Recently under the aegis of the Army a seminar was conducted to discuss the shape, size and structure of our Army in 2020. The scope of the seminar also included an assessment of emerging challenges and doctrinal issues. The deliberations during this event received some media coverage and comment.
If we are to go by the reports that doctrinal and organizational changes are in the offing based on the conclusions drawn during the Seminar clearly this event has been of considerable significance and extremely successful. The Army Headquarters, the organizers and the participants deserve to be congratulated. Equally it can be expected that the benefits of this event would encourage the defense establishment to engage in such debates more frequently.
The three service chiefs spoke during the inaugural session. A close scrutiny of what they said and the proceedings that followed would indicate that the deliberations were perhaps being conducted in a vacuum. Ideally, such a subject should have as its frame of reference a vision document of national strategy and security for 2020. Without such a conceptual framework the solutions arrived at are unlikely to be optimal and may even be flawed. We now have a National Security Council and a National Security Advisory Board comprising of some of our recognized and well-known members of the strategic community. Therefore it would be fair to expect a much greater degree of cohesion between national and defense planning.
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