From Surprise to Reckoning is the published unclassified version of the Kargil Review Committee chaired by noted Indian defense analyst K. Subrahmanyam who was chartered by the Indian government in July 1999 to "review the events leading up to the Pakistani aggression in the Kargl District of Ladakh in Jammu & Kashmir and to recommend such measures as are considered necessary to safeguard national security against armed intrusions".

Amazingly enough, the Kargil Commission actually got a fair level of cooperation from the various agencies within the Indian government and produced a scathing account of Indian intelligence omissions and failures in the months leading up to the war in the summer of 1999. Although the book has numerous deletions due to classification and generally reflects the long-held biases of its chairman K. Subrahmanyan (who has a long history of championing certain Indian defense issues), the book is the starting point for any scholarly or academic research on the Kargil War.

It should be noted that From Suprise to Reckoning focuses mainly on intelligence issues and some of the surrounding defense subjects such as the 'nuclear backdrop; and the 'defense budget' - it is not an operational military history per se. This will take a lot more time to produce and in fact it is unlikely that the Indian Army will ever publish an official military account of the war which will transcends the usual regimental histories commemorating the brave sacrifices of the jawans who died there.

Scholars will of course have to wait even longer for any official Pakistani version of the war. The Pakistani government still insists that somehow brave groups of Kashmiri mujahideen took it upon themselves to seize Indian fighting positions at elevations in excess of 16,000 feet where nobody lives to achieve some mysterious purpose -- obviously these guerrillas have not read their Mao Zedong in which "guerrillas live among the people as the fish swims in the water".