Steering India’s Military Capabilities

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If we were to comment on the attitude of our leadership to our country’s defence preparedness the conclusion would be of unwitting indifference. There is no other plausible explanation to the manner in which we have been mishandling the defence of our nation.

A quick scan of our security barometer from the time we became a sovereign nation to date would enable us draw up a report card on how we have fared on the security management front.

Within months of our Independence we were subjected to an invasion from Pakistan. Barely managing to save Srinagar, we accepted the loss of a fairly large swathe of territory which we have since called POK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir).

But the narrative has only just begun. Call it neglect or a lack of understanding of defence preparedness because it appears that the gravity of the loss did not really ever sink in. What were the consequences?

Through the fifties, because of the total disconnect between defence and diplomacy we kept botching up matters with China. The price was the ‘62 disaster. We ended up suffering a humiliating defeat. We have, I believe, yet to recover from that trauma.

The Chinese came right up to the foot hills in the North-east. In the Ladakh region they captured large areas of Aksai Chin. After the cease fire, in the East the Chinese unilaterally withdrew to the McMahon Line. However, in the more strategically important Ladakh sector they retained most of what they had taken; approximately 38,000 sq km. Pakistan illegally ceded another 5,180 sq km. And that is how matters stand today.

Surprisingly something that should be causing grave concern appears to be for the moment met with stoic silence. China in the recent past has upped the ante on its claims over Arunachal Pradesh. The denial a visa to a government official of Arunachal Pradesh and the more recent reaction to the PMs’ visit to the State, together with frequent statements that the Province is Chinese territory reflect its new position. There is a view that the recent shift in stance could be due to the assessments the Chinese may have made during the ongoing border negotiations. They may have got the impression that we are not averse to ceding ground in order to settle.

Pakistan’s military adventurism in 1965, 71 and 99 requires no recounting. From somewhere in the mid-eighties it also brought in what could be labelled as nuclear blackmail into the equation. What make matters worse are its unrelenting and blatant attempts at subversion by actively aiding and abetting militancy notably in Punjab and Kashmir. By adding terrorism to its armoury, Pakistan has in the last fifteen years or so seems to have decided to play by no rules whatsoever.

The irony is that Pakistan is one fifth our size. In every measure of national power it is way below us. Currently, it is struggling for survival. Yet it has not abandoned its plans to take Kashmir and keep us destabilised. The reasons are obvious. It believes that we neither have the capability nor the will to do anything in retaliation.

If we move away from China and Pakistan and look at our smaller neighbours the picture is not very different. Bangladesh Rifles did not even think twice before mowing down our BSF personnel. The best we could do was to lodge some protest. Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar-it is the same story.

Clearly the report card is quite dismal, and demonstrative of an unwillingness to learn lessons.

The problem is with the perception of India, the national image. And the image of a soft nation state is largely because the military dimension of national strategy has never received the attention that it ought to. The primary reason for this is that the military has rarely had any access to the country’s political leaders.

What is the military dimension? In simple terms it implies the possession of adequate military capabilities and an unequivocally articulated resolve to use those capabilities whenever our core values or interests are threatened.

As a matter of fact what has just been postulated is the passive dimension of military capability. We must go beyond this and look at using our military to also further our growing interests and aspirations. Brash adventurism is not being advocated. But given-our size, the existing territorial disputes, and our emerging regional and global profile, the requirement to possess appropriate military capabilities-that can impact regionally, and globally-must not be wished away any longer.

To illustrate: Had the military balance between us and China not been what it is, the Chinese would not be talking down to us as they have been doing over the last three to four years. What must cause alarm is the virtual intimidation that we are now being subjected to.  

Unless our leaders assimilate the inescapability of adequate defence preparedness national security will always remain in peril.

Defence preparedness is relative and dynamic. It has to flow from an enunciation of national aims and objectives, and then an analysis of threats and capabilities required, to safeguard national security and further national interests. The mind-set-that the military’s role is to protect borders alone must be shed.

In broad terms the constituents of military capability that merit attention are:

• Conventional military capability.
• Nuclear forces.
• Intelligence.
• Structures for national security management.
• Defence Industry.

Internal security and disaster management though strictly not part of the defence apparatus are two important adjuncts which must not be neglected.

Conventional Military Capability

On an abstract level the purpose of keeping a force in being is to preserve national security, settle territorial issues and further strategic interests not by its actual use but merely conveying the possibility of its use. That is what military deterrence implies. This is something that we have not yet clearly understood. The view that the military is meant to fight wars is commonly held. But that view is not expected from those who claim to understand warfare, or our leaders entrusted to plan for national security.

How should our conventional forces be structured? We have unsettled borders with Pakistan and China. We have also fought wars with both these neighbours. To aggravate matters there is strategic collusion between China and Pakistan. The fallout of this collusion is a two- front situation for us. Militarily this is not desirable. Regrettably, not enough thought has been given to this problem.

Against Pakistan it should have been possible for us to create overwhelming force superiority. It can still be done. Unless Pakistan sees in India a punitive capability, it will not abandon support to militancy and terrorism. We must understand this.

China offers a greater challenge. The force equation currently is in China’s favour. We should also recognise that its capacity to invest in forces is also considerably more than us. But yet a careful analysis would lead to the conclusion that we can with some effort build capabilities that would make it prohibitive for the Chinese to go to war with us.

Besides the military capability required for fighting border wars with China and Pakistan, India also needs the wherewithal to protect its sea lanes of communication. The more we grow economically the more we will have to invest in this requirement.

Do we need excessive funds to build the capabilities just outlined? Not really. An allocation of 3 to 3.5 per cent of the GDP for about five-seven years should be enough to give us a reasonably potent military capability. This is something that the country can afford.

How should we go about this? The most important requirement is to first accept that we can no longer neglect national security. The next is to build a consensus that the Nation can afford to spend 3-3.5 per cent of its GDP on its security. Then we must task the National Security Council and the MOD to together draw up a blue print for force development. After debate, the strategy must be approved in Parliament. This is to ensure that plans do not get derailed when governments change.

Plans made should be flexible and be reviewed periodically for modification and refinement so that it does not loose its relevance with the changing security envelop.

The other important issue that must be taken into account is that if the MOD is to spend 3 per cent of the GDP in the financial year 2009-2010, it cannot. If we take the decision today, the earliest it can hope to utilise such funds effectively is perhaps 2013- 2014, not before this. The point being made is that unless fund availability is known well in advance it will remain unutilized or not spent-optimally.

Nuclear Deterrence

Moving on to the nuclear dimension, the first point to be noted is that conventional forces remain necessary and relevant even if adversaries possess nuclear weapons. All through the Cold War, neither side scaled down conventional forces, even as both continued to build nuclear arsenals to irrational levels.

The other much debated issue is the hypothesis that nuclear adversaries can fight only limited wars. The proponents of this belief then proceed to argue that if only limited wars are to be fought then you need only limited forces. The acceptance of such a prescription has serious pitfalls. All wars in some form or the other have been limited. But not one instance in military history can be cited to prove that force capability was built around this theory. Thus, the sooner we jettison such thinking the better.

While we must continue to strongly propagate global nuclear disarmament we must also accept that if we are to emerge as a regional and global power we need nuclear deterrence capability. The key question that merits further deliberation and debate is the capability that we should aim at. We can begin with our nuclear doctrine. It perhaps requires a reappraisal. Moving forward to our strategic force structure we must project thirty to forty years in the future. It is visualised that by then we will be a global power. As a global power we must possess a nuclear weapons capability that is sufficient to act as a deterrent to all other nuclear weapon states. What does this translate into? Very simply stated, we should be able to absorb a first strike and yet retain the capability to strike back with our residual capability in a manner that makes the costs to the attacker unacceptable. This is the minimum capability that we must resolve to seek and not accept the imposition of terms that could cause us to accept compromises on this issue. We have the example of China. It sought to achieve this long ago, well before it embarked on the path of its now fabled economic growth.       

Broadly nuclear forces have to be structured around warheads (nuclear bombs) delivery systems, an extremely sophisticated surveillance and target acquisition system and an equally sophisticated command and control system. Bombs should be efficient, mostly thermonuclear and in adequate numbers. Delivery systems must include ballistic missiles that could be launched from sea (primarily submarine) air and land. The ballistic missiles must have the reach to strike any point on this earth.

Intelligence

In warfare it is said that a ‘pair of good eyes can often be better than thousands of soldiers’. Despite having suffered on account of poor intelligence in all the wars that we have fought, little has been done to address the weaknesses of our intelligence agencies. All intelligence organisations-civil and military should be subjected to total overhaul. The incremental changes that we have been implementing have done little to improve matters. Reliance on the intelligence fraternity serving or retired to come up with proposals for reforms is unlikely to help.

Structures for National Security Management

The formulation of our defence strategy and the oversight of our defence preparedness has never been given sufficient importance. Precedents were set in the first decade of our independence, and ever since, no prime minister or defence minister has had the confidence or the inclination to bring about meaningful changes in the management of national security.

After many years of debate, we did set up the National Security Council, and also appointed a National Security Adviser. This organisation has now functioned for about eight years and would have seen two governments. Some observers believe that the functioning of this institution requires review. They believe that in practice the concept has lost direction and some serious distortions have crept in.

After the Kargil war, based on the Group of Minister’s recommendations the Government accepted the concept of the ‘Chief of Defence Staff’. It then proceeded to set up the Integrated Defence Staff, but, when the time came it did not appoint a Chief of Defence Staff for all the wrong reasons. Ostensibly, the appointment was not done because of the Air Force’s opposition to the concept. But in reality many believe the main reason was the bogey of military takeover. Whatever are the reasons it is time to revisit this subject. Right now the headless Headquarters of the Integrated Defence Staff is a monumental waste. If the CDS is not to be appointed we might as well wind up this organisation.

Defence Industry

The vital importance of a vibrant, modern and thriving defence industry to a country’s defence preparedness requires no emphasis. For the last seven to eight years the government has demonstrated its awareness of this requirement but has been somewhat hesitant in taking the steps it knows necessary, to catalyse our domestic defence industry. Precious time is needlessly being lost. Some hard decisions are necessary but they must be taken-and soon.

Conclusion

The umbilical link between national security and defence preparedness has never been fully absorbed by our political leaders and those on whom they have depended for advice. Over the years they may have learnt to somewhat understand diplomacy-but not defence. So how can we correct this infirmity?

The only way ahead is to reduce, if not eliminate intermediaries between the political leaders and their military advisers. On all security and defence-related matters the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Committee on Security must directly consult the defence forces. The National Security Council and the MOD have important roles to play but what must be practiced is that all security and defence-related decisions are taken in the presence of service representatives.

Despite a hostile security environment we have neglected defence preparedness. Consequently we have paid a heavy price.

So far the people have not seriously held our leaders accountable. But with growing awareness and the emergence of a very dynamic media the future will not be as forgiving. Our leadership must awaken to this reality.