Indian Defence Review

Vikramaditya preparing to leave harbour for Sea Trials in the White Sea (Off Russia)

To sustain the capability to fight a protracted war, it is essential that a significant portion of India’s defence production gets exported. This requires dedicated support from the Ministry of External Affairs which should be made responsible for finding markets and meeting sales targets, the Ministry of Finance for arranging financial support packages and the Ministry of Commerce for working out offsets and commodities barter. Waging a protracted war also requires setting up of a strong propaganda, psychological warfare and media management apparatus as adjuncts to the armed forces within the MoD which should work in close coordination with the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and Ministry of Home, all under the supervision of the Cabinet Secretariat.

To become a true regional power and take our rightful seat in the UN Security Council, 90 per cent of our Armed Forces equipment and materials for war has to get indigenously produced within the next six years, in the same manner that Hitler accomplished the rearmament of Germany and buried the shame of the Versailles Treaty thereby boosting national morale. Wars of the future are not going to be decided on the outcome of a single campaign. Therefore, our theatre commanders have to be empowered to conduct a coordinated campaign with maximum exercise of initiative, regrouping of formations from their ‘No War-No Peace’ deployments and minimum interference from MoD at the micro level.

The consolidation of all our Home Ministry Forces into a single entity is another national strategic requirement, in order to ensure proper rotation of units and manning on regional basis to facilitate their uniform modernisation and comprehensive training and to create a psychologically satisfying service environment for these forgotten and overstressed men in uniform, who render yeoman service to the nation both during peace and war.

We need to introspect seriously on improving the quality of our officer intake into the armed forces, and the moral and mental caliber of our senior commanders. Maybe we need to actually cut down drastically the annual intake of directly commissioned officers, so that all deserving officers can retire at least at the rank of Brigadier. To meet the ground requirement of having sufficient officers in the lower ranks, we have to urgently introduce Direct Commission in the JCO rank, who will subsequently get promoted up to the Colonel level. This will help attract motivated youth to join the NCC, as such JCO commissions will have to give due weightage for successful and trained Senior Division NCC Cadets.

Protracted war is a real possibility facing the Indian nation after the pull-out of the US forces from Afghanistan in 2014. The forces of fundamentalism, hatred and greed across our Western border will definitely get a fillip. The needs of their people through economic development cannot be met so the attention of their people will be diverted against India. Once India is geared to fight a protracted war, any other type of war can easily be taken on.