RADM Shrikhande served in the Indian Navy from 1980 until 2016. As a flag officer from 2009 he headed Naval Intelligence and Foreign Cooperation as ACNS; was Chief of Staff, Southern Naval Command and later in HQ Integrated Defence Staff looking after defence budgets & as Branch head in the Strategic Forces Command, before retiring as Flag Office Doctrines and Concepts.
After serving at sea from 1981-1985, he post- graduated from the Soviet Naval War College, St Petersburg, (1985-88) and was awarded an MSC with Distinction in weapon and sonar engineering. On return, he served for nearly four years as an ASW (anti-submarine warfare) specialist and operations officer INS Ranvir, and later commanded IN ships Nishank, Kora and Rajput and been XO of INS Delhi. He is a 1995 graduate of the Indian Staff College, winning the Scudder Medal as well as a prize in the Australian Navy’s Peter Michell essay contest; the Naval Higher Command Course at the Indian Naval War College in 2002; the US Naval War College, Class of 2003 (with highest distinction) where he won the Robert Bateman and Jerome Levy first prizes as well as the Forrestal Seminar prize and was elected Class president. From 2005-2008 he was the Defence Adviser at the Indian High Commission in Canberra, Australia, with concurrent accreditation to Fiji, PNG, NZ and Tonga. His other academic qualifications include an MSc (Defence and Strategic Studies, Madras University, 1995); MPhil (Defence and Strategic Studies, Mumbai University, 2015). He was awarded a PhD in June 2025 by the Mumbai University for his thesis, India’s Sea-Based Nuclear Deterrence: Criticality and Effectiveness for Deterrence Stability.
He was an inaugural selected member of the CNS’ Strategy and Operations Council from 2007-2011. As ACNS(FCI), soon after 26 Nov 2008 Mumbai attacks, he was part of the increased effort put into lessons learnt and the need for greater coordination across security and Intel matters. Foreign cooperation grew qualitatively and in scope with several nations in the maritime domain and resulted in the beginnings of national and international cooperative MDA.
In retirement he has taught at several colleges including the NDC and other higher Indian military and civilian colleges and at the Indonesian National Defense University. His subjects range from strategy formulation, military history, maritime trade, maritime law, operational art, force planning, RMA, China, the Indo- Pacific, Kautilya, the Peloponnesian War, to leadership and ethics. He is a visiting professor at the Indian NWC, Goa since 2018 and earlier with the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru. He has been the inaugural editor-in- chief of the Indian Naval Despatch since 2020. He writes for Indian and foreign journals/ portals, including the USNI Proceedings; Lowy; ASPI; the Australian Naval Instt; and has contributed chapters in a few books, besides being associated with some think tanks and other academic institutions. He has participated in Track 1.5 and 2.0 dialogues with a few countries and in national and international conferences. For the Stimson Center, Washington DC, he was the India Co-Chair for the Defence and Maritime Strategic Cooperation Working Group. In Australia, he has been a speaker at the Sea Power conference; Goldrick conferences; at ANU; UNSW and at ANCORS. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security, University of Wollongong, and completed a project there as the inaugural Maitri Fellow (DFAT-CAIR) from July 2024 to Jan 2025. He researched bilateral and multi-lateral maritime trade frameworks and digital trade aspects for Australia and India entitled Enhancing the India- Australia Bilateral Trade and Maritime Security Relationship for Prosperity and Mutual Protection. He was awarded the Ati Vishista Seva Medal (AVSM) by the President of India in 2015. He lives in Goa, India.