The ability to collect intelligence—whether about a State or a non-State adversary—depends on one’s ability to penetrate. It is easier to penetrate a State than a non-State actor. The conventional tradecraft and techniques of intelligence collection, which served us well for penetrating a State actor, are not adequate for the penetration of a non-State actor. The state of our intelligence agencies and the way they have evolved over the years have not paid attention to the requirements of this transition. As the non-State actors become more and more unconventional in their reflexes and responses, the intelligence agencies responsible for monitoring and countering them cannot continue to be conventional in their reflexes and responses.
The IB has evolved into a hotch-potch agency handling collection of intelligence relating to law and order and internal security, performance of physical security and immigration control tasks, counter-intelligence and networking with the police and intelligence set-ups of different States.
We have to set up a new agency focusing on the collection of intelligence about non-State actors through human and technical penetration.
The R&AW too has evolved into a hotch-potch agency handling collection of external intelligence relating to State as well as non-State adversaries and networking with foreign intelligence agencies. At a time when terrorism has become global in dimension and reach, the R&AW’s counter-terrorism capabilities are hardly global. At a time when the global terrorists are fast mastering the use of the Internet, mobile telephones and other scientific gadgets, the R&AW is yet to acquire a similar mastery of net-centric counter-terrorism and the use of advances in science and technology in counter-terrorism.
The dangers of conventional wars with State adversaries have not disappeared. The Indian State is better prepared and better endowed today than it was in the past to counter State adversaries, but its ability to counter non-State adversaries and their unconventional wars is inadequate as seen from the spread of ideological terrorism across the tribal belt in Central India and the unextinguished prairie fire of jihadi terrorism across India as a whole. We have had successes in our fight against pan-Islamic jihadi terrorism with trans-national linkages, but the successes have not yet been significant enough to dent their strength and motivation.
The threats to our internal security from non-State actors will keep us preoccupied in the short and medium terms. These threats have acquired new dimensions in the form of threats to maritime trade and coastal establishments, energy security and critical infrastructure and terrorism involving the likely use of weapons of mass destruction material. If the intelligence agencies have to play their due role in effectively preventing these threats from materializing, they have to develop new tradecrafts and new techniques for the penetration of non-State actors through human and technical moles for the collection of intelligence. This is a specialized and full-time task which neither the IB nor the R&AW, as they are constituted today, would be able to perform adequately.
We have to set up a new agency focusing on the collection of intelligence about non-State actors through human and technical penetration. It should have the powers to operate everywhere–inside India or in the neighbouring countries or elsewhere–from where threats to our internal security from non-State actors could arise. It has to have a mix of civilian and military experts, and scientific and technical personnel. Since collection of cyber intelligence to facilitate net-centric counter-terrorism would be one of its essential tasks, it should also tap the private IT sector for assistance and co-operation.
The time has come to have a second look at the present policy of the R&AW claiming a monopoly in the field of external intelligence.
So long as our disputes and differences with Pakistan and China remain, we have to maintain a strong intelligence capability–human as well as technical–with regard to likely threats from them. How should be maintain and further develop the existing capabilities with regard to State adversaries, while creating new capabilities with regard to non-State actors? That should be the question before our national security managers. The R&AW and the military intelligence Directorates-General would continue to be the driving force for this purpose. The time has come to have a second look at the present policy of the R&AW claiming a monopoly in the field of external intelligence and discouraging any enhanced role for the military-intelligence Directorates-General in this regard. The days of the intelligence Empire have to go. The intelligence empire has to be replaced by the intelligence community working jointly in the national interest.
Our capability with regard to Pakistan is good, but not good enough as one saw in 1999. Our capability with regard to China is better than it was in 1962, but is not as good as China’s capability with regard to India. In promoting a policy of renewed friendship and détente with India, China has not downsized the India-centric capabilities, which it had built up in the days of its confrontation with India. On the contrary, it has continued to strengthen them. India, on the other hand, has allowed the good vibrations with regard to the improving relations with China to induce once again a feeling of complacency and somnolence. Nothing illustrates this more dramatically than the way we have allowed, since 2000, a gradual attrition of the China-dedicated capabilities of the DGS.
Counter-intelligence continues to be a weak point in our intelligence set-up. The regularity with which penetrations take place in sensitive departments and intelligence agencies is a disturbing testimony to this. A review and revamping of our counter-intelligence capabilities is an urgent need of the hour.
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