Indian Defence Review

The Indian military might today is at its nadir with neither vision nor drive to achieve quantifiable goals. The Indian Army has become similar to a national ‘militia’, good only in numbers but lacking in punch or strong logistics backing. More than two decades of focus on counter insurgency and the deceptive jargon of ‘Low Intensive Conflict’ has blurred its prime requirement of being ever prepared to fight an all out War. If the Army stops asking for the necessary resources to fulfill its mission, then who else is to be blamed – the ‘survival instinct’ minded bureaucracy or the ‘next hustings-minded’ political class?

On May 11, 1998, India last carried out nuclear testing of its warheads. While we have mastered the technology for producing fission warheads, we still have a long way to go for developing the knowhow for making fault-free and reliable thermo-nuclear warheads and neutron bombs. Equally important are the associated skills of bomb design with reduced size and weight, and the ability to maximize yield and shelf-life of our warheads. Also crucial is the capability to develop near perfect computer software for simulations and carry out cold testing in our nuclear labs. The capacity to have reliable and mobile delivery systems which incorporate stealth and non-traceable characteristics is also very important.

For a country of India’s population and geographical size, the capacity to have a powerful and state-of-the-art nuclear arsenal is very essential in order to insure that other countries respect our peaceful foreign policy and that we can safely carry on with our main task of economic development. To nurture a culture of scientific excellence in pursuit of vital national goals is not easy to achieve as this takes painstaking efforts, disappointments, steadfast commitment and superb quality of leadership. Being a large democracy which is generally in election mode in some part of the country or other, our political leadership is overstretched and cannot ignore populist compulsions. Therefore, national strategic considerations and retaining the ability to face long-term security threats is either ignored or postponed indefinitely.

To add to this self-deluding conundrum is the fact that our country’s bureaucratic elite is so well-entrenched and heavily overburdened that they cannot ever be made accountable in any way for their near total disinterest in taking any worthwhile initiatives for ensuring efficient security-related national mobilisation of resources and coordination of efforts or their unbelievable lack of knowledge and depth of understanding as also seemingly ‘blind’ policy shortcomings.

Geopolitical Scenario in the Decade Ahead

The Paris Peace Deal of 1973 paved the honourable way for USA’s exit from the Vietnam quagmire and later on sealed the fate of South Vietnam being overrun by North Vietnam. After American exit from Afghanistan in 2014, the country will come under an Islamic dictatorship. This regime is most likely to be aligned with Pakistan and be hostile towards Indian interests. The USA would less likely be involved militarily in global trouble spots thereafter unless her vital interests like energy supplies are threatened (read Saudi Arabia and Kuwait). The USA would seriously get involved in reshaping its economy and taking care of its enormous Government debt by cutting down public expenditures up to 2025.

In Asia, Japan is most likely to move out of the blanket security umbrella that the US provides and go for full-fledged re-armament and nuclearisation after 2020. This would become the primary concern of the Chinese leadership. The Japanese Navy would have to go for a large-scale expansion to protect the country’s sea lanes and secure its vital raw materials and energy imports.

In Pakistan, if an Islamist oriented political party comes to power, then conflict is likely to grow with the military establishment over who shall have the greater say in running foreign policy of the nation. To win public support, competitive anti-India policies are likely to emerge. Pakistan’s nuclear and missile delivery systems are likely to make great strides in both payload and range and be in a position to target any place in India by 2018. The flow of Arab funds and Chinese military technology in Research and Development would enable it to match India. Many countries of Europe and even Russia are likely to go into economic decline after a decade due to mounting economic problems, declining productivity, unmanageable national debt and ageing population. If economies cannot be competitive and dependence on natural resources crosses a certain limit, recession becomes inevitable with all the attendant social problems. India will have to carefully weigh investment opportunities abroad so as to reduce big losses if things go wrong in an unstable world.

Historical Legacy in the Indian Subcontinent

A politically united India has always been a dominant power in Asia and a source of stability for commerce to flourish. However, in the days of kingship all great dynasties had floundered after the third generation due to succumbing to the luxuries of power and degenerating corrupt practices. It is incorrect to say that traditionally invasions had come from the North-west across the Khyber region, as the British had worked themselves from the Southern coast and the Ahoms and Burmese had invaded from the East. The Manchus in 1792 had invaded Nepal from across the Himalayas and the Chinese in 1962 taught India the value of military power to settle border issues. The fundamental lesson is that ‘national weakness’ will attract invasions no matter from where and whatever be the times, as we are a continental country as well as an extensive maritime nation.

Just as the French revolution unleashed the power of the citizenry of a Nation State, for which the Armies of the Kings of Europe had no answer democracy has granted deliverance to the vast population of India from the perpetual clutches of misrule by cruel and incompetent rulers. The human resources of a State are the ultimate wealth of a country if it gets nourished and developed properly over four generations. Countries which are not exposed to frequent wars take the dimension of national security lightly, always at their own peril – and this has been the case with India after attaining independence. A proper culture of understanding national defence needs, quietly developing the required sinews and this could take up to twenty years, and channelizing the energies and best genius of the people or nation to make it invincible in overt or covert wars has been sadly lacking in India over the past few decades. Even England under Margaret Thatcher was caught unprepared when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in 1991.

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But superb intelligence and marshalling of available national resources, along with diplomatically achieved unbelievable degree of covert support from the US helped them to achieve decisive victory. In our own case, only a deliberate long term effort can guarantee us victory over our foes. We must strictly resist the urge to over-react to provocations, and guard against media-inspired military retaliations against our troublesome neighbours, who are prone to test our patience due to their fragile internal power dynamics. Quiet strength demands the exercise of the painful option of restraint, unless it converges with our deliberate strategy to destroy the roots of the hostility using also many other effective means.

Creating Excellence in R&D Standards

To become a great nation i.e. from mere Bharat to ‘Maha Bharat’, there is the inescapable need to create excellence in both Basic and Applied Sciences research standards in our country. The first and foremost precondition to achieve this is to inculcate honesty and desist from bragging after making even small levels of achievement. Look at the top five nations in scientific research achievements, and we should marvel at their dedication and managerial methods. The Indian Government should immediately start a ‘Project Nobel Programme’ and nominate Specificied Sections under the following Top Twenty One Establishments to come up with a Nobel Prize winner within the next ten years. This List should be reviewed every ten years:-

• Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
• National Physics Laboratory, Ahmedabad.
• National Chemical Sciences Laboratory, Pune.
• CDOT, New Delhi.
• Meghnad Saha Institute for Scientific Research, Kolkata.
• VSSC, Trivandrum.
• BARC, Trombay.
• Central Electrochemical Research Laboratory, Karaikudi.
• Central Institute for Molecular Biology, Hyderabad.
• RITES, Lucknow.
• Central Metallurgical Research Laboratory, Jamshedpur.
• National Institute for Physics Research & Computing, Bhubaneshwar.
• National Semi-conductor Research Laboratory, Chandigarh.
• Designated Labs and Identified Establishments under ICAR, New Delhi.
• CUSAT, Kochi.
• Central Veterinary Sciences Research Institute, Izzatnagar.
• JIPMER, Puducherry.
• RMDRL, Jorhat.
• National Aeronautical Laboratory, Bangalore.
• RMDRL, Bhopal.
• RMDRL, Udaipur.

The research faculty in these Institutions should be paid 2.5 times the nationally approved pay scale. If they do not produce a Nobel Laureate within ten years, then 50 per cent of the staff of the designated ‘Nobel Sections’ should be compulsorily turned over. Individuals’ validation should be carried out after every three years, and non-performers de-rostered by an independent and empowered committee. Only then can we match the giant strides made by China in science.

Intellect Deficit in the Indian Army

“War is a very simple type of activity but at the same time its outcome is unpredictable to most minds, as the influence and final effects of the many variable inputs is very complex, and needs a lifetime of study and application to master it.” This is one of the remarkable observations made by Clausewitz nearly two centuries ago. Clausewitz was one of the founding members who established the famed ‘Kreigsakademie’, the Prussian War College in 1801 under General Gerd von Sharnhost.

The rigorous study of War and the application of all contemporary advancements, techniques and scientific developments throughout the world was taken to heights of excellence in the German Army, where the influence of the ‘variable inputs’ in War from time to time was properly addressed. Besides excellent knowledge of Staff Duties, the German military hierarchy encouraged the culture for experienced military commanders to think aloud and learn from the mistakes and successes of the German and other armies. This created the officially supported Discussion Group, the ‘Militarische Gesselshaft’ where no limits were observed in putting across considered analyses and opinions even contrary to the existing military doctrine, thinking and practices.

In India, unfortunately we have gone for ‘mass’ and sacrificed ‘quality’ in the Indian Army’s officer cadre. Textbook thinking and blind obedience of orders is our forte. ‘Unpredictability’ is our nemesis and we always get ‘surprised’ at all levels. Nobody can risk airing any ‘original’ or ‘alternative’ views, if one is aspiring for good confidential reports.

Today, most of the officers who have attained Brigadier or higher ranks in our Army do not have any military articles published in reputed and independent periodicals to their credit! This is because the efforts put in to get their hard-earned promotions have totally suppressed their faculty for intellectual development, original thinking and healthy debate. This rare quality of the intellect encapsulating the hunger for military knowledge and respect for professional wisdom, which is so very essential for winning wars cannot be manufactured merely by putting senior officers through ‘long courses’. Such courses have become in our Army more of a stamp on career dossiers and an entry ticket for fostering mutual help associations.

The Chinese Divisional commanders in the 1962 conflict won every battle hands down in such inhospitable terrain like NEFA and Karakorum, without having done any long ‘Staff’ or ‘Command’ courses. There is no substitute for intense cumulative learning and applied wisdom. Our country therefore needs to adopt a ‘Top Gun’ programme to attract the best quality officer material into our Army. We need to reverse the present adverse ratio of 30:70 per cent career satisfaction after 15 years of service, and the 10:90 per cent career satisfaction level after 25 years of service in our Army. Which first rate Indian youth will join our Service Academies now, if there are far better career prospects, earning possibilities and perks – in any of the Class I Civil Services, Police Services, Banking and Insurance sectors, or in any of the Technical, Managerial or Professional lines in the Private sector?

For this change to materialise, we need to cut down the intake of Direct Commission officers to 30 per cent of our present intake, and increase the in-house officer promotees from the experienced Non Commissioned Officers grade who have put in ten years of service to 70 per cent. Only this measure can save our Army from becoming a clone of the Pakistani Army with its deteriorating moral, professional and ethical standards; due to the ‘please-the-boss-by-any-means’ syndrome becoming ridiculously acute. To add to this rot, the Non Functional Basis Pay Promotion Scheme which should have been introduced for the Armed Forces first due to their serious shortage of Promotion posts and consequent Early forced retirement age, had got introduced for the otherwise privileged IAS first by way of bureaucratic shenanigans after the Fifth Central Pay Commission, and has now been extended to all Class I Central Civil Government posts after the Sixth Pay Commission!

Revamping India’s Military Industrial Complex

Nothing succeeds like success. Ask any successful first generation businessman or politician. The key to success the first time is to tread off the beaten track with a calculated game-plan and not to be intimidated by repeated failures. A ‘have not’ should not have the fear of losing. The policies followed since the sixties to build up a relevant and state-of-the-art defence manufacturing capability and cutting edge R&D set-up in India have not borne fruit. Look at the Chinese Defence industry. There, in the public sector, corruption is ignored so long as productivity, quality, time schedule and profits are not compromised.

In India, all rules are observed on paper and corruption is quietly swept under the carpet, but there are no fearsome accountability standards regarding what is the main aim of the organisation or establishment, and the ‘non inflated’ returns on the annual investment put in by the state. There is no point continuing with these same policies and fool the public and the gullible press by merely re-packaging the same failed methodology using better PR. Has the parliament ever seriously debated the Standing Committee’s Report about the physical and quantifiable yields the 54 DRDO Labs have delivered to the defence services during the last 15 years? Can’t a convention be created whereby four days of a parliament session is devoted to discussions on national security by the Business Committee, with all political parties agreeing not to indulge in any disturbances and adjournments?

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Our OFB and Defence PSUs can only manufacture obsolescent weapon systems on “collaboration” basis from the foreign manufacturers at nearly twice the global prices. Why have their inbuilt R&D failed or not given the DRDO and foreign manufacturers the fright of competition? Why has the monitoring and facilitating mechanism in the MoD bureaucracy not been pilloried and hammered for not avoiding slip-ups and delays? Why hasn’t the ‘Made in Bharat’ stamp not become a brand name in the world arms exports market, thereby automatically offsetting the costs of developing the next generation models of costly weapon systems? Why isn’t there an ongoing Ten Year Plan to field the following badly needed top Defence Systems?

• An ‘F-22 (Raptor)’ equivalent, Long Range Stealth Fighter with Phased Array radar and Beyond Visual Range AAMs – 500 such pieces, including the carrier version, will be required by 2022.
• An ‘Advanced Patriot/S-300’ equivalent Theatre Air Defence Complex system and Anti Ballistic Missile shield on the Western, Northern and Maritime borders by 2022.
• An ‘Attack Helicopter’ with five-tonne lift/payload capacity and stealth characteristics, which can be modified for Airborne Surveillance and High Altitude use – 300 such helicopters required by 2022.
• A ‘nuclear submarine’ which can fire Agni-V missiles. Six such boats will be required by 2022.
• A ’52-Calibre’ networked GPS-based 155 mm Artillery Gun system capable of firing precision munitions guided by drones – 200 such pieces will be required by 2022.
• A modern ’39-tonne MBT’ and ’19-tonne APC’ – 2,000 pieces each will be required by 2022.
• State-of-the-Art mobile ‘EW and Anti Radiation Equipment’ to equip one Regiment each per Combat Division by 2022.
• Lightweight ‘Air Defence Gun and Missile’ system, which are Anti-Radiation missile-proof, to equip all Combat Divisions with a Regiment each by 2022.
• The best and most lethal Carbine in the world with a range of 200 metres to equip Infantry Units by 2020.
• Most effective lightweight night vision goggles and weapon sights for Infantry troops, by 2020.
• A 50-tonne lift capacity wide-bodied all weather rugged modern turboprop aircraft – 60 such planes will be required by 2022.

India’s Strategic Nuclear Arsenal?

India is presently mastering Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile technology with 5,000-kilometre range. This meets our geo-political threat perception. We have not yet mastered the ‘Multiple-Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicles’ technology which is an essential ingredient of ICBM-class missile technology. Thus, each strategic missile of ours can deliver only one nuclear warhead onto a selected target. Therefore, we need to have more missile delivery systems and our response capability is purely punitive and defensive in nature. This requires a high level of deceptive deployment patterns and frequent change of location to beat satellite tracking and hostile local intelligence networks in order to survive first strike by potential foes.

Keeping the constraints of nuclear delivery assets in mind, India needs to make much greater advancement in both fusion and fission warheads design and efficacy over the next decade. Great urgency has to be given to the development of a ‘W-88 type’ nuclear warhead which has to be carried in our indigenous nuclear submarine and mated with seaborne missile launch systems. Only then can our national security be guaranteed. The W-88 nuclear warhead developed by the USA in the late 1980s weighs only 360kgs and is 0.55 metre in diameter yet it packs a yield of 475 KT. The Chinese had developed a copy by the late 1990s and successfully mated it with the Dong Feng-31 long range strategic missile system. Due to design and technology constraints, their warhead is reported to weigh as much as 700kgs. Further design improvements have been recently reported to meet the requirements of placing it onto their Jin class nuclear submarine launched Ballistic Missile System.

India’s Nuclear Warhead Design Programme has to make significant improvements over the next few years. Any degree of computer simulated tests is of no use if the device fizzles out during actual use. Unanticipated design flaws, mathematical calculation errors and peculiar characteristics of nuclear materials plague miniaturization efforts of nuclear warheads. Just as the quality of a firecracker has to be proved during the Diwali season, there is no escape from actual nuclear testing to freeze the basic ‘Bharat Bomb’ warhead design. This is a tricky proposition as the foreign policy repercussions have to be fine-tuned to reduce the adverse impact factors. We can surely expect Pakistan to go for similar nuclear testing immediately thereafter. So the question is which would be more beneficial to India and more adverse for Pakistan on the economic front – whether the sooner option or later option. India badly needs a stockpile of 150-odd reliable W-88 type nuclear warheads by 2022.

2013 would be an ideal year for carrying out nuclear warhead testing by India as in 2014, the Lok Sabha elections are due and the Americans have to withdraw from Afghanistan without suffering loss of face or complicating matters. The Chinese are preoccupied with their decennial change of guard and consolidation of the new leadership. In the present circumstances they do not foresee any military threat from India and if they over-react, it would push India into the anti-China strategic camp. The Israeli strikes on the Iranian nuclear facilities can be expected in 2014 and the security environment would get immensely complicated thereafter.

However, India has to explore the possibility of having an alternative nuclear test site in order to maintain surprise and even contemplate carrying out the tests during the monsoon season to negate satellite surveillance. India also needs to urgently develop a ‘W-70’ type Enhanced Radiation Warhead, which has a blast effect of only 2KT and can neutralise all living beings in a local impact area of 1400M diameter. This can be easily deployed with our existing missile delivery systems. Besides the US and UK, France perfected this technology in 1980 and China in 1988.

We have sufficient stocks of Tritium for making such devices. Imagine if our country’s political leadership had given the ultimatum of a Neutron Bomb strike and called for the civilian population of Kandhahar to be evacuated during the tense IC-814 Indian Airlines plane hijack situation in end 1999 – if the plane and hostages were not safely released. The whole world including the US and Saudis would have been outraged but after 24 hours they would have applied pressure on Pakistan to heed to reason and rein in the ISI. For that to have happened, India should have had the capability and option in the first place, and political will thereafter. This worst instance of national capitulation after 1962 should not have happened. Even today, our national covert intelligence agencies have not hunted and eliminated the perpetrators.

Tackling the Menace of Pakistan

The challenge that we face is what do we do with a state that is like North Korea, and is a permanent menace to its neighbours? Unfortunately, we cannot remove Pakistan from our neighbourhood. But the contradictions within Pakistan have to be clearly understood. The Pakistan Government and the Military are two separate establishments. The government in Pakistan has got no control over its military, and the Pakistan Military dictates the country’s foreign policy. Therefore, there is no point in carrying out a dialogue with the Government over security related matters, which is the mistake the Indian Government is repeatedly making. The contacts with the Pakistan Government should be restricted to people-to-people relations, trade, sports and cultural matters.

Over security and foreign policy matters, it would be better to deal with the Pakistan Army Chief through back channels and Intelligence Services contacts. Retired Pakistan Army Corps Commanders are very useful for Track II diplomacy as they are amenable to reason and wiser after retirement and they understand better the futility of resorting to force to settle issues. All of them have interests and relatives in England and USA. Therefore, a bi-annual closed door security dialogue attended by senior retired generals and diplomats from both sides needs to be held abroad, away from media glare. This would be the best confidence building measure possible under the circumstances. Pakistan today has become the true ‘running dog’ of Chinese hegemony and the ‘collaborator’ of the Western Crusaders. The ruling elites have lost sight of the advantages of peace, good governance and rule of law and what the Muslim population of South Asia can achieve under enlightened rule and a co-operative atmosphere.

The Pakistan Military respects strength and instinctively attacks weaknesses it perceives, in relation to India. This is their psyche, similar to the Nazi SS or Japanese Army during WW-II. The Military leadership’s mindset is like that of the medieval Moslem Sultanate rulers anywhere. They have great contempt and hatred for India. Therefore, they will continue to be a perpetual nuisance and cannot be trusted to keep their word. They have to be handled psychologically using the swift and overwhelming response to bullying method. Every ‘adventure’ that the Pak Military or the ISI launches should be subjected to unwavering and resolute response so that it ends up as a guaranteed ‘misadventure’. For this to happen, we have to be prepared, faster in decision making, alert and in anticipatory mode to pounce on them.

Our covert operations capability to create unrest in various parts of Pakistan should be built up so that the Pakistan Army’s internal security commitments multiply and become a perpetual headache. The Pakistan Army’s penchant for mischief across the LOC in J&K should be met with retaliation at the local level to the extent that the border zone in POK should resemble a ‘No Man’s Land’. There should not be a single over ground military structure left standing within five kilometres of the LOC in that sector after a serious ceasefire violation occurs. The costs of bad relations should be painfully visible. Other major policy measures which should be put into effect are:-

Apply the ‘Reagan Doctrine’ with Pakistan. India should go for a 25 per cent hike in defence spending over the next ten years, and keep the Pakistan economy stressed in the effort to play ‘catch up’. This does not require a shot to be fired.

In retaliation for serious Pakistan-supported terrorist attacks and ceasefire violations, let us surreptitiously curtail water flowing into Pakistan by five per cent in clear violation of mutual agreements. More dams need to be completed over the next ten years on the rivers flowing from our side into Pakistan. Let this be the penalty for hostile actions.

The Afghan Pashtuns resent the Pakistan Military. They should be helped whenever the opportunity arises.

The Iranian Ayotollahs resent US military presence in Pakistan, the shoddy treatment of Pakistani Shias, and the close military linkages and foreign policy tie-up with the Saudis. They also would not like the Pakistan military to dominate the scene in Afghanistan after the US pull-out. Therefore, closer economic and security cooperation with Iran is essential without annoying the US too much as this is an existential reality for India, similar to what Israel does when its interests conflict with that of the US.

The myth of the ISI’s invincibility and reach should be shattered using resolute measures. It must be ensured as one of our national priorities that all ISI’s forays and adventures outside Pakistan end up in failure, even if it does not concern India directly.

Let us show firmness in dealing with the Pakistan military but no hatred towards the Pakistani people. Even while dealing with the military, we must scrupulously adhere to the internationally accepted norms and not stoop to their levels of barbarity. The proper conduct of the Chinese towards our POWs during 1962-1963 should be a guideline, as this had helped to make a fresh beginning with them as time passed.

Conclusion

The Indian military might today is at its nadir with neither vision nor drive to achieve quantifiable goals. The Indian Army has become similar to a national ‘militia’, good only in numbers, but lacking in punch or strong logistics backing. More than two decades of focus on counter insurgency and the deceptive jargon of ‘Low Intensive Conflict’ have blurred its prime requirement of being ever prepared to fight an all-out War. If the Army stops asking for the necessary resources to fulfill its mission, then who else is to be blamed – the ‘survival instinct’ minded bureaucracy or the ‘next hustings-minded’ political class?

To become a great nation, India has to be militarily strong always while following the well-thought out current national policy of peaceful co-existence with neighbours and expecting non-reciprocity in voluminous trade and greatly enhanced people-to-people contacts. India is today at the crossroads for a momentous leap into a future full of opportunities. It cannot shy away from the responsibilities of the world. Armed might is the best insurance for democratic and secular governance. The people of other countries look up to us for guidance, humane values and to emulate our spirit of tolerance and freedom of conscience. What our country sorely lacks today are the strong managerial skills and work culture required to forcefully achieve the goals laid down by the political leadership, without allowing for delays to creep in. Heads of Departments should be empowered to even cancel holidays, if priority work is pending. ‘Delay’ should be treated as a sin equivalent to non-compliance of orders.