When the Lok Sabha elections are due in 2019, the present dispensation eyes new national security strategy under the Chairmanship of National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval known as Defence Planning Committee (DPC). The DPC would define national defence and security policy by undertaking security risk assessment.
The institutional set up will also lie out the national military strategy, defence reviews, and an overall national security plan.It will be an institutional body that will envisage a draft national security strategy and will also formulate an international defence engagement strategy.
The new strategic think-tank will also oversee foreign acquisitions and sales, making defence preparedness much more than an acquisition-centric exercise.
Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC), three Service Chiefs, Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Secretary of Expenditure in the Finance Ministry will be the members of the committee. The Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (CIDS) to the Chairman of Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) will be the member secretary of the committee and the HQ of the CIDS will be the secretariat of the DPC.
It has also four sub-committees. One to look at policy and strategy; the second one will work on plans and capability development; third one on defence diplomacy and the fourth one on defence manufacturing ecosystem and boosting of exports of indigenously produced defence products. All the reports will be submitted to the defence Minister to ensure that these will meet their desired end. The DPC will have to work across ministries and will also have to obtain approval from the Cabinet Committee on Security.
The DPC has been tasked with ambitious goals. It is established to assess external security threat, envisage a strong defence strategy and prioritise issues based on their threat level. With the growing security threats, which are fueled by both direct and asymmetric means, the DPC has a huge responsibility of bridging the gap between the existing bureaucratic bodies. It is imperative for this new institutional set up to create a mechanism wherein parties from the ministries, defence services as well as intelligence bodies work in coherence to face threats of all kinds.
The last time the Government of India tried to establish a defence planning body was in 1977. However, the committee established then had not achieved the desired results. To overcome the seizures created due to the absence of national security doctrine and lack of funds for the defence expenditure, the Group of Minister under the NDA in 2001 had recommended that a position of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) be created to bring in greater results in the national security matters but failed to take off till today for bureaucratic hurdles.
There is need to align long-term goals with procurement and doctrines by a mandate to take up “capability development planning” and place it before the cabinet committee for security for approval. Importantly, the panel will “evaluate foreign policy imperatives” and chalk out a strategy for international engagement that includes boosting Make in India exports and foreign assistance programmes.
While India does have a defence planning architecture in place, this is the first time it is creating a body that will factor in everything from foreign policy imperatives to operational directives and long-term defence equipment acquisition and infrastructure development plans to technological developments in other parts of the world while coming up with a plan.
The DPC will prepare military doctrines and, in turn, define Indian military objectives for the future. The doctrines will reflect India’s no-first-use nuclear policy as well as take into account the possibility of a two-pronged offensive from our adversaries. They will justify the Indian Navy’s demand of two aircraft carriers and the role of Indian Air Force in the era of long-rangestandoff weapons and missile theatre defence.
There are a few serious flaws in the functioning of DPC. Most of what it is meant to achieve is a repetition of what numerous previous mechanisms were supposed to achieve and have obviously failed to do so. What therefore lead us to believe that this too will also meet the same fate, as it isonly old wine in new bottle?
When we have full fledged well structured professionally run ministries of External Affairs, Defence and Finance with a full Secretary to the Government of India looking after these ministries, shouldn’t we be examining why things are not working and setting those right rather than creating new structures which will override some functions of each of these.
It does not seem very clear whether this is an advisory or an executive body. Can it override existing procedures or direct the respective Ministries to take actions without the concurrence of their respective Ministers – can it change the Rules of Business of the MoD as MoD bureaucrat will still call the shots being superior in administration.
Shouldn’t the National Security Adviser be overseeing national security – isn’t that his primary function as NSA -so as the PM’s premier representative on issues of national security, he should be ensuring the collective coordinated functioning of the respective ministries. A glaring omission in this construct is internal security, which is the greatest security challenge at the moment. Isn’t internal security integral to national security? Can internal security be de-linked from external security – isn’t Kashmir and Northeast a common issue (external and internal).
What happens to existing organisations like the National Security Council (NSC), the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) and the multitude of intelligence agencies – don’t they have a role in national security? The government should make all out efforts to improve higher defence management rather than creating a new untried out committee under a person who is not an expert on defence related strategies.
The three service chiefs as members of this committee do not fit in the committee as they are senior to all secretaries of the government of India and are as a matter of fact equivalent to the Cabinet Secretary. In principle, Chiefs should not be subordinated to NSA being heads the their services. They can be members of a Committee under PMO/Raksha Mantri.
In 2001 after Kargil battle the Subramaniam Task Force recommended the appointment of CDS – in existence in all-large democracies of the world – to do the same job as is being entrusted to the DPC under NSA. Later, Group of Ministers under the Deputy Prime Minister in 2002 also recommended the appointment of CDS. In 2011 again a high-powered Committee under Naresh Chandra recommended a permanent Chairman of Chiefs of Staff (similar to CDS) to carry out a similar job as the present new DPC.
Appointing the CIDS as the member secretary further highlights the issue of avoiding appointment of a CDS. The CIDS heads HQ Integrated Defence Staff, which is earmarked for formulating a joint military strategy, force development and coordinating force procurement based on priorities determined by emerging threats. It has been unable to perform its assigned task because of non-appointment of a CDS, thus compelling all services to process their cases directly with the MoD.
By placing the Chairman COSC in the DPC, enables the NSA to function as a pseudo CDS. Thus, control of the armed forces shifts from the defence minister to the PMO, with the NSA officiating as the CDS which is non-functionable.
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