades and scripted & spearheaded GE's almost legendary comeback and eventual leadership of the commercial aircraft engines market with GE effectively outflanking, outmaneuvering and comprehensively beating Pratt & Whitney at its own game for decades to come, with revolutionary engines like the CF6, which virtually transformed the wide body aircraft market and is still in production after over half a century, and over a dozen other engines, including the legendary F110, which effectively got GE back into the fighter jets game from behind, and the iconic CFM56, which is the undisputable industry gold standard for engine reliability & performance in the narrow body aircraft market, even today. Further, GE Aviation's headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio was subsequently renamed to '1 Neumann Way', in his honor, and stays that way even today. This is not a book about GE or any other, specific industry player but rather about similar strategy masterstrokes & tactical brilliance by companies and illuminated minds in commercial aviation, across the aircraft & engine OEMs levels on the industry's supply side, since the onset of the jet age, which disrupted the prevailing market dynamics effectively with game changer market moves and created a clear competitive differentiation as well as advantage, overmatch & a definitive edge for them and altered the course of aviation history forever. Further, it also traces & tracks some others, who got distracted & misdirected by blind spots & parallaxes and committed blunders leading to erosion of market shares, loss of dominant market positions and even exits from segments & markets altogether. Full of practical lessons, insights and real-life examples in disruptive market strategies & tactics, and with commercial aviation as the perfect backdrop; it is quintessentially a strategy guide and playbook for market disruption, customized specifically for commercial aviation, while also being an honest & humble effort to pay tribute to brilliant minds from a bygone era. If you are an Aviation enthusiast or professional with a passion for flight and are almost smitten by Strategy; then, this is the supersonic flight, back into time, you just can't afford to miss... Hop-In!

In 1983, American Astronomer & Scientist, Carl Sagan commented, referring to the Cold War, which, as a rehash of the 1960s had once again reached a crescendo in the early 1980s after the failed détente of 1970s, "Imagine a room awash in gasoline, and there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has nine thousand matches, the other seven thousand matches. Each of them is concerned about who's ahead, who's stronger." This is the comprehensive and complete story of Cold War strategic rivalry between the East & West, spanning across Land, Air, Sea and Space realms;and told from the perspective of nuclear & thermonuclear weapons at the core and with strategic delivery systems, geopolitics, diplomacy, economic & psychological warfare and the periodic shifts in nuclear and overall balance of power, at the periphery, through the over 4+ decades-long relentless struggle for dominance & supremacy. Derived from and based on the latest, declassified documents released by the U.S. State Department under the Freedom of Information Act and Russian intelligence sources; the book provides unknown facts and unravels the complete truth behind the high-octane nuclear rivalry between the superpowers which kept the entire world on the edge and almost on the verge of existential threat for over 4+ decades. The book takes a deep & serious re-look at the reckless Cold War rivalry between the Superpowers, in the light of recently declassified documents, with nuclear weapons at the center of it all and with mankind being held hostage and almost pushed to the edge of extinction, either by miscalculation or by the onset of an accidental nuclear war, amid the raging Cold War tensions, high-octane action, tactical maneuvers and the extensive usage of deception & pure dramatics, including, psychological operations (PSYOPS) between the two sides in a no-holds-barred style strategic competition and war of ideologies. With a fresh, 3-way Cold War 2.0 nuclear arms race building-up among Russia, China and the United States in the 21st century, amid the uncertainty & anarchy of the current 'Purgatory of Polarity', as the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres has put it; it's imperative to revisit the hard-learned lessons from the past and apply them now, before it's too late, in order, to prevent their reoccurrence, especially, as the lurking shadow and existential threat of nuclear weapons still looms large on the horizon for humanity with just one single exception, which is, that the current generation does not fully comprehend it, in terms of risks & stakes involved, and does not have the memory bank of those bone-chilling years of Cold-War with the fate of mankind, having been simply relegated to the 'Hanging Sword of Damocles', with the outcome being just a matter of 'when' rather than 'if'... Mankind was simply lucky to have survived that 'Hanging Nuclear Sword of Damocles' and the Doomsday scare for over 4+ decades back then but this time around we may not be that lucky and run a serious risk of running out of luck & divine grace simultaneously and of just a few awry, flying matchsticks ending up (God forbid) lighting the apocalyptic fire...

When Wright Brothers dreamed of flying like birds; a powered, heavier-than-air flying machine, known as the Wright Flyer, powered by a 12 Hp gasoline engine; effectively enabled them to realize their dream in 1903 while also ushering in the 'Age of Powered Flight' for humans. That rudimentary machine & engine paved way for the development of larger piston engines & propeller-powered fighters, which proved to be instrumental during the World War I & II and later gave way to the emergence of turbojets & ultimately turbofans by the 1950s. This is the analysis-based chronicling of the story of the complex strategy choices, decisions & moves made by leading engine OEMs of the era, while facing the heat of raging battles and the myopic errors caused by fog-of-war; and their eventual outcomes & repercussions. The analysis also factors-in the critical & pivotal role played by prevailing market forces, macroeconomic trends and, lastly, chance; all of which, collectively proved to be the ultimate determinants of outcomes & market successes or failures with their judgments & verdicts ultimately determining the fates of most key engine programs and the destinies of the engine OEMs producing them. It is also the story of path-breaking innovations, products & technologies and of brilliant minds, who actually pursued and produced them. Some of those technologies, aided by market forces, actually disrupted the market fundamentally and went on to create virtual market dominance and a lasting legacy. However, some others, despite of being disruptive, were ultimately rejected by market forces, owing to being out of alignment with prevailing market realities, but are only re-emerging now, being reincarnated in an entirely new avatar as the chosen ones, to be resurrected, ironically, by the very same market forces, who had once sealed their fates... Key Excerpts:-

1. Decryption of how GE actually usurped Pratt & Whitney's market leadership & virtual monopoly in the commercial aviation market in the late 1960s with a technological innovation-led market disruption strategy?
2. How GE1 was the true game changer, as the technological fountainhead and building block in the 1970s, which ultimately became the core building block for almost over a dozen GE engines over the subsequent decades and, thus, became the greatest GE engine ever without having powered even a single aircraft?
3. How the brilliant move to introduce CF6 engine; derived from the high-bypass military TF39 engine, developed for the USAF's C-5 Galaxy, and based on GE1; was truly a masterstroke which scripted GE's success story in the global wide body aircraft market for decades to come, given that the CF6 is still in operation today, after more than over half-a-century of its original certification and EIS in the late 1960s?
4. CFM56's almost rags-to-riches story, rising from the depths of obscurity, as the engine, which was way ahead of its time in the 1970s but with no takers for years, to becoming an industry icon as the most successful turbofan engine in aviation history with almost 23,000 CFM56-5B/7B engines still in active service globally in 2024.
5. Pratt & Whitney's remarkable comeback to the global narrow body aircraft engines market spearheaded by a two-pronged product strategy, led by the V2500, under IAE, at the top-end of the spectrum, as the true challenger to CFM56's market dominance, and the JT8D-200 at the bottom-end, as one of the most cost-effective propulsion solution.

On July 16, 1945, the 'Trinity' Test effectively brought about the transformation of the 'American Prometheus' into the 'Destroyer of Worlds' along with an expedited dawn of the nuclear age as the Laws of Physics were successfully reappraised by the Homo Sapiens. However, the initial premise and the hopeful promise of the creation of a 'Super Weapon' to end all wars has remained more or less a chimera for humanity even after 7+ decades of its genesis.

The dawn of the nuclear age; following Trinity and the subsequent atomic bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki; unleashed the Cold War-era with nuclear weapons effectively becoming the 'Hanging Sword of Damocles', as famously described by JFK, with the possibility of a potential nuclear catastrophe by accident, miscalculation or madness staying as a very real possibility throughout and the extinction of Homo Sapiens from planet Earth, just a matter of seconds, which fortunately was somehow averted on multiple occasions and humanity, somehow, managed to survive.

Part 1 of this multi-part book series focuses on the evolution of atomic age from its genesis at Los Alamos during World War II till 1960. It covers the subsequent spread of nuclear weapons to Soviet Union and other regional powers based in Europe, namely, the U.K. & France and the transition from nuclear to thermonuclear age for the mankind against the backdrop of Cold War; based on recently declassified documents by the CIA , the U.S. State Department, KGB (after the end of Cold War in the 1990s decade) and other international agencies; thereby, unraveling multiple, tightly-held secrets and lesser known facets of the nuclear age in the process...

Marx had said long ago, "History repeats itself twice, first as tragedy and second as farce." The tragedy of the atomic age is way behind us, in form, of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. However, let's brace up for the farce now...

The Book-3 of the series; based on recently declassified documents by the CIA , U.S. State Department, KGB after the end of Cold War and other international agencies; takes-off at the onset of the 1970s decade, when, after having developed deployed thousands of ICBMs & SLBMs armed to the teeth with megaton-class thermonuclear warheads, both the U.S. as well as the U.S.S.R; were faced with the urgent need to invest billions of dollars towards the development & nationwide deployment of Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Systems to protect themselves against each other's ICBMs & SLBMs.

The Soviets, incredibly, had deployed around 1,000 heavy ICBMs hosting a massive & insane 6,000+ megatons worth of thermonuclear warheads, collectively posing an existential threat to U.S. homeland as well as NATO allies while the U.S. had a clear overmatch in Heavy Bombers and SLBMs over the Soviets. The cost of development of a comprehensive ABM System to secure the entire U.S. had been pegged at $40 billion in the mid-1960s, equivalent of almost $400 billion today, which, still would have sparked another arms race between them. Both the superpowers, however, chose to instead negotiate to mutually limit the scope of the threat and shake hands which paved the way for détente and arms control agreements under SALT-I in 1972, a groundbreaking event, followed by the Helsinki Accords in 1975, which briefly altered the course of the Cold War but eventually proved to be decisive in ending it by empowering ordinary people as well as citizens across both sides... The highlights of the analysis include:- 1. How the outbreak of a potential, limited nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union at the onset of 1970s decade would have led to a loss of at least 100 million lives across each side, which was almost half of the entire population of each nation, back then? 2. How a potential, limited nuclear war between the two sides would have wiped out almost 1 billion people from the face of Earth collectively, which was almost a third of the world's entire population back in the late 1960s? 3. How further development of the R-36/SS-09 ICBM by the Soviet Union briefly altered the overall strategic balance of power & nuclear first strike advantage in favor of the Soviet Union through the 1970s? 4. How CIA salvaged & recovered the wreckage of a lost Soviet nuclear-powered submarine, equipped with nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles and torpedoes, from 16,000 ft in a clandestine, top-secret operation under the prying eyes of the Soviets in 1974? 5. How U.S.' courting of China and nuclear saber-rattling in the India-Pakistan war of 1971, in direct support of the latter, directly led to India's atomic detonation in 1974 and develpment of nuclear weapons?

Part 2 of the series analyses as to how; after the transition from nuclear to the thermonuclear weapons for mankind, within less than a decade of the onset of the Atomic Age; the focus across superpowers shifted towards miniaturization of nuclear warheads and development of novel and difficult to detect & track strategic nuclear delivery vehicles (SNDVs), which witnessed the emergence of ICBMs and SLBMs, after nuclear-tipped torpedoes, thereby, further increasing the risks of nuclear warfare & holocaust manifold while simultaneously also reducing the reaction times considerably. The same was underscored by the 1962's Cuba Missile Crisis with the world nearly reaching an almost nuclear apocalypse moment with the end of civilization being just seconds away. The recently declassified documents unravel as to how dangerously close the world had come to the verge of that with the Soviet submarines having almost pulled the launch trigger of their nuclear-tipped T-5 torpedoes targeted at the U.S. Navy ships. However, it paved the way for realization of the need for de-escalation, mutual cooperation and multiple treaties to check dangerous nuclear escalations, atmospheric testing & further proliferation. Further, high-altitude nuclear detonations by both sides in 1961 & 1962 led to the realization of the phenomenon of Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse (NEMP), the Christofilos Effect & the resulting Electromagnetic Shields and their potential military utilization & implications. The detonation of a nuclear weapon by China, a developing nation, in 1964 marked the further proliferation of nuclear weapons beyond West and onset of the nuclear weapons age in Asia, further underscoring the need to check nuclear proliferation which ultimately led to the creation of the NPT regime. However, unabated development of nuclear weapons and delivery systems across both superpowers had ensured, by the end of the highly dangerous decade of 1960s, that 6,500 megatons-worth of thermonuclear warheads were deployed atop ICBMs and SLBMs by the two superpowers, capable of annihilating each other, as well as Earth, many times over in just a matter of minutes...the critical minutes to midnight which were critical and were to make the ultimate difference and decision between the continued sustenance of life and the end of civilization on Planet Earth forever...In hindsight, it's purely a miracle that the mankind survived that hanging Nuclear Sword of Damocles over mankind for decades..

After the detente's sudden and abrupt end in the late 1970s, owing to the planned deployment of Pershing-IIs and the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union; it was time for the West to strike back under a defiant Ronald Reagan, who vowed to take-on the Soviet overmatch over the West in conventional forces as well as nuclear weapons. The subsequent, massive arms build-up in the U.S. and the advent of a reformist Tsar, in form of Gorbachev, brought a U-Turn in the Soviet approach as the strategic focus shifted across both sides as Reagan outlined his focus of securing Americans from the Soviet ICBMs with his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) just as Gorbachev focused on improving the quality of life of Soviets.

This contrasting, yet common focus, on people' welfare enabled the two leaders to collaborate and cooperate towards arms reductions through a series of Superpower summits which ultimately culminated in a series of historic and unprecedented arms control and reduction treaties. However, Gorbachev's efforts to transition the Soviet Union from Leninism-Marxism towards Social Democracy, while rooting for human rights and freedom, ultimately deteriorated the power and loosened the hold of Gorbachev and the Communist Party on the Stalinist empire in Eastern Europe which ultimately precipitated the disintegration of the Soviet Union end of the Cold War as millions of people oppressed for decades were finally liberated...

When MSD announced his sudden retirement from international cricket in August 2020, two die-hard fans; a trainer, leadership coach & workplace psychologist and the other a researcher; set out to create a farewell gift for him in the form of a book on his leadership. Combining forces with their craze for cricket at the core & leveraging their respective domain competencies, they have analyzed & decrypted MSD's leadership process and zeroed-down upon the underlying secret ingredients behind his stupendous success & greatness as a leader. Offering practical insights, concepts and actionable principles; supplemented by examples drawn from MSD & the cricket field, other sporting arenas, military leadership and the business world; the book offers a clear roadmap & blueprint on the MSD way of leadership which could be applied readily by anyone looking to successfully lead a team to peak performance while also realizing their true potential.

MSD; an acronym; which truly has been the timeless tour de force of Indian cricket & sporting leadership and has deservingly come to be synonymous with the stuff of legends. Dhoni arrived as a maverick to the gentleman's game and with his unconventional playbook disrupted the status-quo effectively while outmaneuvering the opponents and going on to become the only captain in the world ever to win the Triple Crown of the World of Cricket.

This is the first structured & qualified inquiry into MSD's leadership process & approach to cricket and the outcomes have been profound. The decryption unravels the secrt to his success in ICC tournaments and unlocks 'must know' leadership strategies & principles that have propelled MSD's stupendous success on the cricket field with equal relevance & application for businesses, sports, life and a host of other areas. It will be quintessential & a must have for anyone wanting to play hard, smart and most importantly, differently & unconventionally, with the decisive edge to achieve truly transformational success.

It is almost a training program in true leadership, straight from the master of the craft himself, for existing leaders looking for mojo and/or aspiring leaders learning the ropes, whereas, for MSD fans & cricket buffs, it is virtually a seat in the dug-out to capture the maverick in action, on-field doing what he does best.

Simply, being the leader of the pack & the disruptive force…

At the stroke of dawn on July 16, 1945 and exactly at 15 seconds before 5:30AM, for the first ever time in the history of mankind, the sun rose twice in New Mexico within a span of 10 minutes, marking a testimony to the fact that the Laws of Physics and the Universe had indeed been reappraised successfully by the human beings. The world was changed forever following the successful explosion of the world's first atomic bomb under the 'Trinity' tests conducted at Los Alamos which unleashed the nuclear age for humans. With full scale, world-wide destruction now assured within seconds at the mere press of a button, full scale wars, on the scale of World War I & II, were theoretically & prophetically deemed to be confined more or less to the pages of history books with hopes for the emergence of a new world order for mankind just emancipated from the clutches of tyranny & from the crucible of the exiting one ravaged by the utter destruction of two world wars waged within the span of half a century.

However, what it gave rise to, instead, was a complex mix of insecurity & fear fanned by the successful demonstration of the massive destructive power of the atom and a similar quest for development & possession of nuclear weapons by other nations, especially, the Soviet Union & the Europeans, yearning to emulate America, to create a level playing field with mutually assured destruction being its core pivot as well as tenet triggering the outbreak of a relentless nuclear arms race globally for one-upmanship.

The world order was changed forever with the ushering in of the nuclear age with new, complex power dynamics & equations coming into play and setting the stage for the onset of an equally bitter Cold War with the expected transition from overt to covert means of warfare configured on bloc dynamics & ideological warfare. Espionage, spoofing and power-plays, thus, became the key characters in this long & seemingly unending script directing & shaping the overall scheme of things geared towards an inexorable quest for global supremacy which continues to disappear & re-emerge periodically in repeated, cyclical patterns even after 7+ decades of the original event which kick-started this weird chain reaction.

This dossier, a collection of articles, op-eds, essays & analytical pieces from multiple sources, collectively termed as 'oblique perspectives', traces, analyzes & chronicles the impact, fallout & ramifications of the Trinity tests and the subsequent Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings, on the world as analyzed from different dimensions ranging from political & geopolitical, scientific & technological, military & warfare, industrial & doctrinal and most importantly, the human dimension, while almost paying a homage & tribute to every single human being on this planet who was, has been and is going to be a part & parcel of this Frankenstein nuclear juggernaut, whether advertently or otherwise, irrespective of the side, dimension and the capacity of their association, be it the Prometheus himself or the victims of his creation…

The Dossier Tackles some real hard & poignant questions, including:-

1. How the Fallout from the Trinity Tests reached 46 U.S. States & even Canada?

2. How the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Advertently Exposed Millions of Americans to Radiation Exposure for Decades?

3. How the Residents of Socorro County,NM near the Trinity Tests Site have never been Compensated?

4. Why the Choice of Nevada as a Site for Nuclear Testing in the 1950s was a Disastrous Decision?

5. How the AEC sided with Corporate America while Leaving its Citizens in Lurch - A Tale of Betrayal?

6. How Kremlin Stole Nuclear Secrets from Los Alamos via Espionage and Targeted Oppenheimer?

On July 16, 1945, at 05:25 AM, just half-an-hour prior to sunrise, the Second Sun rose in New Mexico's night sky with the Trinity test which brilliantly lit up the dark sky with light so bright that it forced even a blind girl to literally sit-up from sleep and notice the resulting flash even 100 miles away from the Alamogordo test site. The first nuclear age, thus, witnessed the detonation & testing of nuclear weapons on land, below the surface, under water as well as in space; as humanity was still coming to grips with the immense power of the atom which is 100 million times more powerful than typical chemical reactions. It also further increased the self-destructive capability of humans by another million times within less than 2 decades of the end of WWII. The first nuclear age also witnessed the mass production of nuclear weapons with almost 70,000+ nukes produced collectively, along with the development of a range of exotic strategic & tactical nukes ranging from nuclear artillery shells, tactical missiles, depth charges, landmines and even backpacks with the probability of their accidental launch triggering an accidental, all-out nuclear war becoming a very real possibility through the Cold War. This effort takes-off at the promising dawn of the atomic age and longitudinally tracks as to how the benevolent promises of the power of the atom and a super weapon to end all wars, instead, turned into a curse for mankind. It builds and presents the real, behind-the- scenes narrative on the first nuclear age with a longitudinal, relative, global and technological perspective based on recently declassified documents, highly classified CIA & KGB files, papers & reports from the era, interviews & perspectives shared by the scientists & personnel actually involved and latest scientific researches revealing & providing an impact assessment of the cavalier nuclear missions, operations & activities deemed innocuous at the time. It also unravels as to how the scientists, test planners & officials of the era were reckless in their approach as well as conduct with limited scientific knowledge, precedents & awareness being available and/or lack of proactive & preventive efforts to minimize impact owing to the paramount need to maintain secrecy. Prominent examples of it were:- 1. limited awareness of the EMP effects created on Earth by nuclear detonations in outer space as demonstrated via Op Argus in 1958, Op Starfish Prime in 1962 and the Soviet K3 nuclear test of 1962 which destroyed a power plant in today's Kazakhstan, 2. establishment of the U.S. nuclear testing site in Nevada desert on the West coast despite meteorological warnings which ultimately led to radioactive fallout across the entire nation over the subsequent decades, 3. the reckless approach to Castle Bravo detonation of 1954, wherein, the explosive yield of the detonated thermonuclear device far surpassed the expected yield by more than 2.5 times (at 15 megatons against 6 MT) owing to limited scientific awareness at the time about the effect of Lithium-7, used as Lithium Deuteride, which was incorrectly perceived as inert, in the fusion fuel and 4. absurd U.S. plans to use nuclear detonations to widen Panama canal and to detonate 500 hydrogen bombs of 2 MT yield to create an alternate waterway to the Suez Canal in the 1960s. Ultimately, the first nuclear age, came at a staggering financial, human & environmental cost to mankind, especially in the Global South; as the U.S. nuclear weapons program alone is estimated to have cost a whopping $5.7 trillion to the exchequer over the span of half-a-century, from 1941 to 1991, while causing prolonged and serious damage to the environment as well as human settlements, courtesy radioactivity and very long half-lives of most radioactive elements, which far surpasses the relatively feeble & ephemeral human existence on Earth...