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‘National security also about governance, don’t politicise actions of the armed forces’ (Book Review)

‘National security also about governance, don’t politicise actions of the armed forces’ (Book Review)

How India Manages Its National SecurityBy Vishnu Makhijani,

Book: How India Manages Its National Security; Author: Arvind Gupta; Publisher: Penguin/Viking; Pages: 410; Price: Rs 599

National security is not just about the military, it also concerns governance and the tendency to politicise the actions of the armed forces should be “eschewed at all costs”, says Arvind Gupta, a former Deputy National Security Advisor, in this scholarly new work that will appeal to both the security apparatus and the common man — no mean feat in itself.

He says that the issues of economy, society and technology are integral parts of the national security system.

“National security is not just about the military. It also concerns governance. The armed forces cannot be responsible for domestic law and order and governance issues, although that is the case in a limited way in developmental projects and are asked to maintain law and order when it breaks down in any part of the country,” writes Gupta, who was also the former Director General of the Defence Ministry-funded think tank, the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).

Noting that the military is a non-political, secular institution working under civilian control as laid out in the Constitution, he has criticised the tendency in recent years to politicise its actions, a glaring example being the actions of the political parties in the wake of the army’s 2016 surgical strikes against terrorist launch pads in Pakistan.

“Political parties freely used the army’s name in their election campaigns ahead of the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh in 2017. This is a dangerous trend which needs to be curbed… Efforts to politicise the functioning of the army for narrow political ends should be eschewed at all costs,” writes Gupta, who currently heads the Vivekananda Institute that focuses on foreign policy, defence and security-related issues from an Indian perspective, in the Preface that encapsulates what is to follow in the book’s 12 chapters.

The modern-day concept of security being much broader, “it goes beyond the actions of the armed forces and involves all of government and even society”. The issues of economy, society and technology are integral parts of the national security system, he says, urging an institutional approach to ensure security.

“First, there have to be properly designed institutions of national security with well-defined roles and responsibilities. At the same time, they should be able to work with each other synergistically. They should be adequately resourced, both materially and financially,” he writes.

“For instance, weakness in terms of policing and in the criminal justice system creates a sense of insecurity among the people. Even disparate institutions should work in harmony. While they operate under the rules, procedures and guidelines prepared by the government, the institutions should also have the necessary flexibility and a degree of autonomy,” writes Gupta, also an honorary professor in the Department of Defence and National Security Studies at Chandigarh’s Panjab University.

Holding that incompetent leadership can mar even a healthy organisation, Gupta says the institutions must be led by men and women with proven integrity, professionalism and a nationalist vision.

“Finally, there must be a robust mechanism that brings national security institutions together so that they can work in sync with each other,” the author maintains.

Where then does India’s national security system stand in this narrative? It’s not exactly hunky-dory, to go by what Gupta writes.

For starters, “jointness among the armed forces, between the military and diplomacy, the military and civilian agencies and the military and intelligence agencies needs to be enhanced urgently. Dealing with the twin challenges of China and Pakistan will require a comprehensive approach. There is no alternate but to reduce the power asymmetry vis-a-vis China”, the author maintains.

There is urgent need, he says, for a deeper level of defence reforms and points to at least nine broad areas where these are needed: Civil-military relations, higher military organisation, net assessment, procurement, indigenisation of defence production, jointness among the armed forces, internal efficiencies, budgeting and defence planning, and defence diplomacy.

“The efforts so far have been half-hearted and had partial success. As the resource crunches the armed forces will have to find a way of doing more with less. This will be possible only if the efficiencies in the use of resources are enhanced and synergies among the three armed forces are developed,” Gupta says.

There is also the question of the “tough nuclear environment”, with Pakistan developing tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) and threatening to use them against India.

The perception outside government circles “is that India’s nuclear doctrine, which promises massive retaliation, is not credible against TNWs. Should India think up a flexible response strategy or change its doctrine to first strike” is an “important question”, Gupta writes, adding that this does not seem possible so far.

Coupled with this, “hybrid warfare, which is a combination of conventional military conflict, sub-conventional conflict and warfare in cyber space and outer space” is more likely in the future, besides which military warfare is likely to be accompanied by economic warfare and information warfare, Gupta writes.

Despite the shortcomings in many of our institutions and deficiencies in the implementation of programmes, India has made steady progress. With the country now set to emerge as the third-largest economy in the world, there is need to develop new, uniquely Indian narratives and develop matching, capable institutions to ensure that it overcomes poverty and occupies a deserving place in the comity of nations, Gupta says.

(Vishnu Makhijani can be contacted at vishnu.makhijani@ians.in)

—IANS

Parliament needs to define status of armed forces

Parliament needs to define status of armed forces

Representational Image

Representational Image

By Admiral Arun Prakash (Retd),

Only a diehard optimist would expect that India’s elected representatives would find the time to reflect on national security. But, with Parliament in session, should the improbable come to pass, here are some suggestions.

Each threat and challenge to India’s national security in the past 70 years has arisen not just due to the continued indifference of its political leadership but also its inability to learn from past mistakes. While the downward spiral of the defence budget (in real terms) and galloping asymmetry vis-à-vis China are causes for alarm, far more worrisome is the absence of a vision that could trigger remedial processes. Slogans are great for national morale, but someone must convert them into actionable strategies; so patently lacking in context of India’s military-industrial complex, defence modernisation or national security reform.

A possible reason for this “holiday” from long-term planning or strategising by ministers seems to be a shift of the onus of politics from party apparatchiks to their shoulders. The demands of Parliament, constituency, party politics and election campaigning leave very little time for their portfolios. In case of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), since the military has been deliberately excluded, crucial defence matters are, by default, left to personnel of the administrative, accounts and other civilian cadres who run the show. This uniquely Indian concatenation is definitely not the best way of managing national defence.

Material and organisational shortcomings in our national security, periodically highlighted by the CAG or Parliamentary Committees, attract fleeting public and media attention, which dissipates after rhetorical government responses. However, an area with grave but hidden implications for national security is: Civil-military relations (CMR) whose crucial significance seems to have eluded India’s post-independence rulers.

A key feature of current CMR in India is the huge perceptional gap that exists between the two sides. While the political and bureaucratic establishments see nothing amiss and have remained staunch upholders of the “status quo”; the military and veterans seethe with dissatisfaction at an increasingly asymmetric and deliberately contrived civil-military equation.

The most worrisome impact of this dissonance is the MoD’s functioning. By stubbornly resisting integration of Army, Navy and Air HQs with MoD, the bureaucracy has denied itself readily-available professional advice and the ministry, some badly-needed decision-making ability. Proof of the system’s ineptitude is to be found in the languid manner it discharges its primary function of equipping the forces. Procurement of simple but urgently needed items, like rifles, helmets and bullet-proof jackets for soldiers takes 8 to 10 years; while major weapon-systems can take anything from 15 to 30 years.

Hardware acquisition programmes from abroad, as well as indigenous projects like the Tejas fighter, Arjun tank and Kaveri turbo-jet have remained in limbo for decades, for want of decision-making. The government may downplay this dysfunctionality, but voids in our military capability are obvious and have visibly eroded our credibility as a significant power.

While some aspects of CMR impinge directly on India’s national security, there are many consequences of this discord that have implications elsewhere. Among these are the military’s push-back after every Pay Commission award and the acrimonious negotiations that follow; the protracted veterans’ public agitation for “one-rank-one-pension” and frequent tussles about rank-equations with civilian cadres. Controversies related to opening of cantonments to the public and politicisation of “surgical strikes” have further muddied the waters. In the furore surrounding these debates, few have reflected on the roots of the persistent malady that afflicts CMR.

The division of the armed forces, in 1947, was accompanied by a hurried reorganisation of the imperial defence structure to suit the new republic’s needs. During this turmoil, the military leadership remained ignorant of a significant development that originated from the civil side. The armed forces HQs, instead of being merged with the MoD, or being designated “department(s)” of MoD, were reduced to “attached offices” and made subaltern to the Department of Defence (DoD). This automatically placed a layer of bureaucracy between the military and the politician and replaced “civilian (political) control” by de facto “bureaucratic control”.

This “act of commission”, a fatal flaw in our national security matrix, was followed by an equally damaging “act of omission” — the failure of the new Indian State to accord recognition to the functions and status of its armed forces. The IAS and IPS (to be joined, later, by the Indian Forest Service) were created as All India Services by Article 312 of the new Constitution. Another category known as the Central Civil Services, consisting of 89 Groups A and B services, that provide the huge government bureaucracy, was inherited from the Empire. However, the functions, responsibilities and status of the armed forces, their chiefs and senior functionaries, found no mention in the Constitution, any Act of Parliament or even the Government of India (GoI) Rules of Business, created in 1961.

This absence of recognition and lack of defined status has worked to the detriment of India’s military. Successive Pay Commissions, using whimsical equivalences, have depressed the armed forces, in terms of emoluments (and consequently status), relative to the All India Services as well as the Central Civil Services. Since eight of the latter were created to render support to the military, this has led to severe hierarchal problems. The chiefs receive perfunctory attention from politicians and bureaucrats because they have no locus standi in the edifice of the GoI. It is the Secretary DoD who, by Rules of Business, represents the three Services. This iniquity has stimulated a steady deterioration in CMR over the past decades.

It is incongruous that the standing of the armed forces of the Union should remain indeterminate and open to repeated misinterpretation, vis-a-vis civilian and police organisations. It is, similarly, inappropriate that the Service Chiefs, responsible for safeguarding national sovereignty on land, at sea and in the air, should be denied recognition by the State, and remain “invisible” in the MoD.

A part of the remedy for this acute anomaly lies in amending the Rules of Business. But the real answer lies in legislation that clearly defines the status of the armed forces, as well as role and functions of the military hierarchy. Since this issue impinges not only on our military’s morale, but also on CMR and, ultimately, on India’s national security, it should merit discussion in the ongoing session of Parliament – other pressing business notwithstanding.

(The author is a former Indian Navy Chief and Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee. The views expressed are personal. The article is in special arrangement with South Asia Monitor)

—IANS

National security: India needs to nurture indigenous-technology driven policy focus

National security: India needs to nurture indigenous-technology driven policy focus

National security, Indian ForceBy C. Uday Bhaskar,

India’s overall financial outlay in the national budget offers some instructive insights about the constraints and the opportunities in which national security, in its most comprehensive definition, is pursued at the policy level.

A brief comparison with the allocation announced on February 1 by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley illuminates certain trends, particularly the steady increase in the revenue/manpower costs and the resultant shrinkage of funds available for modernising the inventory of the Indian military.

The budgeted estimate for 2018-19 for defence is pegged at Rs 2,95,511 crore ($46 billion) (for the armed forces, the DRDO and the defence production units) and a separate allocation of Rs 1,08,853 crore has been made for defence pensions.

The disaggregation points to an increase in the revenue component (standing costs for a one million-plus military) which for the current fiscal is Rs 1,95,947 crore, while the capital expenditure (for acquisition/modernisation of inventory) has a provision of Rs 99,564 crore. The fact that the overall pension bill in 2018-19 (which includes retired uniformed and civilian personnel) is now greater than the capital outlay is illustrative of the constraints of competing sector-wise allocation of a shrinking defence pie in the larger national context.

To its credit, the Modi government has maintained the sanctity of the pension commitment for all government employees so entitled; and while certain inequities are yet to be resolved for the military pensioner, the number of uniformed veterans will increase annually and this allocation will have to be accorded its own fiscal autonomy.

The total defence allocation minus pensions now works out to 1.58 percent of estimated GDP for 2018-19 and this is the second trend that is noteworthy. Over the last decade, from 2009-10 to 2017-18, the defence allocation as a percentage of GDP has declined from 2.19 to 1.65 percent. This now stands at 1.58 percent. It appears that successive governments have come to a determination that defence allocation can be gradually reduced without adverse impact on the national interest.

Consequently, the fiscal support to the training, modernisation and inventory-acquisition of the armed forces will become even more constrained due to fiscal pressure and the fallout of this be felt on the operational profile of the Indian military.

The comparison with the previous year’s allocation sheds more light on the national security dilemma for India. In the last budget presented in February 2017, the Finance Minister allocated Rs 2,42,403 crore for defence in the fiscal 2017-18. With the pension amount added, this total went up to Rs 3,59,854 crore for defence alone. The comparable figure for this year, fiscal 2018-19, is Rs.4,04,364 crore ($63 billion).

This is not an insignificant amount in a country where poverty is stark and millions live below or hover near the subsistence level. However, many anomalies abound as far as the Indian security profile is concerned. For a nation that can legitimately take pride in its indigenous capability at the macro end of the spectrum (nuclear weapons, missiles, nuclear submarines and satellites), it is woefully deficient at the middle and lower end of the military inventory spectrum.

The just-concluded Republic Day parade on January 26 illustrated this in a vivid manner. Most of the platforms and ordnance delivering guns are of foreign origin — from Russia in the main. The majority of India’s tanks, ships and fighter aircraft are of ex-Soviet (now Russian) design and while some have been assembled in India, the reality is that India is yet to acquire the appropriate levels of design and manufacture even for basic inventory like personal weapons (rifles and pistols) and artillery guns.

In similar vein, India has been pursuing fighter aircraft and helicopters with limited success. The Indian LCA (light combat aircraft) Tejas has been a work in progress for decades and while the first flight took place in January 2001, the aircraft is yet to be proven in a manner that will meet all the requirements of the users.

There are some encouraging signs and one success story was on display at the parade — the Rudra helicopter. Envisaged as an attack helicopter, it is derived from the Dhruv and was proudly showcased. However, this chopper is still a work in progress and needs to be pursued diligently to meet all the specifications initially outlined.

The opportunity that lies ahead is the possibility of India slowly acquiring a degree of credibility in designing and manufacturing conventional military equipment at the middle and lower end of the spectrum. Many developing nations have evinced interest in the Indian helicopters and some were exported to Latin America — but the satisfaction level has been below the median.

The just-concluded India-ASEAN summit had some expansive references to security partnership and the maritime domain received considerable focus. India has been seen as a net security provider in the Indian Ocean and various partnerships that add to the common good at sea have been mooted. But all of this will be predicated on the material status of the Indian Navy and Coast Guard and, to cite but one example, the helicopter is the little noticed work-horse for many operational exigencies — but the helicopter fleet is grossly below what is the bare minimum number required for all the armed forces.

Over the next decade, based on current trends, India will allocate up to $900 billion for national security and, of this, upwards of $200 billion will be spent in acquisition and modernisation of military capacity. The twin focus will be on ‘Make in India’ and redressing inventory gaps. Innovative partnerships that build on niche capability among India’s bilateral partners needs to be explored in an innovative and effective manner.

Funding for defence will remain a constraint, but nurturing an indigenous-technology driven policy focus and enabling the private sector is the need for ensuring the appropriate index of comprehensive national security.

(C. Uday Bhaskar is Director, Society for Policy Studies. The article is in special arrangement with www.southasiamonitor.org )

—IANS

Compulsory linking of Aadhaar a threat to national security: Subramanian Swamy

Compulsory linking of Aadhaar a threat to national security: Subramanian Swamy

Subramanian Swamy

Subramanian Swamy

New Delhi : BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Tuesday said that compulsory linking of Aadhaar was a threat to national security and expressed confidence that the Supreme Court will strike down the government directions making it mandatory for availing various services.

“I am writing a letter soon to PM detailing how compulsory Aadhaar is a threat to our national security. SC will I am sure strike it down,” Swamy said in a tweet.

The Supreme Court had on Monday said a five-judge constitution bench would hear a batch of petitions challenging the validity of the Aadhaar law on charges of being intrusive and violating the right to privacy.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said the hearing on the petitions challenging the government move would take place in the last week of November.

The court said this after Attorney General K.K. Venugopal told the bench that the government had filed a detailed affidavit refuting all the allegations on expanding the area under Aadhaar linkage.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi had earlier this week accused the Modi government of using Aadhaar as a “monitoring mechanism” and said it will have serious consequences.

He had said the Aadhaar programme, which was initiated by the Congress-led UPA government, was designed to be a supporting mechanism and not a monitoring mechanism.

—IANS