Sanjay
Iyer

Brigadier Sanjay Iyer spent 36 years in the Indian Army. Throughout that career he studied strategy as seriously as he practised it, and that combination is what Scholar Warrior stands for.

His academic grounding is in defence and strategic studies. He holds a Master’s degree in Defence and Strategic Studies from the University of Madras, awarded with a First. He later earned an M.Phil. in Defence and Strategic Studies from the same university as an alumnus of the National Defence College, New Delhi, India’s senior institution for strategic studies. He completed the Higher Defence Management Course at the College of Defence Management, Secunderabad, and with it a Master of Management Studies in Defence Management from Osmania University, awarded First Class with Distinction. He also holds a B.Sc. from Jawaharlal Nehru University and a Diploma in Disaster Management from IGNOU. More recently he completed MBA Essentials at the London School of Economics and International Humanitarian Law in Theory and Practice at Leiden University, with Honours.

From 2012 to 2016 he served on the faculty of CDM as Directing Staff. There he taught strategic management, geopolitics, international relations and net assessment to more than 400 senior officers. He designed course modules on strategic management and net assessment and ran management development programmes for the armed forces and the National Security Council Secretariat. He led two of the College’s major net assessment projects, on Kashmir and Manipur. He also lectured at the College of Air Warfare, the Defence Services Staff College and the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie.

From 2004 to 2005 he was Chief of Operations of the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) in Asmara. He directed the mission’s mandate to monitor the ceasefire across the Temporary Security Zone, with more than 3,000 multinational personnel in three battalion sectors and three military observer sectors. He coordinated with UNICEF, WFP and the ICRC to get aid to more than 250,000 displaced people, and oversaw mine clearance that removed over 15,000 explosive items. Under the Force Commander, he planned and conducted the Military Coordination Committee meetings between the two armed forces in Nairobi. He also wrote strategic reports for UN Headquarters during critical phases of the peace process.

From 2019 to 2023 he was India’s Defence Attaché to Germany, with concurrent accreditation to Austria and Switzerland. He took part in the India–Germany Higher Defence Committee talks, revived the Defence Technology Sub-Group, and presented India’s security perspectives at the Bundeswehr Command and Staff College in Hamburg.

His wider career includes command of a brigade in Assam and defence procurement at Army Headquarters. He writes the monthly newsletter The Long View from Delhi and is a member of the United Service Institution of India and the National Maritime Foundation.