In a recent issue, the Daily Excelsior of Jammu informed that the Army was contemplating re-structuring of the Rashtriya Rifles Headquarters for better operational capability and strategic and logistic efficacy. Rashtriya Rifles (RR) force was raised soon after armed insurgency surfaced in Jammu and Kashmir in 1990. Ever since the force with headquarters in New Delhi has been fighting the jihadi armed groups raised and helped by Pakistan to sneak into our side of the border across both LoC and International border.

It is more than two decades and a half that the force is operating in J&K, particularly the valley. It has inflicted heavy losses on the enemy but has also suffered casualties at their hands. The question is not of numbers killed or captured. The real question is that after nearly twenty-seven years of operation, the institution and the network of armed insurgency have not been totally eliminated or destroyed. Therefore it becomes pertinent to find out why the situation is like this, and what are the precise countermeasures that might succeed at the end of the day to bring back normalcy to the war-torn State?

Let us analyze the issue threadbare. We call it a proxy war. That is a misnomer.  A proxy war is usually fought by mercenaries. Those who are fighting in Kashmir are not mercenaries but jihadis, and a jihadi is one who fights and dies for his religious conviction, and not for money. And those fighting for religion do so essentially owing to two motivations. One is that they are indoctrinated methodically in homes, seminaries, mosques, and public places that their religious beliefs demand them to fight for the global expansion and victory of the faith. It is not only to dominate the human society and civilization but to rule over it as ordained in their scriptures. The second component is that of hatred for the unbelievers, particularly the polytheists and idol-worshippers for whose destruction the faith was sent by the God.

These two motivations do not produce only the Islamic warriors but also a re-oriented Islamic society dovetailed to a distinctive ethos that must lend full support to the mission undertaken, especially when the enemy is a kafir. What is the overarching contour of the ethos in question? The entire society at home and its Diasporas anywhere in the world are enjoined by the conviction to get actively involved in the mission politically, psychologically, socially and financially. We naively give epithets such as Islamization or Wahhabization or Arabization to this emerging ethos whereas it is the intent of these Islamic ideologues to prepare the entire Muslim community for outright domination of humanity. Echoes of this have been seen in the war in Syria where Muslims from all across the globe who have gravitated towards this idea, have gathered to fight for the cause.

What has contributed to the strengthening of this ideology is the surprising success which it has been able to record, in theory and in practice in gradual stages. The current stage could be considered its culmination point, essentially because of the tremendous use of highly sophisticated and effective information technology of which the missionaries as a whole have made the fullest use. Therefore, no wonder that the jihadis sent from across the border to fight in Kashmir are equipped with the most sophisticated means of electronic communication, which the RR and other security establishments do not have or have to import belatedly.

The Islamic ethos sought to be created in our times involve the entire community, and not only the jihadis or their networks and organizations. The entire ummah is behind the mission and it is easily noticeable anywhere in the world as far as their operations in Kashmir are concerned.

Therefore, Indian security forces, be it the Police, BSF, CRP, ISBT, Commandos or the Army, one and all, have to understand that they are not fighting only the armed jihadis hiding somewhere in the forests away from the habitats but they are fighting an ideology. There may be a few hundred of the armed jihadis against whom the RR might exhibit superior tactics of fighting but what is to be realized is that the real war is with the large part of the society that has been radicalized. These people are unarmed and untrained for military operations, yet they most tenaciously support the gigantic mission of a new dominating and ruling ummah.  It is not a proxy war, it is actual fighting between two sides in which one side is motivated by a deeply embedded life-mission, and the other side is motivated by professional allegiance to a system.

Most of the political leadership in the State will not deviate an inch from the guidelines of the “divine” mission not for the sake of threat to life but because of the intensity of conviction. There is no threat to anybody’s life whatsoever in Kashmir and the crores of rupees spent on the security of so-called VIPs is sheer wasteful and unnecessary expenditure. These VIPs speak the language of the jihadis on public platforms, inside and outside the legislative assembly, in mosques, offices, on playing grounds, farms and fields, in marriage and in mourning assemblies, in hospitals and in clinics and all other conceivable places. The idiom is one, the intent is one, and the implication is one. And we have sycophants to lionize them who seem to be suffering from the Stockholm syndrome.

What does it mean to shift the RR Headquarters from New Delhi to Udhampur in J&K? Is this shifting a solution to the situation facing the Indian nation? It is not just the military which is engaged in this war, but the whole nation. Therefore, a national effort is required to come to grips with the situation. It is for the national leadership to take up this challenge.

We need to stop these pointless gimmicks and hollow gestures and come to grips with the matter at hand. The country is at war, and the war that is raging is totally different from the war we are used to knowing. This war is not a war of guns and bullets. It is not a war of eliminating a few jihadi terrorists. It is a war of the mind, a war of ideologies.

The above conceptualization puts to question not only our vast defense establishment but essentially our pattern of democracy and much-profaned secularism. The ground situation beckons for an awakening of the masses and propagation of an alternate ideology to confront jihadis thought. Why only pit the RR or other forces against the jihadis; the entire nation, its resources and its capabilities must be used.

The military needs to be given a free hand to deal with the terrorists in the valley. But more importantly, the entire nation, united as one must stand up to counter the violent extremist ideology prevalent in Kashmir valley and send out a message that jihadi extremist thought will not be acceptable in any part of India. This is the reason why legal provisions such as Article 370 and 35A which seek to divide people must have no place in India’s polity. This message too should go down to every nook and corner of the land, especially in the Kashmir valley.

It is not for the RR Headquarter to safeguard Indian democracy and the Indian way of life. It requires a collective national effort involving all elements of the state to see that Kashmir is retrieved. We should not let ourselves get blackmailed ever again.

(Prof. K.N. Pandita is the former Director of the Centre of Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University, and Srinagar.)

Preview

It is said that the study of history is necessary to understand behaviour of a country in any given situation, particularly the ones related to security. A good understanding of history is therefore an important ingredient of statecraft. In the present context of ‘Integration of Command Structures’ we need to look into some historical perspectives on war strategies since this will be the bedrock of any larger national command structure. Wars are a manifestation of the political will of a country and therefore when one talks of integration, it should not be limited to Armed Forces structure alone, but that of entire organ of the state which shapes political will.

Future conflict is not akin to the wars of yesteryears. There is more and more focus on non contact wars which are fought in new mediums and domains such as cyber, space, electronics, trade and communication.  New wars unlike contact wars tend to minimise loss of human lives and the emphasis is to cripple daily usage infrastructure like transportation, power, automobile, information support systems and, communication; the broad intention being to bring everyday functioning of the state to standstill and create public unrest. This does not mean that there would be no contact warfare. Countries which have not migrated to technically advanced systems will still have to rely on proven methods, and countries like India, which are in transition, will resort to hybrid warfares, and a combination of contact and non contact warfare. Wars always impact country’s economy, trade and the daily lives of people and therefore it is necessary to exhaustively study the impact of war before a country jumps into the fray. The National Command Structure which assesses the impacts of war must include those organs of state which are stakeholders in national security apparatus; war has to be a nation’s war and not Armed Force’s war, which was the case earlier, in which it used to be fought far removed from civil areas. Today’s wars impact people’s daily lives. Some are low cost and yet cause large public impact, like the Mumbai terror attack which kept the entire government machinery engaged for four days in which ten attackers killed over 157 people. It is with this backdrop that an integrated national command structure approach will automatically lead to resultant reforms in many other institutions of governance including the Armed Forces.

Ram Madhav in his book “Uneasy Neighbours” makes a comparison between two games played on board – Chess and Wei Che – and says that “Chess is a game of single minded pursuit of victory over the enemy. In this game each player attempts to secure a comprehensive victory over the other by removing his army and check mating the king. Chess is all about total victory or a draw when both sides withdraw abandoning the hope for victory.” He adds, “… on the contrary, the Chinese game of Wei Che is all about strategic encirclement. In Wei Che, there is a board with nineteen by nineteen lines, and each player tries to fill the slots by placing his pieces- 180 per player. Each side slowly builds up positions at various places on the board by encircling and capturing the enemy’s pieces. Multiple contests take place simultaneously at different places on the board. At the end of a well played game, the board is filled by partially interlocked areas of strength. To an untrained eye, the identity of the winner is not always immediately obvious.”

Today, the nature of warfare has changed and is unlike the game of chess, which is akin to wars fought in yesteryears. We are witnessing cyber, space, nuclear, electronics, communication, optical and light being used as medium of warfare to prove a country’s supremacy. These mediums of war need large scale planning involving all organs of the state, each working in concert for a common cause of ensuring peace and prosperity for their citizens.

Ram Madhav also quotes Henry Kissinger from his magnum opus ‘On China’, who says “If chess is about decisive battle, Wei Che is about the protracted campaign. The chess player aims for total victory. The Wei Che player seeks relative advantage.”

He goes on to say, “skilful chess player aims to eliminate his opponent’s pieces in a series of head on clashes, a talented Wei Che player moves into ‘empty’ spaces on the board, gradually mitigating the strategic potential of his opponent’s pieces. Chess produces single mindedness; Wei Che generates strategic flexibility.”

Thus, if chess is about Clausewitzian concept of centre of gravity and decisive point then Wei Che is art of strategic encirclement. Today, we are witnessing a clear shift from chess like ‘elimination of the enemy’ to ‘encircle the enemy’ and leave no option but for him to follow your directions.

Even older theorists and strategists have spoken about wars and battles. The 400 BCE theorist Sun Tzu talked about defeating the enemy without resorting to a clash of arms. For him combat was literally the last resort.  Quintas Fabius (280 BCE – 203 BCE) talked about the strategy of “fleet in being”, in which the presence of an enemy fleet is sufficient to influence an opponent’s strategy, even though that fleet rarely, if ever, leaves port. Closer to home, Kautilya has mentioned four kinds of war –  ‘Mantrayuddha’, war by counsel (exercise diplomacy); ‘Prakasa-yuddha’, open warfare at a time and place of your choosing; ‘Kutayuddha’, concealed or psychological warfare, instigating treachery in an enemy camp; and ‘Gudayuddha’, clandestine war, using covert methods to achieve objectives without waging a battle. This could include the usage of agents, double agents, allies and supporters of the enemy. In fact, Kautilya goes on to say that by adopting appropriate foreign policy a head of state can bring prosperity for its people.

The focus of this article is to examine the national command structures of leading powers in the world which makes them effective Wei Che practitioners.  Is it time for India to have a comprehensive national command structure or only compartmentalised military reform? If we have Wei Che like national objective and also a structure to support it, then there would necessarily be a need to reform higher Defence Organisation as a component of larger reform.

Synergy in National
Security Structures

A study of the United State’s security system reveals that number of reforms over the years have led to evolution of the present national command structure. An evolved US administration structure also necessitated reforms in the Armed Forces structures. In 1946, the US established the National Intelligence Authority under President Truman. After WW II the international order was aligning itself into two power blocks led by the USA and the Soviet Union, each representing a different political system. The US, the western power, was leader of the free democratic world and USSR, the eastern power was the leader of a communist system. One was a practitioner of free market economy, and the other of state controlled economy. Each bloc represented different ideological themes based on their history of struggle. Yet the comparison between the East and the West military powers reflected a degree of parity whereas economic power was at large variance, commercial practices being vastly different.

The two power blocs, were always suspicious of each other and closely spied on developments in technology and economy. There was always an apprehension in the minds of the leaders of each bloc that the other may widen the power asymmetry and upset the leadership balance. The US considered it necessary to synergise its entire organ of state to retain leadership of the free world. The US and its allies also considered it necessary to prevent the spread of communism, since in their opinion it violated fundamental right of citizens, namely, freedom of speech. Diplomacy alone was inadequate to contain the Soviet Bloc. With this backdrop National Security Council Act in the US was brought in force which forms the basis of the present National Security Council structure. Indeed, with the passage of time there has been restructuring to accommodate the realities of a changing world and its geopolitics. Entire structure of NSC represents body of synergised organs of state which helps the US Administration exercise comprehensive national power worldwide.

Much of Indian contemporary writings have debated and argued restructuring of Higher Defence Organisation. In the contemporary context, Defence restructuring, i.e., CDS and MoD integration etc should be a subset of a  larger reformed Integrated National Command Structure, and that needs to be given due consideration. We need to become a Wei Chi player and not remain a chess player in geo-strategic game.

Who are we to restructure for? Is it country specific? Not really, it is for India to exploit her full potential and place the country in her rightful place in the world. If we have integrated national structure which synergises long term objectives and strategies, is inclusive of stakeholders in national security, we probably may not have to take knee jerk reactions. Most of our neighbouring states are on the path of economic progress and therefore they would avoid full fledged conflict, else it could retard their own progress.  Recent official study by the US Defence Department has concluded that China is increasingly employing coercive measures, which are backed by its growing economic, diplomatic and military clout to advance its interests. At the same time it does not wish to destabilise regional stability by provoking full fledged war which could impact its own economic development. China’s intentions to replace the US from established world order is well known but it encompasses its tactics of salami slicing on land borders with India and in the East Sea/ South China Sea where it openly flouts internationally agreed laws. What the world is witnessing is a synergistic National Command Structure of China where its leader having absolute power is challenging international rule based world order.

Let us take a look at the two models of National Command Structures. Firstly the USA NSC structure is designed as the basic organisation to provide advice to the Head of State (the President) in all matters of national security, i,e, military and foreign policy. The Council is the principal arm for coordinating the policies among various government agencies and monitor its implementation as well as assess its success or failure.

Post 9/11, the US created Homeland Security Council but later in October 2009 the HSC and NSC were merged into one National Security Staff (in the White House). In 2014 the name of the staff supporting the organisation was changed back to NSC Staff. Essentially there are three committees in the NSC:-

(a)  Principals Committee –  Normally, the NSA (who has cabinet rank status) chairs the meeting and the attendees are, Secretaries of State, Treasury, Defence, Energy, Homeland Security, Attorney General, COS White House, Director National Intelligence, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, Director CIA, Homeland Security Advisor and the US Ambassador to the UN. When considering international economic issues, the Principals Committee’s regular attendees also include Secretary of Commerce , US Trade Representative and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy.

(b)  Deputies Committee – It is the senior sub-Cabinet interagency forum for reviewing and monitoring the National Security process and directing the Policy Coordination Committees. The Deputies Committee is chaired by Deputy NSA or Deputy Homeland Security Advisor and attended by Deputy NSA for Strategies, Deputy Secretary of State, Deputy Secretaries of Treasury, Defence, Energy, Homeland Security, Deputy Director of Management and Budget, Deputy Director National Intelligence, Vice Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, NSA to Vice President, Administrator of US Agency for International Development and Deputy Director CIA. Depending upon the issues the Deputy or Assistant Secretaries of executive departments and agencies are called. Generally, Deputy White House Counsel and Executive Secretary attend all meetings.

( c)           Policy Coordination Committees – These committees are directed by the Deputies Committee and are responsible for management of the development and implementation of NSC policies through Inter Agency  Policy Coordination Committees. They are the coordinators for day-to-day activities pertaining to their areas of responsibility. These committees analyse implementation and aide the Deputies and Principal Committee. The Coordination Committees are chaired by respective Directors of NSC or National Economic Council Staff. Attendees are generally Assistant Secretary level officials of relevant departments.

It can be observed that the departments which directly contribute to National Security are part of the structure which makes plans, implements, coordinates, monitors and analyses the progress and provides feedback to the higher committees. It is Integrated Command Structure of a country synergised to take decisions on national security issues (not necessarily military security, for example trade war against China, sanctions on Russia and Iran etc). The approach is inclusive, wherein most organs of the state are participants in decision making process and ensure its implementation. There are coordination agencies for each set of activities. This agency also conducts impact analysis to aid the principal participants in taking further necessary steps. The National Security Council, as a full council which includes all three layers at times, is always chaired by the the head of state, the President in the instant case, and the Vice President is a statutory attendee.

The second model is the Israeli National Security Structure.It is worth examining the Israeli structure since the country has survived numerous continuous threats from its inception. Israeli system is quick to react and it reacts boldly since advancements in niche technology has made it a manufacturer of highly effective modern weapon systems. It was only after the Yom Kippur war that Israel established NSC as part of its Prime Minister’s Office in 1999. The objective of the NSC is to serve as a centralised advisory body to the Prime Minister and the government regarding issues of national security. NSC derives its authority from the government and operates on the directives of the Prime Minister. Broadly, the roles are:

l  Make Senior Council forums and advice the PM (and the government) on all matters of national security

l  Make integrative assessment of the trends in national security

l  Increase coordination and integration amongst operational staff and authorities

l  Advise the government on all matters of policy on security

l  Prepare long term perspective of the country and make plans for action by synergising elements of state, see its implementation, follow up and provide updates on activities

l  Maintain cooperation and coordination with similar organisations of friendly countries.

The NSC has three wings – Security Policy, Foreign Policy and Counter Terrorism Bureau. There are two advisers, legal and economic. The charter of Security Policy wing and Counter Terrorism Bureau is classified. The Foreign Policy Wing carries out political situation assessment in the region, recommends appropriate Israel’s policy towards these situations and also coordinates strategic dialogue with similar organisations of friendly countries. The differences between the two National Command Structures – the US and Israel – are stark and these are based on differing political intentions. And these political intentions are a reflection of the history of struggles that the countries underwent and hence it determines the path to be followed to ensure peace and stability for secured and better living standards of its citizens. It also reflects the pedestal of development to which the country has climbed and to the extent it intends using powers at its disposal for retaining its supremacy.

Integrated Command
Structure – India’s Case

Do we have an effective structure to meet our aspirations? After all, the country is on the path of major economic progress. It has avoided any major conflict, foreign policy has been effective in overcoming occasional turbulences on borders and we have a policy to increase indigenous content in our defense equipment.

India’s former Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar, has said that the desired levels of integration amongst stakeholders are achieved in solving a number of complex situations. Is our institution of Cabinet Committee on Security adequately supported by multi-disciplinary body to implement the policy decisions or are there layers which delay decision making or implementation? These are important aspects which need exhaustive study. Is the National Security Council Secretariat manned with domain specialists and what is their equation with Foreign Office and the Armed Forces headquarters who ultimately convert policies into action? How about major commercial and trade decisions which have direct impact on national security?  Is it being discussed across the table and who monitors these policy implementations and provides feedback to the CCS? Are the Departments of Finance, Expenditure, Communication, IT, Space, Public and Private Sector Defence equipment manufacturers etc represented? One such model may be worthy of consideration.

Integrated National Command Structure or whatever else be its nomenclature, would be headed by the PM. It could consist of:

l  Ministers of External Affairs, Defence, Home, Finance, Communication, Surface Transport, Civil Aviation, Atomic Energy, Space, Information Technology, Railways, NSA, Chairman Chiefs of Staff (or CDS when appointed) and Chiefs of Armed Forces.

The second layer could comprise of :

l  Deputy NSA (Coordination), Secretaries of Ministries whose ministers are on the Council, Three Vice Chiefs, CISC, Chairman NTRO, Atomic Energy Commission, Secretary (R) , Director Intelligence Bureau, C-in-C SFC, Chairman ISRO, DG DRDO.

The third layer of implementation and coordination Committees:

l  Could be headed by  respective Deputy NSAs (There should be following Deputy NSAs with domain specialisation :-  Foreign Policy, Military Affairs, Maritime Affairs, Border Management, Internal Security, Trade/Commerce/Economy, SFC, Space/ Cyber/Communication.)

l  Each Deputy NSA to be supported by Director Level Officers from their own domains (eg. Military Operations, Maritime Operations, Air Operations; MEA’s Policy Division, Border Management from Home Ministry, Cyber from NTRO, Joint Director IB, ISRO, DRDO etc.).

The composition of each of the layers and their components could be deliberated and conclusions could be translated into an act of Parliament. Many decisions of this body may be based on concurrent studies of the present NSCS. The third layer of implementation committees will also have the responsibility of analysis and feedback to the higher committees.

Looking at the broader framework, one can observe that national decision making body also has implementation wing of the government integrated within. The Ministries, Service headquarters, Departments specialising in future areas of warfare will have to reform themselves to accommodate these structures. Many decisions could be strategic in nature and the country may have to bide its time before its capabilities become at par with adversaries.

Conclusion

Attempt has been made to modify our existing system to accommodate the new realities in geopolitics. The civil and military infrastructures are intertwined and any disruption in one would have an impact on the other. For example, ease of doing business in communication and IT sector with a particular country may be lucrative and cheap but it could run the risk of cyber attacks which would impact matters military. These are times of dual usage technologies and therefore decisions of doing business with any foreign country cannot be done on commercial considerations alone. For our development to run on fast track we have to have inclusive institutions which would study, analyse, decide, implement, monitor and provide feedback for reassessment. The option of segregated small organisations is not a choice anymore. India is a vast country, an elephant and when the elephant rises it walks. When the elephant finds a dragon it runs towards it and forces him to vacate the space. Let us remember that we should have all the arrangements for a Wei Chi game now, to confront future challenges.

(Vice Admiral Shekhar Sinha is a Trustee of India Foundation. He is a former Chief of Integrated Defence Staff & former Commander in Chief of Western Naval Command.)

(This article is carried in the print edition of September-October 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)

Introduction 

Some years ago, the erstw Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh very expansively declared that India’s area of interest stretches from the Gulf of Hormuz to the Straits of Malacca and from south of the Siberian plains to the Indian Ocean. For some it may have sounded a rather bold statement but the growing economy and industrialisation as also India’s thrust towards attaining a seat in the United Nations Security Council were symbolic of the emergence of India as a regional power and the Prime Minister’s statement was amply justified in its geopolitical aspirations. However, the increased effects of fundamentalism and radicalism have kept India’s neighbours in a perpetual state of political instability. The tense environment due to the requirements of guarding the borders and the internal security arrangements against anti-national elements and terrorists has kept the Government of India on edge for the past decade and more. In this tentative and uncertain scenario, where the vulnerabilities of the country are certainly exposed, there is a crying need to ensure that the Armed Forces, or the ‘Final Bastion’ as one would say, remain fortified and do not suffer from lack of adequate weaponry in the face of such adversity.

The Third Dimension    

Usage of the third dimension changed war-fighting forever, necessitating re-drawing doctrines and tenets ingrained in militaries across the world. The rapidity of the growth of air power and its latest avatar, ‘Aerospace Power’ and the multiple choices it offered made it the most preferred instrument of warfare. The speed of the aeroplane enlarged the battle space and increased the theatre of operations.

However, the multiple utilisation aeroplanes are also subjected to increase the complexity of operations and, along with Naval forces, escalate global influence and power projection. The sophistication, speed, lethality and precision of attack from the air has forced the ground environment to cope with the growing onslaught of technology and provide a counter. There is little doubt about the necessity of boots on the ground or the need for sea denial and security of SLOCs. But the sheer dominance of air power in modern warfare has ensured that whether Special Operations or Manoeuvre Warfare, Amphibious Operations or Counter- Terror Missions, they are dependent on the Air Force to provide a sanitised airspace for their success.

 

The Backbone – A Credible National Security Strategy  

The power of a nation can only be perceived if it is projected appropriately. It is like the posture of a predator which predicates its intention. A national security strategy of a nation serves exactly this purpose. It is a projection, or a posture, of its intentions and ability to fulfill given goals. Every nation lays down a set of values or doctrinal policy which act as guidelines for the executive. It is an umbrella document which governs the way a country is viewed, in international geopolitical dynamics as well as by its own people. Is the document necessary? Well, if you don’t lay down doctrinal policy, then the country can be likened to a rudder-less ship in a vast ocean – no control of direction but averting disaster through ad-hoc measures undertaken by those on board.

Alas, we in India cannot boast of a national security strategy to guide us. Under the nuclear overhang the subject of national security takes on an ominous portent. The fact that warnings may be too short, demanding quick reaction, it becomes mandatory that the military (and especially the Air Force) needs to possess a high degree of agility and flexibility to make itself effective over vast distances in the shortest possible time. Today, we are faced with both a  conventional threat (under a nuclear backdrop), as well as a nuclear threat from our neighbours and we need to display a posture which not only exhibits national power, but consequently serves as a deterrent against any devious intentions. We need to shed our policy of “Dissuasive Deterrence” in the light of the prevalent hostile environment and adopt a more ‘active’ posture.

Need for Force Modernisation  

Given the rapidly expanding economic base and the role we are likely to play in the world and (in greater measure) in regional geopolitics, time bound empowerment of the armed forces becomes mandatory and a national task. The whole purpose of maintaining the armed forces as a well-oiled fighting machine entails a progressive modernisation process to keep the force viable in a rapidly changing technology environment. But weapons acquisition by itself will not modernise a service. It follows an overarching pattern of re-orientating doctrines, strategy and operational philosophy. The whole planning process is complex and dynamic, needing acute perception and foresight. Some of the factors that make up the planning process are :-

(a)  Government’s foreign policy and its related geopolitical posturing and aspirations.

(b)  Economy of the state and its security.

(c)  Government’s defence policy derived from the above two.

(d)  An overarching doctrine that flows from government policy.

(e)  Grand strategy that the government may contemplate.

(f)  Intelligence analysis of enemy capabilities in the long term.

(g)  Threat perception in the long term.

(h)  Likely types of conflict (All out war / Short & swift / Nuclear overhang).

(i)   Gestation period for acquisition vis-à-vis threat perception.

(j)   Streamlined acquisition policy which facilitates defence business.

(k)  Multiple sources of supply (avoid all eggs in one basket).

(l)   Balance / mix of technologies to have a cost effective force.

(m) Life cycle costs of equipment.

(n)  Capability of assets – preference for inherent flexibility / multi-role.

(o)  Need for geographical distribution.

(p)  Support from indigenous defence industry.

Essentially these factors contribute to the conduct of a short and swift war wherein mobilisation time frames are kept to the minimum and the enemy is engaged in the full spectrum of warfare in all weather conditions. We should be able to create the pressure with asymmetry in technology and numbers, destroy his potential to wage war and his will to fight by reaching into his depth and targeting his centres of gravity. Modern warfare hinges heavily on technology, with sensors playing a major role. The use of cyberspace with networked data links contribute to shortening the sensor to shooter loop providing more effective targeting and minimising collateral damage.

Air Power and the Changing Battle Space

There is no doubt that progress in air and space has far outstripped not only that of the surface forces but is constantly pushing its own boundaries. Air power came to the fore in its early years of employment and has remained a game changer like no other element in the military arsenal. As the sword-arm of the armed forces, the IAF has to defend the airspace, react rapidly to natural disasters and provide humanitarian aid, in times of war achieve control of the air to allow surface forces to carry on their operations, while trying to reach deep inside the enemy’s territory to target his centres of gravity. In recent times, a new dimension has reared its head – that of internal security threat through anti-national elements and cross-border terrorism. It is evident that the canvas is not only vast, but the complexities involved in meeting the varied roles and execute them with professional competence is no mean task. Silhouetted against such a backdrop, the Indian Air Force’s decision to have a mix of high technology / medium technology / low technology weapon systems and platforms, is not misplaced.

Historically, most weapon systems straddle a cycle of 25-30 years, at which stage they either need to undergo an upgrade, if viable, or become obsolete and have to be replaced. Falling economies and rising costs of technology development and production do not allow countries (even the USA) the luxury of replacing military hardware at will. Every country around the world is looking at upgrading existing systems to give a fresh lease of life and then go for further acquisition in a graduated manner. A factor which has come to the forefront is the need for developing systems with good growth architecture, to allow for upgrades as the system evolves in the service. That means it must fulfill what is termed a “generation life cycle”, if possible.

The Indian Air Force Today    

India is juxtaposed in a delicate position where its threat perspective from hostile neighbours not only takes into account the steady increase in sophistication and lethality of conventional arms in their inventory but also the factor of proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in the immediate area, not to mention the growing influence of non-state actors. The canvas stretches to the corners of the frame and each service has to identify its role and missions to fulfill the country’s needs. The IAF would typically have to :-

(a)  Deter and counter aggression across the expected spectrum of conflict

(b)  Possess the capability to take punitive measures when required

(c)  Provide adequate air defence protection to the nation

(d)  Provide unhindered operations to surface forces through top cover

(e)  Undertake special operations

(f)  Possess adequate leverage in space and cyberspace domains

(g)  Have incisive capability to counter terrorism and irregular warfare

(h)  Execute a nuclear mission, if so ordered

(i)   Conduct humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) operations in aid of civil society.

Whatever the attitude and profile of the nation, the armed forces need to maintain a state of readiness all the time and the cutting-edge Air Force becomes most accountable in these circumstances. It also becomes evident that the means to execute the tasks must be adequate, honed and in ‘fighting’ condition. The IAF has a lot of existing baggage in the form of legacy equipment which still has some residual life. Because service lives are long (typically 30-40 years), the IAF is essentially dealing with three sets of equipment or platforms. Firstly, legacy equipment which has no further upgrade possibility but has available residual life. In other words, equipment facing obsolescence. Secondly, a set of equipment which have upgrade potential and residual life.

Finally, new equipment / platforms which have recently been inducted or are in the acquisition process. In fact, a closer look indicates the ratio as 50% (in state of obsolescence), 35% (mature state with potential) and 15% (state-of-the-art). With two belligerent neighbours, these ratios do not offer a level of comfort.

Perspective Planning 

While everything hinges on the budget, the government must understand that the defence outlay has to allow the Air Force to reach a contemporary balance of modernisation and maintenance which will offer the most cost effective and potent mix to reinforce defence capabilities. The best mix of available resources with an optimal mix of capabilities will be the requirement of the day. Given the trend of the government and the budget allocations for defence, it is unlikely that the 1.6% of GDP figure, even in times of crisis, will exceed 2.0%, although 2.5% would be desirable.

Because the strategic environment is in a constant state of flux with shifting stances and changing power equations and alignments, there is always a case to do timely, judicious planning. Because technology affects doctrine and philosophy of military employment, changes / improvements in technology directly impinges on the threat perceptions and capabilities. Thus to plan ahead to overcome the gnawing obsolescence of equipment, provide the lead time to induct, train and operationalise new acquisitions, the services have, what is called, the “Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan” (LTIPP). Spanning a period of 15 years it projects the services’ requirements to the government to allow for budget orientation. Sub-sets of 5 years Services Capital Acquisition Plan (SCAP), which coincides with the government 5 year plans and an Annual Acquisition Plan (AAP) are modeled into the system to ensure the gestation periods do not exceed and provide the follow-on so necessary in the process.

Since the LTIPP is a classified document, a declassified version called the “Technology Perspective & Capability Roadmap” (TPCR) is put up in the public domain to provide a guideline and direction and the basis on which the industry will focus its wares and the government will decide on imports, within the framework of the stated budget. It allows the industry to initiate technology development and plan partnerships & production arrangements.

Needs of the Indian Air Force 

Perhaps the biggest need of the IAF is an indigenous defence industry. In the TPCR 2018 the IAF has indicated its aspirations for the future :-

(a)  Geo-spatial information systems – which provide aeronautical charting facilities.

(b)  Anti-RPA (Remotely Piloted Aircraft) Defence System to neutralise enemy RPAs / UAVs.

(c)  Tactical High Energy Laser System

(d)  High Power Electromagnetic Weapon Systems – to disable cellular / microwave towers / communication networks and affect C2 centers.

(e)  Electronic Fuses for bombs.

(f)  Long Range Glide Bombs (LRGBs).

(g)  Aerostat Systems.

(h)  High Power Ground Radars – Active Aperture Phased Array Radars.

(i)   Next gen Night Vision Devices (NVDs).

(j)   Electronic Warfare suites for Medium Lift Helicopters (MLH).

(k)  Sensor Fusion Systems.

(l)   Development of Stealth Systems.

(m) UAVs / RPAs.

These are some of the many representative items that the IAF would like to acquire in the foreseeable future.

The IAF had very realistically predicted the draw-down of fighter squadrons in the past two decades. So as the numbers dropped to alarming levels, the IAF was least surprised. HALs optimistic program to provide the MiG-21 replacement with the LCA Tejas has taken 35 years and still not established itself. The performance of HAL in this regard has taken a lot of beating and needs no further flogging. Suffice to say that after all these years the first squadron has only 6 aircraft. A production rate of 8 aircraft a year promised by HAL with a ‘ramp-up’ capability to 16 aircraft per year utilising the now defunct Hawk assembly line seems a pipe dream, given their reputation.

Notwithstanding the criticism, there is an urgent need for the LCA to succeed for the growth of the aviation industry in India and for the country to get on the path of self reliance. The IAF perforce has to support the program and carry HAL piggy-back for the numbers to be generated. Two squadrons of LCA  Mk 1 will be ready by 2024-25 at best. The IAF has ordered another 83 Tejas Mk 1A which is expected to have enhanced features such as an Advanced AESA radar, reduction in weight and increased maneuvera-bility, easier maintainability and a more effective target engagement system.

India’s Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) has been at the centre of controversy and criticism from the time of its first edition. Periodic iterations and tweaking, efforts to ‘short-circuit’, ‘fast-track’ procedures have not paid dividends towards creating a favourable model for business nor has it provided confidence and satisfaction to the buyer or the seller. Time delays in the Indian defence procurement system are legendary with processes taking three / four or even five times their stated periods. There is a continued lack of transparency and a constant fear of graft and corruption dogs the process.

Indigenisation and Make in India 

“India is the world’s foremost importer of defence equipment”. We seem to wear this tag like a medal, with great pride! But what a shame for a country such as ours. We seem to revel in our inability to manufacture defence equipment and our defence industry has no worthwhile credibility. It was probably because of our misplaced sense of security that national interests may be compromised which prompted the government to make DRDO and the PSUs the sole sources of military business. Not allowing private industry to enter the defence sector has stunted our growth in self reliance and indigenisation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s thrust to “Make in India” is a huge developmental step which, strangely, has not had the anticipated response. Here is an opportunity to use our abundance of technical talent and industrial space to set up infrastructure. Participation by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) will be the natural fallout, alleviating their financial status and enhancing the technological base. To move the program, the government has taken steps to enhance ‘ease of doing business’ by streamlining government clearances, taxes and access. We need to improve on the quality of our products to inspire confidence in the major players for them to invest in the program, to ‘Make in India’. There is a serious need to reconsider the structure and functioning of DRDO and bring it in line with private sector functioning. Accountability must be enforced. User interface must be increased to facilitate satisfaction and trust. The ‘Strategic Partnership’ model is the way to go. This will give rich dividends and enrich our flagging defence industry.

Conclusion   

Force modernisation is a time tested process, well charted and systematic. The need to follow it to the ‘T’ is the issue. Professionals at the service headquarters are acutely aware of the requirements of each service vis-à-vis the threat perception. While defence budgets will remain low, given the government’s prioritisation, we have to work around it to ensure a suitable mix of technologies in weapons systems / platforms are always available to cater to any unforeseen contingency. As the prime and swiftest means to react to an impending threat, the Air Force cannot stand denuded and look impotent to the enemy. As the chosen instrument to deter any enemy and display a show of force, the IAF needs to have the means to execute its multifarious tasks. Multi-Mission / Multi-Capable platforms are the need of the day. While unit costs may be high, the force multiplication factor vastly swings in its favour. The draw-down of fighter squadrons is bottoming out. A transformation is on the horizon. The transformation would be complete once the Indian defence industry attains some sort of credibility and Make in India becomes a success story. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of enhancing India’s area of interest from ‘Africa to the Americas’ must be justified.

(An alumnus of NDA and DSSC, Air Mshl Sumit Mukerji has served the IAF as a fighter pilot with distinction. He has commanded three units, a MiG-29 Sqn, a MiG-25 SR Sqn and TACDE (considered the Top Gun school of the IAF) and also served as the Air Attaché in Washington DC. Awarded ‘Shaurya Chakra’ for gallantry, he retired in 2011 as the AOC-in-C of Southern Air Command.)

(This article is carried in the print edition of September-October 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)

Achievements and Aspirations for the Future Modern Indian Navy

Technology is known to gallop, and therefore ‘Defence Modernisation’ is a continuous activity for any military, and is critical for the Nation’s Security. Every Head  of  a service is required to  ensure that his or her  arm  is ready to deter an enemy, and if needed defeat the enemy in war, whose  capabilities  have been studied and intentions gauged by a joint study of threats, so that  the plans for  modernisation can be  put to the Government. These requirements are tabled with the futuristic acquisitions, in the long and short term perspective plans (LTPP). In India, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) takes on the projects if it has the ability.

The Navy updates its plans  from time to time to keep modern and abreast  and  has issued two  unclassified documents titled, India’s  Maritime Security  Strategy and Indian  Naval Doctrine, as books of reference to assist planners in uniform and officials  in the Ministry of Defence (MOD), and others. The Navy  has also chalked out a classified perspective long term plan of ships and weapons with a target of 250  ships and submarines  and 400 aerial platforms by around 2027, from the current 137 ships and submarines and 200 aircraft, helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

In the present turbulent scenario, India’s military is expected to be prepared for a two front war and also has to combat terrorism from across the border and from air and sea.  India’s ground, air and naval forces have to be kept modern with up-to-date weaponry, training, spares support and adequate War Wastage Reserves (WWRs), in line with the Operational Directive issued by the Minister of Defence from time to time, which specifies the time lines for preparations, and expected duration of war. The nuclear doctrine for India which has a, ‘No First Use Clause’ is separate. The War Book lists the actions by all departments of the state. A classified Red Book, is required  to give the nuclear guidelines, and all nuclear forces are under the Strategic Force Commander (SFC)  who is administratively under the rotating Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC),  but  overseen by  the National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister in PMO.

A modern military needs a capable manufacturing base in the country. Victories  have been snatched away with heavy national losses  because of lack of modernisation,  or lack of  war wastage reserves (WWRs)  and this message is not easy to send down to the Indian establishment where the national  priorities are geared to eradicate poverty,  dubbed as the ‘Guns Versus Butter Versus Textbooks vs. Health’ debate. Yet it is the duty of the Sovereign to ensure its forces are kept modernised for contingencies they may have to face, and this duty is even quoted in Chanakya’s Athshastra. In India the Defence budgets have been below 2% of the GDP so all modernisation suffers but Navy has kept pace with self-help, and make in India.

At this stage it would be proper to state that a Navy is a capital intensive service as it is three dimensional, and ships, submarines and aircraft cost a lot and ship building and upgrading a platform is time consuming. Hence separate maintenance facilities have to be set up unless a tri-service approach is taken up for cost cutting, at the inception of a programme. It takes few years to build a ship and the Indian Navy has strived from day one to construct ships in India and maintained a fairly modern profile listed in this article, and this has got something to do with its history at its birth which needs to be recounted, before any study of the modernisation aspects of the Indian Navy can be discussed.

India’s Navy began as the Honourable East India Company’s Marine on 5th Sept, 1612 at Surat, and by the 19th century British expanded their maritime headquarters in Bombay and Calcutta. It became the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) on 2nd October 1934 at Bombay and swift recruitment began for war. By 1945, RIN’s strength had multiplied fifteen times to 2,438 officers, 214 Petty Officers and 21,193 ratings now called sailors, with 14 bases and a Training/Air base on Cochin’s Willingdon Island for the Fleet Air Arm, from where the US Air Force also operated. In 1947 with partition it became a small Navy of seven large sloops and thirty seven small craft as one third went to Pakistan but it was a war experienced Navy, and became the Indian Navy in 1950.

Navy’s ships are ‘operated and maintained’ by the Ship’s Company, unlike the Army where mainly corps of Electronic and Mechanical Engineers (EME) maintains and in IAF, pilots fight and the maintainers are ground based. On warships all sail and sink together, so skills to keep the machinery and drills in top shape and modern, is everybody’s everyday business. It makes the Indian Navy forward looking with international exposure which has paid dividends. It is this self-help tradition of 700 officers and 4000 sailors of the Royal Indian Navy who spent months and years from 1948 to 1960 in British dockyards, shipbuilding yards in the UK, to bring back 22 ships which Included the then contemporary cruisers HMIS Delhi (HMS Achilles 1948) and INS Mysore (ex HMS Gambia 1958) and aircraft carrier INS Vikrant (ex HMS Hercules 1961), to remain a modern Navy as it expanded.

By 1970s Mazagon Docks Ltd (MDL now MSDL) had built the modern Leanders led by INS Niligiri with modern 4.5 inch guns, Signaal radars (now Thales), Sea Cat missiles and UA8/9  EW systems and Grasby sonars. The Indian Navy also received Soviet ships, missile boats, aircraft and submarines from 1965 from the Soviet Union where some 300 officers and 3000 sailors spent months and years standing by ships and acquired ship fitting skills.

The Indian Navy is the only one of the Indian armed forces that has been able to keep pace with advancing technology and even has a flourishing indigenous technology base for building world-class, state-of-the-art ships and submarines that is the envy of the world. Starting with Nilgiri and then the Godavari Class, the navy has moved rapidly ahead with the induction of the home built Delhi, Brahmaputra, Kolkata, Shivalik and Kamorta classes of ships, with  the successful integration of the 300  km supersonic BrahMos cruise missile into the Navy’s armoury. Soon the reality of the new aircraft carrier INS Vikrant from Cochin Shipyard Ltd (CSL) will be a welcome addition with two long range Italian Selex 40 L air search and Israeli M/F Star multi function active phased array radars, and this after the nuclear submarine INS Arihant was commissioned. Indian Navy became the sixth Navy in the world to master nuclear propulsion.

The Navy’s air arm is world class with the carrier INS Vikramaditya with Mig-29Ks and the  8 delivered plus 4 Maritime Patrol 737 Boeing P8I planes, as potent  Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) platforms  with attack capabilities with MK 84 Harpoon missiles and Mk 48 Torpedoes.  The Mig-29K has 9 hard points – 4 each on the wings and a centerline station for VT/buddy refueling pod. The four inner hard points can be used for all weapons and fuel tanks while the outer ones are for air to air weapons and the ASPJ Jammer. The weapons include RVV-AE BVR missiles, R-73 missiles and Khs-35 Uran air to surface anti-ship missiles besides the standard range of bombs and an internal GShSh 30mm cannon on the port side above the wing root.

Any modernisation program is always geared for the future and it involves selection of weaponry for older platforms, budgeting and production of equipment as far as possible within the country so that it is not dependent on foreign imports, more than it is necessary. With the advent of a Nuclear Triad for India, the modernisation of India’s Navy with costly indigenous nuclear propelled submarines (6,700 ton Arihant class) with nuclear armed underwater launched missiles (K-15/B-05 ranged 750 km and later K-4 ranged 2500km) for deterrence, have been successfully delivered by DRDO and BARC, under Naval supervision in a Public Private Partnership (PPP) with Larsen & Toubro Ltd (L&T). It has been an expensive and technologically challenging proposition but the Indian Navy has navigated the challenge well.

The Indian Navy has moved more swiftly than the other two services. The Navy constructs all its ships in India so hulls are fully indigenous in the float sector and the Naval Design Directorate ensures they are modern and suited for latest weapon fits. The command systems have been indigenised by the forward looking Weapons and Electronics Systems Engineering Establishment (WESEE) which has assisted Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL), to supply navigation and Revati surveillance radars, the Command and Communications  CCS MK II system,  the Ellora and Ajanta EW suites and  latest sonars of the HUMSA and USHUS panoramic display  family developed by the Kochi-based NPOL, a naval laboratory  of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

Latest towed sonars (ACTAS) are being procured from Atlas Electronix Ltd and also being indigenised. The WESEE and BEL and private suppliers of modems, has also space networked the Navy with its NavNet and ISRO’s GSAT 7A communication and data satellite Rukmini by fitting Israeli terminals (Rukmani) from Orbit Technologies on major ships, and BEL Link 2 on smaller ships. These modern command and control fitments enable Indian Navy to keep pace with the US, British, French and  Russian Navies in Exercise Malabars, Konkan, Varuna, and Indira respectively. In Exercise Malabar the US Navy loans the CENTRIX system with observers for common communication and plot pictures, in real time.

The Navy’s gas turbines on the Shivalik and Kamorta class and Vikrant are the LM-2500 from GE USA, supplied from Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and hence can be upgraded. Ukraine’s Zorya-Mashproyekt supplied gas turbines as prime movers on Type15/A/B destroyers, but all diesel and steam engines are collaborated in India with world class companies, as also support machinery like latest pumps and generators and manufactured in India.

During long refits of ships, new weapons and equipment is fitted. The Rajput Kashin class ships removed the P-20 and Volna-Pechora for BrahMos SSMs and Barak-1 AA missiles and new radars were fitted. All new ships are being fitted with the  M/F Star E/LM 2248 Israeli Elta supplied multi beam radars,  and the Shivalik class with Anti Missile Direction Indicator (AMDI) E/LM 2242 radars  for guiding Barak-1 AA missiles. The Navy has upgraded the Barak 1- to Barak-8 type long range surface-to-air missiles (LRSAM) by DRDO and Rafael of Israel in Hyderabad, India, which IAF has also adapted in its  modernisation with longer range with a booster.

On the submarine front 150 officers and many sailors who went to Kiel and Lubeck and trained at Professor Gabler’s Submarine Design Institute to standby for the HDW-1500 submarines and others to Russia for the Kilo class submarines in the 1980s. They rose to the helm. With their experience the Naval Dockyards have modernised the old boats with USHUS sonars, Altas command systems and Harpoon missiles are being retrofitted on the HDW-1500 in India. All the Kilo boats have underwater launched KLUB missile, but still go to Russia for long refit and modernisation. The first state of the art conventional Scorpene submarine INS Kalvari with SUBTICs Command and Control and SM-39 Exocet missiles has been inducted in to service and 5 more will follow, one every year, to modersnise the aging submarine fleet.

The list of the Navy’s design and maintenance organisations that support modernisation of platforms are INS Eskila Gas Turbine Repair Establishment (GTRE), the Defence Machinery Development Establishment (DMDE) at Hyderabad,  the Ship Building Centre (SBC) in the Naval Dockyard section of Vishakapatanam, the Submarine Design Group (SDG), the Director General Naval Design (DGND), the Prototype Training Centre (PTC), Ship Machinery Test Centre (MTC ) and Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV ) HQs now called Akashanka (hope).

In the future plan the Navy will have 6 SSN submarines, 4 landing platform deck (LPDs), 7 Type 17A modern Shivalik class frigates with BrahMos missiles and 8 Mine Counter Measures Vessels (MCMVs). The need for a modern Navy is to have multi role helicopters which are essential for modern ships and UAVs to augment the Searcher and Herons in the Navy. But among the most significant fact in the modernisation effort of India’s Navy, lies in  the indigenous  naval ship-building and fitting of weapons as the  biggest success-story of  Make in India plans, and  designing and manufacturing the ships and an  aircraft carrier to nuclear and conventional submarines.

(Cmde Ranjit B Rai (Retd.) is a former DNI and DNO, a naval analyst and author of The Modern and Future Indian Navy. ISBN (978-0-9932898-6-6)…Variety Book Depot.)

(This article is carried in the print edition of September-October 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)

The spectrum of conflict has four segments viz; nuclear, biological and chemical; conventional, sub-conventional, and; cyberspace. The conventional wars are getting rare because costs of conventional wars have risen phenomenally both in terms of finances and human lives. Therefore, a quiet but significant change has occurred in warfare, in that, while earlier it was only conventionally weaker nations that waged asymmetric wars employing irregular forces against a conventionally superior adversary, now even powerful nations have turned to this form of warfare. Global players have changed largely from ‘boots on ground’ to ‘proxy boots on ground’. There is no denying that as conventional wars between states have receded, irregular forces have emerged with greater strategic importance over not only conventional but even nuclear forces. Irregular forces having carved for themselves such prominent space in the spectrum of conflict, this in turn has provided increasing scope for employment of Special Forces individually, as well as ‘in conjunction’ proxy forces. To this end, special operations conducted by Special Forces need not be exclusive only, though these are not talked about because of their clandestine nature and for avoiding specific blame.

Global Trends and Irregular War

Extracts of a UK study titled ‘Global Strategic Trend 2040’ relevant to this article are: one, radicalization, extremism, and terrorism will continue to generate threats – many operating trans-nationally, requiring ongoing cooperation and multinational interoperability between security services to provide an effective response; two, potential adversaries, both state and non-state, will leverage high-technology niche capabilities and employ innovative concepts of operation; three, incidence of armed conflict is likely to increase underpinned by widespread inequality – population increases, resource scarcity, adverse effects of climate change and increased importance of ideology; four, future conflict will remain unpredictable and violent – technology will remain important but people are likely to provide the asymmetric edge; five, cyberspace will be widely exploited by all types of actors, and; six, changing balance of power is likely to deter military intervention by major powers outside their spheres of influence; when intervention becomes unavoidable, actors will seek to distance themselves by use of proxy forces, cyber-attack, as well as covert and clandestine methods.1

The above amplifies wars or conflicts that are not really defined, are ambiguous with no defined borders, and may not have defined actors to fight against. Adversary can be state, non-state, state-sponsored non-state, or a mix of all. For example, the Afghan government is battling the Afghan Taliban as well as proxies of Pakistan, in addition to non-state forces like Haqqani Network, Islamic State Khorasn and al-Qaeda, even as the latter two may have underhand links with Pakistan’s ISI. Similarly, in the Israrel-Hezbollah conflict and in Syria, the main adversaries are non-state entities within the state system. That is why irregular forces are in play in West Asia, Ukraine, and South Asia. Consequently, even the US and NATO have been battling irregular forces. These non-state actors can act as proxies for countries but have independent agendas as well. They can be trans-regional, transcending air, land, space, cyberspace and electromagnetic, even using weapons of mass disturbance / destruction. Transnational nature of threats and involvement of state actors in using subconventional conflicts have increased the complexity and technology empowers terrorists to cause severe damage through cyber, financial, kinetic attacks. The nature of irregular war makes population an important centre of gravity. Therefore, intelligent investments in population at multiple levels including psychological, can provide dividends in this type of conflict. This is also relevant to areas of strategic interests abroad where continuous perception building is of vital importance – not just presence of Indian Diaspora. There is heightened need for intelligence and deniable covert capabilities that ensure deniability of action for achieving strategic aims, both of which require Special Forces employment.

The Chinese concept of unrestricted warfare states that if mankind has no choice but to engage in war, it can no longer be carried out in the ways with which we are familiar; referring to terrorist attack on US embassy, gas attacks on Tokyo subway and havoc wreaked by Morris Jr. on the Internet, degree of destruction not being second to war, representing semi-warfare, quasi-warfare, sub-warfare – embryonic forms of another kind of warfare.2. Significantly, it emphasises most modern military force cannot control public clamour, and cannot deal with an opponent who does things in an unconventional manner.3 On the battlefields of the future, the digitised forces may very possibly be like a great cook who is good at cooking lobsters sprinkled with butter, when faced with guerrillas who resolutely gnaw corncobs, they can only sigh in despair. It also suggested developing weapons that ‘fit the fight’.4 As far back as 2001, speaking at the Regional Conference on Security held in Bangladesh both Pakistani speakers (Shirin Mazari and Lt Gen Javed Hassan) openly advocated low intensity conflict, guerilla warfare, indirect intervention, psychological warfare, terrorism and subversion as a manner of tactics short of direct all out military confrontation.5 US-NATO has been suffering casualties in Afghanistan because of Pakistani support to Afghan Taliban and Pakistan-based terrorist organisation, yet substantive financial aid to Pakistan has only been affected recently, other than drone attacks, but no other physical action against terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistani side of the Afghan-Pakistan border. This is because of Pakistan’s strategic importance to the US as also the CIA-ISI links.

In this context, it is also relevant to note what abovementioned study ‘Global Strategic Trend 2040’ says with respect to military intervention, which India should relate to its strategic partners in the event of conflict with China-Pakistan, when intervention becomes unavoidable, actors will seek to distance themselves by use of proxy forces, cyber-attack, as well as covert and clandestine methods. We should therefore be clear that such conflicts will essentially be fought by us, and us alone. The US branding some mullahs ‘global terrorists’, or even so-called bans by UN or Pakistani government on terrorist organisations  really don’t mean anything with the anti-India terrorist infrastructure fully active.

Threats India Faces

The Indian Army has been talking of a two-and-half front war for some time and this half front getting with China-Pakistan surreptitiously fanning insurgencies in India. Pakistan’s proxy war on India needs little elaboration. ISI is engaged in reviving Khalistani movement against India. China provides tacit support to Pakistan’s anti-India jihad and has been supporting Indian Maoists, besides providing ULFA training, arms and sanctuary on Chinese soil. Arms and communication equipment are being pumped into India, particularly to Maoists and the PLA of Manipur. Chinese intelligence was behind the NSCN (K) abrogating its 13 year old ceasefire with India. In 2015, Chinese intelligence orchestrated establishment of the United Liberation Front of West, South, East Asia (ULFWSEA) in Myanmar, combining nine major militant groups of northeast including the NSCN (K) and ULFA.6 With this, China has the handle to create instability in our northeast while it claims entire Arunachal Pradesh. The China-Pakistan collusive terrorist threat is also manifesting through Maldives getting rapidly radicalised by Pakistani proxies. Chinese support to Pakistan is becoming stronger with her strategic lodgment in Gilgit-Baltistan with a PLA base in Skardu, China-Pak Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Gwadar as Chinese naval base. In addition, a joint China-Pakistan military base is under development at Jiwani in the Gulf of Oman and another PLA base planned in FATA.

China sponsored Nepalese Maoists are linked with our Maoists and China is pumping weapons through Kachen rebels in Myanmar to insurgents in Manipur and Indian Maoists. In Myanmar, China has created her deadliest proxy in the 10,000 strong United Wa State Army (UWSA), arming them with machine guns, rocket launchers, anti-tank weapons, shoulder fired AD missiles, armoured troop carrying vehicles and even missile fitted helicopters.7 Hambantota in Sri Lanka leased to China for 99 years is coming up as joint China-Sri Lanka naval base. Gadhoo island in Maldives is being developed as strategic support base by China, and China has similar plans for a facility in Seychelles.8 The Chinese base in Djibouti is fully functional from where China has even fired lasers at US pilots. Chinese engagement with Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka has been rising exponentially.9 Beijing’s broad-based military cooperation agreement with Dhaka, Bangladesh’s first military accord with any country apparently has following objectives: to bring Bangladesh into China’s strategic orbit; to gain naval and commercial access to strategically important Chittagong port connecting Bangladesh with Myanmar; and to secure a doorway to India’s vulnerable North-East.

India has been confronting illegal immigration from Bangladesh and Myanmar. These, particularly the Rohingyas, pose serious security threat to India, given that the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) is headed by a Pakistani national and the organisation is supported and funded by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan’s ISI and the LeT.10 China’s involvement in the Rohingya issue and its nexus with Pakistan also gives it a hold in using ARSA as proxy. Internally, India is dealing with multiple insurgencies, Maoists being the biggest. Maoists need special attention keeping in mind Pakistan’s ISI had arranged training in IEDs / explosive for a core group of Maoists with the LTTE.11 As early as 2005, Maoists were found using ammunition with Pakistan Ordnance Factory markings.12 STRATFOR warned in 2009 that ISI was forging alliance with the Maoists and media reports of SIMI training 500 Maoists cadres in 2008.13 There are 40 banned organizations, many others have potential for active terrorism; Popular Front of India (PFI) being one example. PFI was traced after al-Qaeda and LeT footprints were discovered in Kerala during 2005.14 Five PFI cadres were caught in Kupwara few years back attempting to cross over to POK. Evidence of PFI cadres in combat uniform undergoing arms training in jungles of Kerala exists. There is also the problem of radicalisation by ISIS, Indian Mujahiddeen etc. These insurgencies provide an asymmetric battlefield for our enemies to exploit, which they are doing.

Combined strategic objectives of China-Pakistan vis-à-vis India are likely to be as follows: keep India confined to South Asia through asymmetric and hybrid means and capture as much Indian territory as possible; expand joint power asymmetry and indirect posturing in POK-Pakistan to force India give up designs to capture POK; hedge India’s economic rise while ensuring availability of Indian markets to China; shrink India’s Strategic Space in South Asia / IOR through bringing smaller states in China’s orbit; undermine India’s role in Afghanistan; dominate Arabian Sea indirectly challenging India at sea; perpetuate two front collusive hybrid threat dilemma including destabilising India from within; and scuttle India’s entry into Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) and United Nations Security Council (UNSC) till Pakistan is also admitted.

Strategic Asymmetry

In the India-China-Pakistan conundrum, China already has full spectrum conflict capability. India and Pakistan are taking initial steps in cyberspace but what should be a matter of serious concern in India is that while both China and Pakistan possess advance sub conventional capabilities, India is lagging way behind in this sphere. This is a strategic asymmetry considering that sub conventional war is and will continue to be the order of the day. Irregular forces can hardly be deterred through conventional power but somehow India does not appear to acknowledge this. Operation ‘Parakaram’ post the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament should have driven this point home, as also that direct actions like surgical strikes only have tactical value, but of little deterrence value at strategic level. Actually, India has failed to create deterrence against irregular forces relying mainly on diplomacy. In this context, we also suffer from lack of strategic intelligence and perception building through engagements at multiple levels even in our immediate neighbourhood; reverses in our ‘Neighbous First’ policy cannot be blamed only on Chinese investment muscle. Not only do we have asymmetries in the space, cyberspace and electromagnetic domains with respect to China, we also face unconventional warfare including terrorism. China-Pakistan are working towards creating instability in our hinterland. India lacks credible deterrent against irregular/unconventional warfare to break the China-Pakistan anti-India nexus.

Employment of Special Forces by Foreign Armies

The US-NATO, Russia, Israel, China and Pakistan are using their Special Forces pro-actively not only for direct actions but to serve as eyes behind enemy lines, keep areas of strategic interests under surveillance, perception building, creating an environment in own interest, controlling the fault-lines of adversaries, building partner capabilities. US Special Forces are presently deployed in some 186 countries and are active in West Asia, Afghanistan and Ukraine. Russian Spetsnaz similarly are active in West Asia, Ukraine and Central Asia. American historian William Blum stated in 2014, “Since 1945, the US has tried to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democratically elected; grossly interfered in elections in 30 countries; bombed the civilian populations of 30 countries; used chemical and biological weapons; and attempted to assassinate foreign leaders. In many cases Britain has been a collaborator.” 15 The contribution of the United States Special Forces (USSF) in all this is obvious.

Chinese Special Forces are trained in rapid reaction combat in a limited regional war under high-tech conditions, commando operations, counter-terrorism, and intelligence gathering all integral to Chinese concept of ‘Unrestricted Warfare’ mentioned earlier. China deploys them, mixed with PLA troops, in all its development projects abroad, tasked with information support operations, strategic surveillance, training, arming and advising dissident / terrorist / insurgent groups in target countries, perception management and evacuation of Chinese public in case of emergency. It may be recalled that Chinese intelligence infiltration operations into Nepal and Burma under Mao Zhedong led to the rise of Maoist insurgencies, aim in Nepal being to install a regime that was not friendly to India and US.16 Chinese nationals were apprehended with fake Indian documents, on a mission to meet Naga rebels. China had developed links with the Taliban even before the US invasion of Afghanistan, and was providing training to them in China. By abetting insurgencies China keeps her adversaries destabilised, suppressed and forced to look inwards.

Pakistan’s ISI is linked with some 15 regional and international terrorist organisations including ISIS, al-Qaeda, Taliban, LeT, JeM, LeJ, HM, Sipah-e-Sahiba, IM, SIMI, Muslim militant groups in our northeast and PFI. Asim Umar, AQIS chief of South Asia and Pakistani national, has called on Indian Muslims to undertake ‘lone wolf’ attacks. The Myanmar-based ARSA too is supported by ISI and LeT. Pakistan Army’s bible is the book ‘The Quranic Concept of War’ published in 1979, that justifies terrorism, urging jihad as collective responsibility of the Muslim ummah, and is not restricted to soldiers. SSG Pakistani army regulars and Mujahids are covertly assisting Afghan Taliban in large numbers past several years.17In 2007, a Taliban commander who turned out to be a Pakistani SSG officer was
killed in Helmand Province of Afghanistan by the British SAS.18

Special Forces and Special Operations

The term Special Forces is often misunderstood. The word “Special” should be sufficient to understand that such forces are to be primarily employed on strategic tasks beyond national borders. There is also tendency to mix them with airborne troops who are trained for air induction but on landing perform infantry tasks including holding ground, even though behind enemy lines. Stephen P Cohen wrote in his book, ‘The Idea of Pakistan’, “The task of Special Forces is the proxy application of force at low and precisely calculated levels, the objective being to achieve some political effect, not a battlefield victory.”19 This basic is ignored in India perhaps because we still don’t have a National Security Strategy, leave aside defining a national level Concept for Employment of Special Forces. Ignorance and inability to grasp the strategic environment, its setting and compulsion under which such forces are employed are evident. Special Forces should be central to asymmetric responses, which does not imply operating in large numbers always since such response does not automatically imply physical attack. A physical attack is only the extreme and potentially most dangerous expression of asymmetric warfare. The key lies in achieving strategic objectives through application of modest resources with the essential psychological element.

We have failed to acknowledge that tasks of Special Forces have widened to include controlling fault-lines of the adversaries, shaping the environment in favour of own country, building partner capabilities and the like. Special Forces do not create insurgencies but optimise prevailing dissent and instability in enemy territory. Employing Special Forces strategically is a different ball game from using them as super infantry in counter insurgency within India and an odd trans-border direct action raid. Special operations are ‘special’ or unconventional operations undertaken by dedicated Special Forces using unconventional methods and resources, performed independently of or in conjunction with conventional military operations. Such operations are usually conducted at operational and strategic levels in a low-profile manner that aims to achieve the advantages of speed, surprise, and violence of action against an unsuspecting target.

Optimising Indian Special Forces

The Naresh Chandra Committee had recommended in 2012 setting up a Special Forces Command. This should have been established forthwith, however, during the Unified Commanders’ Conference in July 2017, Defence Secretary announced Special Operations Division will “soon” become reality.20 What India needs is a two-tiered special operations capability: first tier under the highest political authority (the Prime Minister) for politico-military missions at strategic level and as deterrent against non-traditional threats (could be termed National Operations Division – NOD), and; second tier as force multipliers for military operations beyond capabilities of regular military troops under the CDS / Chiefs of Staff Committee (could be termed Special Operations Division – SOD).

The first tier (NOD) based on a ‘cutting edge’ numbering about two-three battalions needs to be established, with the nucleus taken from existing Special Forces. Special Forces Teams (SFTs) of the NOD individually may comprise 25-50 or more personnel depending on the country / region and its relative importance in terms of national security objectives. They should have institutionalised access to integrated intelligence, varied insertion and extraction capability and adequate support elements. It is important to remember that special operations are typically carried out with limited numbers of highly trained personnel that are adaptable, self-reliant and able to operate in all environments, and able to use unconventional combat skills and equipment, and special operations are usually implemented through specific, tailored intelligence. The PM would need an advisory cell comprising Special Forces and R&AW officers tasked with: evolving a national doctrine and strategy for employment of Special Forces, oversee their manning, equipping, training, consolidation, operational and intelligence inputs, inter-agency synergy, strategic tasking and monitoring of all missions. The cell would continuously coordinate all source intelligence gathering and automated analysis and assessments (short, medium and long term) supported by an automated decision support system and real time dissemination to all concerned including provision of required operating picture.

China is using the concept ‘Deep Coalitions’, which instead of being limited to nation-states can consist, for example, of two-three nation-states, civil society organizations, maybe a drug-cartel, some private corporations with their own self-interest at stake, an individual speculator, and who knows what other components.21 The deep coalition involves players at many levels of the system. It is multi-dimensional with all these groups operating all the time, in continuous flow – multiplying, fissioning, then fusing into others, and so on. Such a system is based less on ‘balance of power’ relations among major nations than on the ability to configure the right combination of players at every level. This idea of ‘deep coalition’ has repeated references to the political role played by non-state actors ranging from credit rating agencies to narco-mafias, and its emphasis on the “civilianisation of war” thesis, which blurs concepts of who the war participants are – nonprofessional warriors and non-state organisations are posing a greater and greater threat to sovereign nations. With such borderless battlefield, it is no longer possible to rely on conventional military forces and weapons alone. It is a dirty war and India must get thinking on these lines – series of ‘deep coalitions’ built around Special Forces nuclei.

Conclusion

Swami Vivekananda had said, “We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.” The costs of combating sub-conventional conflict based on an inward looking policy will continue to remain much higher – something which we should have acknowledged long back. We must get on with establishing the NOD and SOD, for which the initiative will have to be taken by none other than the NSA in concert with the PMO. The need to rectify the strategic asymmetry vis-à-vis China and Pakistan at the sub-conventional level is an imperative that should not be delayed further. This would provide a host of low cost options with high dividends to the political authority. We urgently need to establish credible deterrence to combat proxy wars, which may need to be exercised from time to time in order to demonstrate its credibility.

References:

1     Global Strategic Trends – Out to 2040’, Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC), Ministry of Defence, Government of UK, https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/33717/GST4_v9_Feb10.pdf

2     Robert M Clark, ‘Intelligence Analysis – A Target Centric Approach’, CQ Press, Los Angeles, USA, 2016.

3     Liang, Qiao and Xiangsui, Wang, ‘Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America, Pan American Publishing Company, Panama, 2002.

4     Bradley R Allenby, ‘The Applied Ethics of Emerging Military and Security Technologies’, Routledge Press, NY, USA, 2016.

5     P. C. Katoch, ‘Unravel The Confusion’, Defence and Security Alert, August 2016.

6     Ibid.

7     Prakash Katoch, ‘Armed with proxies, China wants mediator role in Myanmar’, Indian Defence Review,  December 12, 2016, http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/armed-with-proxies-china-wants-mediator-role-in-myanmar/

8     P. C. Katoch, ‘Coming – Chinese Tide in India Ocean’, United Service Institution of India’, http://usiofindia.org/Article/?pub=Journal&pubno=610&ano=2997

9     Neil Connor and Adrian Blomfield, ‘Pentagon accuses China of using lasers against US pilots in Djibouti’, The Telegraph, May 04, 2018, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/04/pentagon-accuses-china-using-lasers-against-us-pilots-djibouti/

10  Prakash Katoch, ‘Myanmar in Dragon’s Jaws’, Asia Times, April 4, 2018, http://www.atimes.com/myanmar-dragons-jaws/

11  Debobrat Ghose, ‘Sukma Maoist ambush: Explosives-tipped arrows demonstrate evolving combat nous of Nazals’, First Post, March 15, 2017, https://www.firstpost.com/india/sukma-maoist-ambush-explosive-tipped-arrows-demonstrate-evolving-combat-nous-of-naxals-3334916.html

12  Pak, UK ammo found at naxal site, The Times of India, January 10, 2005, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Pak-UK-ammo-found-at-naxal-site/articleshow/985933.cms

13‘ISI lends helping hand’, The Pioneer, June 11, 2013, https://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/oped/isi-lends-maoists-helping-hand.html

14’India: Jihad’s Southern outpost’, Sri Lanka Guardian, July 15, 2010, http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2010/07/jihads-southern-outpost.html

15 John Pilger, ‘In Ukraine the US is Dragging us Towards War with Russia’, The News, May 14, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/13/ukraine-us-war-russia-john-pilger

16’Beijing’s Finger in Nepal’s Maoist Revolt’, Debka File, May 28, 2002, https://www.debka.com/beijings-finger-in-nepals-maoist-revolt/

17  Myres, C, Joseph, ‘The Quranic Concept of War’, http://insct.syr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/MyersJoseph.Quranic-Concept-of-War.pdf

18  Christina Lamb, ‘Taliban leader killed by SAS was Pakistan officer’, The Sunday Times, October 12, 2008, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/taliban-leader-killed-by-sas-was-pakistan-officer-0wptdvwxhqg

19  Stephen P Cohen, ‘The Idea of Pakistan’ Brookings Institution Press, September 2014.

20  Sushant Singh, ‘Coming soon: Ministry of Defence’s cyber, space, special operations divisions’, The Indian Express, October 16, 2017, https://indianexpress.com/article/india/coming-soon-ministry-of-defence-mods-cyber-space-special-operations-divisions-4892404/

21           Liang, Qiao and Xiangsui, Wang, ‘Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America, Pan American Publishing Company, Panama, 2002.

(Lt Gen P.C. Katoch, PVSM, UYSM, AVSM, SC (Retd) is a third generation army officer who served in Special Forces. He is a prolific writer and is a Distinguished Fellow with United Service Institution of India.)

(This article is carried in the print edition of September-October 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)

India aspires to be an economic and military power. To achieve that, India must possess the necessary military strength to ensure security of its national interests in a dynamic international geo-political environment. Worrisomely, slow and tardy modernisation of the Indian armed forces has been a matter of concern for all those who are concerned with national security. Existing critical deficiencies prove that India has failed to keep abreast with newer weapon systems and technologies. Many attribute this state of affairs to archaic mindsets, poor planning and convoluted procedures.

After the Kargil War, the Group of Ministers (GoM) on National Security had also attempted to identify the regime’s weaknesses. The Group, in its report of February 2001, stressed the need to bring about improvements in the structures and procedures. Consequently, a new set-up was established in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in October 2001 and a new defence procurement procedure (DPP-2002) was put in place. Initially, three routes were spelt out for progressing procurement proposals, i.e. ‘Buy’, ‘Buy and Make’ and ‘Make’. However, within an year, cases under ‘Buy and Make through Imported Transfer of Technology’ were also included in the procedure.

In the review carried out in 2005, the ambit of the procedure was expanded to include the offset policy. DPP-2006 contained three major changes – splitting of ‘Make’ category; sub-categorisation of ‘Buy’ decisions as ‘Buy (Indian)’ and ‘Buy (Global)’; and introduction of Integrity Pact for all procurements over Rs 100 crore. Subsequently, DPP-2008 introduced measures to promote transparency.

Despite repeated reviews, there has been no discernible improvement since 2002. Worse, instead of streamlining the procedure, every review has made the process more complex, confusing and hard to comprehend. The latest version (DPP-2016) is a mammoth document, running into close to 500 pages. As the defence production and procurement regimes remain trapped in the quagmire of bureaucratic inefficiency, the services continue to wait indefinitely for new equipment to materialise. Unquestionably, India’s defence procurement system has been an utter failure.

Indicators of the Failure of the Procurement Regime

The stated objective of the procurement procedure is threefold – to ensure expeditious procurement of the approved requirements of the armed forces in terms of capabilities sought and time frame prescribed by optimally utilising the allocated budgetary resources; to demonstrate the highest degree of probity and public accountability, transparency in operations, free competition and impartiality; and to keep the goal of achieving self-reliance in defence equipment in mind.1 As stated earlier, despite all efforts, there has been no speeding up of the procurement process. Funds continue to get surrendered while the services remain deprived of critical equipment. Decision making continues to be highly sporadic and erratic. Questions are still being raised regarding lack of transparency and objectivity of the process. Competition remains limited. Indigenous defence production continues to languish. The country remains dependent on imports for all major requirements. Quite shamefully, India holds the dubious distinction of being the largest importer of conventional weapons in the world.

Ideally, inventory of a military should consist of 30 percent state of the art equipment, 40 percent equipment of matured technologies and 30 percent equipment nearing obsolescence. In India’s case, the respective percentages are 15, 35 and 50. Thus, in addition to regular modernisation/upgradation plans, India has to make up the existence deficiency of 15 percent of the state of the art equipment. It is a huge challenge as modernisation of the armed forces is lagging behind by more than 10 years. See Illustration 1.

Illustration 1: India’s Defence Inventory – Worrisome Level of Obsolescence

India’s defence industry is in a pitiable state solely due to the gross inefficiency of the public sector. Instead of mastering imported technology and using it as a spring board to develop newer technologies, the public sector has found the easiest way of making money by acting as pure traders – assembling imported subsystems and selling them to the captive military at unethically exorbitant profits.

Every effort is made to inhibit the entry of private companies in the defence sector, lest they provide competition to the sloppy public sector. Enormous potential of India’s vibrant private sector remains untapped. Efforts to recognise the well-established private companies as Raksha Utpadan Ratna have been aborted. The much awaited policy on Strategic Partnership continues to remain under consideration since 2016. As regards DPP, not a single major contract has been successfully concluded since 2001 in a competitive environment without getting embroiled in allegations of wrong doings. Every successful deal has been on single-vendor government-to-government basis, showing total hollowness of the procurement system. The ‘Make’ procedure has been a non-starter.

All nations seek offsets that are in consonance with their national needs – either to meet an urgent economic need or to fill a critical technology void. Shockingly, India has abdicated the right to select methodology, fields and offset programmes to the vendors, thereby rendering India’s needs inconsequential. As is expected, foreign vendors opt for programmes that cost the least and are easy to fulfil. Since India lacks a credible verification mechanism, it is an open invitation to unscrupulous foreign vendors and their dishonest Indian partners to collude and cheat the country by presenting exaggerated claims. MoD has no option but to accept their claims at their face value. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has severely faulted the offset regime on multiple counts.2

Reasons for Failure

Apparently, the government has failed to put in place a responsive, dynamic and effective defence procurement regime. The complete process suffers from indifference, apathy, inefficiency and lassitude. Old bureaucratic mindsets and penchant for status-quoism inhibit forward thinking.

It appears paradoxical and incongruous that repeated reviews of DPP result in retrograde measures. Every provision is public sector centric. Despite loads of frequently doled out promises, the private sector continuous to be a fringe player with enormous untapped potential. Clout wielded by the public sector stalls every move towards open competition. With a view to safeguard interests of an inefficient and uncompetitive public sector, all policy initiatives attempt to ensure its monopoly and predominance.

There are 39 ordnance factories and the Ordnance Factory Board is the largest departmentally run industrial undertaking in the country. In addition, MoD has 9 defence public sector undertakings. Despite getting preferential treatment from MoD, they have singularly failed to keep pace with world-wide developments. They thrive on periodic infusion of transferred technology and have developed no indigenous competence.3

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is like an albatross around the services’ neck. It promises a lot but delivers little. Not a single state-of-the-art weapon system has been developed or produced by it so far. On numerous occasions, the services have been denied urgently required equipment because of DRDO’s claims of indigenous development. Even if DRDO is able to make some progress in a few cases, it is always done with major compromises with respect to the stated qualitative requirements. The services are forced to accept sub-optimal equipment. It has been a history of false claims, tall promises, unexplained delays and sub-optimal products.4Recent restructuring of DRDO has been a meaningless exercise.

Indifferent quality of the acquisition staffis the single most important reason for delays in procurements. Officials who perform acquisition functions are drawn from the civil services, defence forces and the defence finance. No one is selected for any special talent/qualification/flair for the job. Worse, no training is ever provided to them. Resultantly, their approach remains entrenched in bureaucratic mediocrity and procedural quagmire.5 Even CAG was forced to highlight the fact that defence acquisition was a cross-disciplinary activity requiring expertise and criticised the system of entrusting acquisitions to unspecialised personnel posted for three-year tenures.

As per the Indian offset policy, all defence contracts where the estimated cost of the proposal is Rs 2,000 crore or more will attract a minimum offset obligation of 30 percent of the estimated cost.6 Foreign vendors are unconvinced that the Indian industry can absorb offsets worth billions of dollars.

Indian officialdom is known for its haughty and pretentious attitude. Though called public servants, most officials consider themselves to be rulers and behave accordingly. Additionally, as awarders of high value contracts, they assume the role of dispensers of favours.7 Rather than considering businessmen as partners in enhancing nation’s defence preparedness, they are ill-treated. This adversarial relationship results in total lack of communication resulting in misapprehensions, and thereby, giving rise to doubts about the transparency and fairness of the process. Many aspiring entrants lose heart and get dissuaded.

Recommended Reforms

In the absence of a strong will to transform, India continues to flounder in the labyrinths of bureaucratic indecision while the country suffers – the armed forces are not getting the required equipment in time and the indigenous defence production is languishing. True test of national leadership is not routine governance but ability to take bold and radical decisions to put a derailed and inefficient system back on track. Here are some recommendations for the government to consider:

1) Creation of an Empowered Independent Entity

To start with, it must be appreciated that planning and implementation functions are distinctly different. They demand dissimilar but highly focused treatment. Therefore, they must be segregated. Planning functions should primarily be performed by officials and military leaders who possess necessary understanding of the national security concerns. On the other hand, implementation functions must be entrusted to professionals who are fully conversant with modern technologies and are aware of the latest management techniques to administer multi-faceted and multi-agency programmes.8 See Illustration 2.

Defence and Aerospace Commission   Ø  Receives plans approved by DPPC Ø  Converts capability needs into performance parameters          Ø  Analyses alternatives to acquire equipment within specified time Ø  Identifies the most beneficialand cost-effective route Ø  Oversees growth of indigenous defence industry Ø  Acts as nodal authority for offsets

Defence Perspective Planning Council   Ø  A broad-based overarching policy making body Ø  Approves identified capability gaps Ø  Approves 15-years Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan and 5-years Services Capital Acquisition Plan

Ministry of Defence

Executive Functions

Planning Functions

Illustration 2: Segregation of Planning and Implementation Functions

A Defence Perspective Planning Council (DPPC) should be constituted as the highest policy making body to handle all planning functions. It should be a broad-based body by including representatives of the Foreign Ministry, the Home Ministry and the National Security Advisor. Its role should include identification of capability gaps, approval of 15-years Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan and 5-years Services Capital Acquisition Plan. It should be empowered to approve changes in the acquisition procedure, grant deviations from the laid down policies and accord approval to invoke the Fast Track Procedure.9

India’s experience with the successes achieved by the Atomic Energy Commission and the Space Commission has been highly encouraging. It is time a similar setup is adopted for the defence sector for the executive functions. A Defence and Aerospace Commission (DAC) should be constituted to implement perspective plans approved by DPPC. It should be the nodal agency to oversee the complete defence acquisition process and the development of the indigenous defence industry.10 Suggested structure of the proposed Commission is shown at Illustration 3.

Exports and Cooperation Wing Promote defence exports through proactive initiatives and close liaison with industrial associations. Exploit opportunities for international armament cooperationdevelopment and exports.countries.

Acquisitions Wing An integrated set-up to undertake all acquisition functions relating to outright purchases and handle cases wherein indigenous production under licence is planned after initial purchase.

Maritime Industry Wing Oversee indigenous production of maritime systems, both under licence and through local development. Act as an interface between the government and the industry for maritime systems.

SME Wing Act as an umbrella agency to help SMEs to enter defence sector with their niche technologies and provide support to them in retaining their technological lead through continuous innovations. Liaise with industrial associations.                            Oversee import of technology and its absorption.     Help modify policies

Defence R&D Wing Evolve technology upgradation plan. Identify key technologies for focused attention, both through development and imports. Oversee absorption of imported technologies.  Supervise DRDO.performance. de with industrial associations.                            Oversee import of technology and its absorption.     Help modify policies

Defence Offsets Authority Independent and empowered single window agency to manage all offset activities in a predictable, efficient and transparent manner. Responsible for approving   and validating discharge of obligations. with decision making Liaise with industrial associations.                            Oversee import of technology and its absorption.     Help modify policies

Land Systems Industry Wing Oversee indigenous production of land systems, both under licence and through local development.             Act as an interface between the government and the industry for land systems.

Aerospace Industry Wing Oversee indigenous production of aerospace systems, both under licence and through local development. Act as an interface between the government and  industryfor aerospace systems.

Defence Technology Advisory Board

Policy Review and Training Committee Technology Advisory Board

Defence and Aerospace Commission

Illustration 3: Suggested Structure of Defence and Aerospace Commission

The Commission should be tasked to handle all activities pertaining to the production, acquisition and export of defence systems/equipment. For each procurement proposal, the Commission should debate, analyse and determine the route that should be adopted – outright import or indigenous development or a combination of the two. Factors like quantity, economic viability, urgency, criticality, indigenous capability and acceptable timelines would be the key deciding factors. However, technical evaluation and field trials should continue to be held under the aegis of the respective Service Headquarters as hitherto fore.11

The Acquisition Wing is the main executive arm. It should undertake all functions relating to outright purchases and finalisation of cases wherein indigenous manufacture under licence is planned. Like the current set-up, it should continue to be an integrated set-up to include officials from the Department of Defence, the Finance Division and the Service HQ.

Land Systems Industry Wing, Aerospace Industry Wing and Maritime Industry Wing will be responsible to oversee indigenous production of their respective systems, both under licence and through local development. These wings will also act as an interface between the government and the industry, both public and private sectors.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are the engines that spearhead technological advancement. As they operate in niche segments, they acquire exceptional expertise; gain specialised knowledge; and master manufacturing processes. However, they lack resources to be able to compete with bigger players. They need hand-holding to thrive and deliver. SME Wing should provide necessary support to them.

The Defence R&D Wing should be headed by a military-technologist and its primary responsibility should be to keep a watch over the performance of DRDO, thereby making it accountable to an oversight authority. Additionally, the Wing should facilitate identification of technologies for import to fill critical gaps in indigenous knowledge and help accelerate the process of achieving self reliance.

The Defence Offset Authority should be an empowered authority with decision making powers for efficient management of the complete gamut of offset related activities in a predictable, efficient and transparent manner. Promotion of exports and international armament cooperation will be the primary responsibility of the Exports and Cooperation Wing. The Wing should encourage formation of multi-national consortia for the purpose.

Defence Technology Advisory Board should be headed by an eminent scientist. It should formulate policies and oversee their implementation to promote development of Indian defence industry in well-delineated phases. The Policy Review and Training Committee should act as an internal watchdog and maintain a databank of all successful and unsuccessful programmes to draw necessary lessons from them. The Committee should also be assigned responsibility to organise training programmes for all functionaries involved with acquisition and developmental assignments.

2) Integration of the Private Sector

Both the public and the private sectors are national assets. To build a globally competitive defence industrial base, it is essential to exploit the potential of both the sectors. It is only then that necessary economies of scale can be achieved in different fields of defence manufacturing. The government must shed its pro-public sector bias and tap the enormous technological prowess and potential of the private sector.

Undoubtedly, the public sector possesses vast facilities, huge work force and decades of experience in assembling imported sub-assemblies/components. On the other hand, the private sector has mastered modern tools of management. It has acquired innovative marketing and financial skills. The government must explore ways and means of public-private partnership to harness their respective strengths.

 

3) Policy Initiatives

No country can afford to neglect innovations. Innovation entails an energetic and dynamic drive that seeks to improve existing systems, processes and procedures for better results. Defence technologies evolve at a very rapid pace and undergo rapid obsolescence. Defence equipment needs continuous upgradation to be able to perform effectively. The government needs to build up a supportive ecosystem to facilitate easy assimilation of developing technologies for defence systems. It could be through an open architecture that allows ‘plug and play’ and promote development of cutting-edge technologies.

The government has rightly realised the importance of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the defence sector for accelerated growth. In addition to the infusion of funds, FDI brings in latest technologies and modern processes. As the defence sector is highly capital intensive and the investible funds available in the world market are finite, every foreign investor is guided purely by economic considerations. If India is aspiring for huge FDI inflows, it must make itself the most lucrative FDI destination. For that, the policies have to be tailored accordingly.

India announced its intent to demand offsets against defence procurements in early 2005. The policy has undergone a number of revisions. Offsets do not come for free and generally result in price escalation by 10 to 20 percent. It is a huge cost penalty. Hence, offsets make sound business sense only if the trade-off results in extraordinary economic or technological gains. However, India’s experience of the past few years has been highly disappointing. No benefits have been drawn from the offsets received to develop a vibrant defence industrial base.12The policy needs to be revisited.

4) Need for Professionalism

No reforms can yield results unless the concerned functionaries are trained and equipped to translate progressive policies into tangible actions on ground. It is only in India that defence procurements worth billions of dollars are being carried out by functionaries who possess no knowledge of economics, financial management and military systems. It has generally been accepted the world over that an efficient acquisition work force can not only expedite procurements but also affect considerable saving of the capital expenditure in initial purchase price and associated life-cycle costs.13

Promotion of indigenous defence industrial capability and management of defence acquisitions are multifaceted processes and are highly specialised activities needing extraordinary professional skills and unique attributes.14 It is time India pays attention to the quality of the workforce and takes concrete steps to improve it.

 

Conclusion

Defence procurements are intrinsically linked to a nation’s security concerns. The nation spends a considerable part of the national exchequer to keep the defence forces fully equipped with quality equipment to enable them to perform security functions effectively. Defence acquisitions are a multifaceted process involving a large number of disciplines; need for an overarching empowered authority to administer, coordinate, oversee, direct and control myriad acquisition activities is absolutely inescapable. Authority and accountability must go hand in hand.

In order to initiate remedial measures, it is essential to get at the bottom of all issues through diligent diagnostic study of the maladies. As the review committees appointed by the government lack necessary acumen and expertise to carry out a holistic and in-depth analysis of the system, they tend to look at procedural issues in a piece-meal manner. No expert committee has displayed courage to recommend radical reforms to put the system on track. Minor tinkering with a few provisions have produced no results.

Bureaucracy abhors change and dreads reforms. It thrives on status quo and looks at every new measure as a threat to its turf. Being the ultimate decision makers, the bureaucrats resist every well-intentioned move to revamp the regime. In the similar vein, despite numerous reviews, no major progressive measure has been incorporated in DPP since 2002. Self-seeking domain interests and egoistical attitudes act as the biggest stumbling blocks. Resultantly, the armed forces continue to suffer. Lack of courage to undertake radical overhaul of the regime has been the bane of the country. Requirement of inventive policy initiatives and concrete action plans can never be fulfilled by resorting to semantics and rhetoric. 

References

1. Indian Defence Procurement Procedure – 2016, available at https://mod.gov.in/defence-procurement-procedure
2. Major General Mrinal Suman, ‘Appraising Cost-Effectiveness of Offsets’ ,FORCE, vol 8, issue 4(2010).

3  Major General Mrinal Suman, ‘Impediments to the Modernisation of the Indian Defence Forces’, Indian Defence Review, vol 22, issue 1(2007).

4. ibid.
5. Major General Mrinal Suman, ‘Reforming the Acquisition Regime to Speed-up Defence Procurements’, Geopolitics, vol VIII, issue V(2017).
6. Indian Defence Procurement Procedure – 2016, available at https://mod.gov.in/defence-procurement-procedure
7. Major General Mrinal Suman, ‘Doing Business with the Indian Defence Regime: Challenges and Tribulations’, Indian Defence Review, vol 23, issue 1(Jan-Mar 2008).
8. US “Defence Acquisition Guidebook”, at http://www.defenseacquisition.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/defense-acquisition-guidebook.pdf . It provides detailed guidelines and commends best business practices to all functionaries involved in the acquisition system.
9. Major General Mrinal Suman, ‘Need for Defence and Aerospace Commission’, FORCE, vol 9, issue12 (2012).
10. ibid.
11. ibid.
12. Major General Mrinal Suman, ‘Defence offsets: has India benefited?’,Global Defence Offset Review, vol 4, issue 2(2015).
13. Major General Mrinal Suman, ‘Selection and Training of Acquisition Staff: a Neglected Aspect’, Global Defence Offsets Review, vol 4, issue 3(2015)
14. “Acquisition Operating Framework” at https://www.aof.mod.uk/index.htm It defines how UK conducts, governs and controls its defence acquisition work force and processes. It is a key enabler for improving delivery to the armed forces and for producing greater value for money for the taxpayer.

 

(Major General Mrinal Suman, AVSM, VSM, PhD, (Retd.) commanded an Engineer Regiment on the Siachen lacier and was the Task Force Commander for designing and sinking shafts for Pokhran II. He is a prolific writer and has published over 500 articles. He is considered India’s foremost expert in India’s defence procurement procedure and offsets.)

 

(This article is carried in the print edition of September-October 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)

“Keeping in view the increasing threat perception, which includes various occurrences of external strife and internal dissidence such as Doklam, increased external activities in Tibet over a year(sic), rampant cross border firing, militant activities etc., the current budget is not supportive to the inevitable needs of the Army ( Armed forces)…”

– Extract from the Report of the
Standing Committee of Parliament on Defence– March 20181

Introduction

Lamenting inadequate allocations for defence in the yearly budgets has become a permanent discourse in India and the sentiment is echoed by the armed forces and the Parliamentary Committees alike.2This is ironical in a country which is the fifth largest spender on defence, behind only US, China, Saudi Arabia and Russia3. India also has remained the top global importer of arms for nearly a decade4. Despite such large expenditure on arms imports all services continue to report inadequacies of arms, ammunitions and equipment, often referred to as ‘hollowness’. A logical deduction is that the process of planning capability development, acquisitions and   defence budgeting is functioning sub optimally and needs a serious overhaul. This analysis is not about reiterating inadequacies of budget allocations, in real terms or as a percentage of the GDP but about identifying and addressing the systemic- disconnect that exists in provisioning financially for desired national defence capabilities.

The System – As It Exists

From the perspective of those vested with the responsibility of  formulating budget allocations, allotment of Rs 2.95 lakh crore (USD 43.4 billion approximately) to defence,  in the year 2018-19, though only 1.58%  of the GDP,  constitutes 12.1% of the Central government’s total expenditure. In a developing country with competing demands, it seems, to them, to be a fair apportioning of meagre resources available. The allocation however is perceived to be inadequate from the perspective of those vested with the responsibility of securing India’s disputed borders in a challenging nuclear neighbourhood, maintaining internal security as well as by those assigned the responsibility of placing India, the USD 2.5 trillion5, sixth largest global economy at an appropriate pedestal of national power in the Indo-Pacific and globally. The complexity is compounded due to the nonexistence of a robust defence industrial base, creating which remains a work in progress! It is for reasons such as these that The Economist, in its March 28, 2018 edition chose to (obliquely) dub India as a ‘Paper Elephant’, an unenviable title6!

This dichotomy exists primarily because of the budget allocations being planned (or apportioned) at the bureaucratic level, in the Ministry of Finance, rather than by the Parliament, which would have the macro perspective. A simplistic solution would be to suggest scaling down of the 1.5 million third largest armed forces, coupled with reasonable increase in defence budget allocation. This will also seemingly correct the skewed Revenue: Capital budget ratios reduce pension burdens in the long run, spare more money for modernisation. Alas! Only if it was such a simple quick fix in a complex security environment!

The Dilemma of Planning and Budgeting for Defence

The Indian Armed forces have a well-structured system of perspective planning, wherein a 15 years Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan (LTIPP) is made for capacity building and capability development. The current LTIPP, under implementation is for the period 2012 – 2027. This plan is set in the backdrop of the prevailing security scenario and an analysis of the current & visualised threats. While LTIPP needs to factor in the National Security Strategy and the National Defence Strategy but on account of nonexistence of these documents, the services rely on the ‘Raksha Mantri’s (Defence Minister’s) Operational Directive’. The Perspective planning document (LTIPP) includes the capability development and acquisition plans of the three services and for infrastructure development. The document is prepared by the HQ Integrated Defence Staff, with inputs from the services and is approved by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), headed by the Raksha Mantri. Although, costing is carried out for all the schemes included and a chapter is included on financial planning, no budgetary support is assured for this plan at any stage, either by the Ministry of Defence, or by the Ministry of Finance. Drawing parallels, similar exercise in the US system is approved by the Congress and signed into law by the President, providing it the required sanctity and parliamentary commitment.

While from the perspective of services, it is a comprehensive document containing long term projection of their operational needs, to meet the current and visualised security challenges, for the planners at the national level, this is perceived to be a ‘wish list’. This disconnect is at the root of the entire problem of capability development of services, technology development by the DRDO/ industry and in creation of an indigenous defence industrial base. It needs to be appreciated that the  LTIPP forms the ‘mother document’ for formulating  capability development and force structuring plans of the services; while the LTTPP (Long Term Technology Perspective Plan) of DRDO and the TPCR (Technology Perspective and Capability Road Map) forms the base document on which the entire defence industry bases its planning.Its sanctity therefore needs to be maintained to keep the system robust.

For the services, any attempt to restrict the inclusion of schemes in LTIPP to likely budget allocations, would seriously undermine their ‘threat based’ capability development plans, in view of uncertain gestation period for maturing of procurement proposals. For the financial planners however, these projections remain un-supportable, financially. The impasse thus continues!

Further down in the process of defence planning, the 15 years LTIPP  includes within its ambit three five years defence plans (also referred to as SCAP – Services Capital Acquisition Plans). The current LTIPP, for instance, included the 12th, 13th and the 14th Defence Plans. The 12th Defence Plan coincided with the national Plan period and terminated in 2017. The 13th Defence Plan was formulated for the period 2017 – 2022 and the 14th was to cover the period 2022 – 2027, till these were done away with. Although, the 2016 directive of the Prime Minister, to the NITI Aayog to evolve ‘15 Years National Development Agenda’7, with subsets of 7 years strategy and 3 years action plan, to replace the five-years plan model had to include defence and internal security, the same is yet to be implemented in the planning process. Either way, whether it was the five year Defence plans or the visualised seven years strategy, even these, like the LTIPP, though approved by the DAC, remain un-aligned to the national budgeting process and no financial support is assured to the projects contained therein.

The draft 13th Defence Plan prepared by the services after a deliberate yearlong exercise, projected a requirement of Rs 26.84 lakh crore (USD 416 billion) for the armed forces for the period 2017-20228. These projections however still remain unapproved. Also, the defence budget allocations made for the years 2017-18 and 2018-19,  two of the five years of this plan period, seem to bear no relationship to the projections made.

The only step in the planning process that seems to work partially is the Annual Acquisition Plan (AAP), which is a two years roll-on plan drawn up on yearly basis. This tends to work because in practice, it translates to some acquisition schemes, maturing in the normal course, getting accommodated even within the meagre budget allocations received.

Besides the impediments in ‘Planning’, problems also exist in implementing the ‘Procurement Procedure’, further compounding the paradox of defence budget allocations. According to the revised Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) – 2016, the capital acquisition process, post approval of the DAC should take approximately 74 to 114 weeks (under different scenarios of single / multi-vendor, with additional 12 weeks permitted where winter trials may be required to be carried out) 9. A period of one and a half to two and a half years to maturity is thus a realistic planning parameter. In practice however, not more than 30% acquisitions get completed in up to three years and there are instances of acquisition schemes getting prolonged to 8-10 years or even more. The uncertainty in the time likely to be taken for the scheme to mature results in the inability to realistically budget for it. An analysis of the e-books of MOD published in July 201610 and May 201811 suggests that there are likely to be over 300 DAC approved schemes (referred to as AONs – Acceptance of Necessity) valued at approximately 5 to 6 lakh crore (USD 73–88 billion) which are likely to be still in the pipeline, awaiting contract conclusion. Clearance of this back log is a `national problem’ of immense magnitude, for which the budget allocations need to be planned deliberately.

The dilemma of budgeting for defence can thus be summarised to identifying what to align the defence budget to? The schemes to be sanctioned by the DAC in the ensuing year?The schemes likely to mature during the financial year?To the prevailing critical operational voids? To the capabilities sought to be created for the future? In our inability to find an answer to this dilemma, we merely ‘Apportion’ whatever is considered appropriate from the overall financial resources available. This has been and would continue to remain the bane of our ‘hollowness’, lack of defence technological & industrial base and our inability to prepare for future wars.

Managing the Imbroglio and Getting Out of it

The inadequacies in the planning process and budget allocations, as stated above have resulted in inadequate force levels and capabilities to meet the perceived security challenges. There are reports of Army considering foreclosing the project for Battlefield Management System (BMS)12 to save Rs 5000 crore and putting on hold the raising of the additional Mountain (Strike) Corps13. Operational voids are also repeatedly highlighted by the Navy and the Air force. There is also a persistent criticism of large sums being utilised under the ‘Revenue head’, leaving little for capital acquisitions. Even within Capital budget, bulk of the resources get utilised for meeting ‘carry–over’ liabilities, leaving meagre amounts for new schemes.  There is thus a growing gap between the national aspirations and the capability of the armed forces.

Addressing this by systematic planning is well within the capabilities of the nation. Some measures towards giving a strategic sense of direction to capability development are:

• Identifying What We Need: The size and capability of the armed forces is a function of National Aim and National aspirations, taking cognisance of the prevailing security environment. These need to be defined in the National Security Strategy and the National Defence Strategy. Presumably, these basic policy documents are under formulation with the newly constituted Defence Planning Committee. In their absence an updated ‘Raksha Mantri’s’ operational directive’ should provide the requisite guidance, although with no mandate over the other ministries.
• Addressing a Two-Front, Multi-domain Threat: Disputed Northern and Western borders with China and Pakistan present a perpetual commitment of armed forces for preserving sovereignty and territorial integrity. These threats manifest primarily in terrestrial and maritime domain, presenting a two-front security challenge for which adequate force levels need to be created and maintained. Related capabilities also need to be created in other asymmetric warfare domains to effectively address the two front threat.
• Approach to Two- Front Threat: While preserving territorial integrity is a sine qua non, this threat, in the Indian context, can be addressed by adopting two alternative approaches. It can either be by pre-positioning (deploying) acclimatised troops along the LoC (Line of Control) in the West and LAC (Line of Actual Control) in the North, as being done hither to. This provides an advantage of having favourable force ratios at the point of application of force by the adversary and mitigates the possibility of any loss of territory (even temporarily/ tactically). This arrangement proved its utility during the Doklam standoff in 2017. On the flip side however, it entails maintaining higher overall force levels and resultant higher ‘Revenue Expenditure’ on pay, allowances, pensions and sustaining operational deployments. Alternatively, the responsibilities along two borders can also be fulfilled by maintaining centralised reserves and high level of inter theatre strategic mobility. This would entail procuring additional strategic mobility platforms like IL– 76 or C- 17 (through Capital Budget) and maintaining these (through Revenue Budget). This may also result in temporary loss of territory till the application of reserves. The advantages of reduced manpower and reduced pre- deployments would however accrue.  Choosing appropriate course of action and funding the manpower and equipment inherent in it has to be a national-call.
• Concept of Maritime Capability Development. India is considered to be the most significant maritime power in the Indo-Pacific. Countries of the region, US and other nations look at India to maintain a free and open Indian Ocean and rules based regional order. India needs to define its primary and secondary areas of interest and build its capabilities accordingly. The policy decisions of whether the desired area of influence remains confined up to the Straits of Malacca or extends to Western Pacific and  of how far does it extend in the Western and Southern Indian Ocean should be a function of how much capability  development and financial support can the country afford. Likewise, well deliberated policy decisions need to be taken on whether or not the country requires additional aircraft carrier(s) and to what extent do the island territories need to be developed as forward operating platforms.
• Development of Air Power: While 42 squadrons of combat aircraft is often stated as the optimum requirement for a two front war, it would be prudent to further analyse the requirement of platforms considered appropriate for the Northern and Western borders. The replacements for ageing Migs could well be a mix of single and twin engine aircraft, optimising on acquisition and operating costs. Also, the requirements of UAVs/ RPAs (remotely piloted aircraft) and helicopters, including attack / armed helicopters need to be optimised between the three services avoiding wasteful overlaps. The strategic mobility capability would need to be acquired according to the overall concept of two front war and regional responsibilities sought to be shouldered.
• Asymmetric Warfare Capability: Cyber, space, electronic warfare, information warfare and operations in other non-conventional domains have become an integral part of warfare. Capabilities need to be developed in these domains, without the luxury of reducing capability substantially in other spheres, at least in the Indian context. This entails preparing simultaneously for the second to fifth generation warfare.14

Generations of Warfare

• The essential overlap and induction of technology at a pace comfortable to the Indian soldiers need to be considered for capability development and budget allocations.
• Border Infrastructure Development: Development of infrastructure – roads, air fields/ helipads, strategic railways, ammunition storage, habitat constitute an essential part of the capability development and need to be budgeted for since all force developments would come to a naught in the absence of the ability to apply these effectively.

A consideration of the above mentioned factors would enable us to carry out a comparative ‘threat’ and ‘capability’ audit and identify the voids that need to be provisioned for, financially.  The pace of capability development and realisation of national aspirations would thereafter be a function of the pace and quantum of allocation of funds. A fundamental understanding of this imperative would be the first step towards getting out of this imbroglio.

Optimising Defence Budget Allocation – Beyond the 3% Solution

The budget allocation of 1.6% of the GDP (approximately) to defence seems inadequate for the size of forces that India maintains and for the aspirations that it nurtures. There is however no conclusive ‘alternative figure’, which, if allotted consistently over a few years would enable the desired force structuring and capability to be achieved. It would thus be appropriate to define parameters on which the defence budget allocations could be worked out year on year rather than one side justifying current allocations and the other insisting on allocation of 3% of GDP, with both sides being bereft of concrete logic.

One possible way could be to collate the value of the old schemes that have reached the   Competent Financial Authority (CFA) approval stage – final stage of approval for acquisition) or advanced CNC stage (Cost Negotiation Committee stage- the penultimate stage of approval), since there would be a likelihood of these maturing in the ensuing financial year. Add to this the cost of most critical new acquisitions that must materialise during the year, to fill operational voids. The total cash outgo for this consolidated amount (approximately 15% of the value) should then be added to the existing carry over liabilities to arrive at the desired Capital budget allocation for acquisitions. Estimated requirements for infrastructure development and works would also need to be added thereafter. This process of determining Capital budget may continue till the existing backlog of DAC approved schemes is cleared. Thereafter, the approvals by the DAC must be prioritised and supported by firm budget allocations, modalities for which would need to be worked out. For the Revenue expenditure, adequate funding must be calculated to sustain the size of the respective Service approved on considerations given earlier in this paper. This should cater for the cost of the personnel and maintenance & upkeep of the in-service weapons and equipment. Determining levels of ‘War Wastage Reserves (WWR)’ is a function of the national policy on how many days of war to prepare for. Appropriate funding for these reserves would need to be planned on recurring basis, to cater for the wastages, past their respective shelf – life.

Having approved the basic planning parameters and the force levels to be maintained, the onus of maintaining optimum Capital: Revenue budget ratios must thereafter rest on those making budget allocations and not the services.

In the context of defence Capital budget, to make allowance for the delays due to impondera-bles in the acquisition process (delays in conclusion of user trials, general staff evaluation, deliberations on transfer of technology, cost negotiations etc) the Standing Committee on Defence has in the past recommended allotting Capital budget as ‘non-lapsable’ and ‘roll-on’ budget. While MOD has, after years of reluctance, agreed in December 2016 to the creation of ‘Non-Lapsable Defence Capital Modernisation Fund’, the Ministry of Finance continues to oppose this claiming it to be violative of Article 266 (1) of the Constitution15. This perception needs to be shed and the idea needs to be experimented with, even by seeking necessary amendments to existing regulations, if required. Not aligning the defence budget to proposed acquisitions, as stated earlier, will not only impede all efforts at building capable armed forces, it will also impede indigenisation and creation of defence industrial base.

It is well appreciated that even the most advanced economies cannot afford to fund the entire defence and security requirements and that these need to be prioritised. This needs to be a coordinated exercise between the national leadership and the services and within the services themselves.  The UK Joint Concept Note 1/17 on Future Force Concept16 suggests categorisation of force (for evolving concepts and allocation of resources) to: Current force (5 years planning), Funded Force (10 years), Future Force (10–20 years) and Conceptual Force (30 years planning).  A similar exercise in the Indian context would help determine the prioritised budgeting requirements for sustaining current equipment, funding for design & development of future inductions and for funding defence industry.  Likewise, the yearly National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) passed by the US is an exhaustive defence planning and budgeting exercise and needs to be studied to reform our own system. Approval of LTIPP and five / seven year defence plans by the CCS (Cabinet Committee on Security) merits consideration to accord this process necessary sanctity and budgetary support.

Alignment of defence budgets to GDP is a yardstick used by external agencies like SIPRI to estimate the proportionate national resources being allotted for defence and assess potential military capability. This yardstick is also used by the US and NATO to set targets of defence spending for member nations. Adding pensions to defence budget, as done by UK since 2014 was to meet the NATO targets of 2% spending on defence and was considered to be a ‘smoke screen’ for capability cuts. China on the other hand rarely declares its entire defence spending! It would thus do well for us not to be overly concerned with the figures indicated in relation to the GDP but to logically address the nation’s particular needs, irrespective of the percentages it translates into.

Conclusion

Budget allocations for defence are not about ‘budgeting’ alone! A country’s defence spending is generally considered as a measure of its ‘potential military capability’ and of the relative importance of its armed forces with other organs of the state. However, no matter how much a country spends on military, it still has to find ways to “translate its potential capability into power”17For a leading power and a growing economy like India, the national security strategy should shape defence spending and the defence spending, in turn, should shape the security strategy. This relationship however remains dysfunctional and needs to be corrected. An inconsistent defence budget allocation puts the entire process of perspective planning to noughts. It also has a snowballing effect on capability of armed forces, technology development and on establishment of indigenous defence industrial base. It is thus an issue of national concern which needs to be addressed with utmost seriousness.

References:

1     41 st Report on ‘Demands for Grants of the Ministry of Defence for the year 2018-19 on Army, Navy, and Air Force (Demand No. 20). 13 March, 2018. Pg 3.

       164.100.47.193/…/Press%20Release%20-20Army,%20Navy,%20Air%20Force.doc.

2     Ibid. Estimates Committee Report Summary: Preparedness of Armed Forces – Defence Production and Procurement

       http://www.prsindia.org/parliamenttrack/report-summaries/estimates-committee-report-summary-preparedness-of-armed-forces-defence-production-and-procurement-5332/

3     The Economist. ‘Paper Elephant : India spends a fortune on defence and gets poor value for money’.

       March 28, 2018. https://www.economist.com/asia/2018/03/28/india-spends-a-fortune-on-defence-and-gets-poor-value-for-money

4     SIPRI Fact Sheet  March 2018. Trends  in International  Arms  Transfers. https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2018-03/fssipri_at2017_0.pdf

5     Srivastva Ajay. How India Can Become a $ 5 trillion Economy. Business Line.  The GDP stated is at Current Price. https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/columns/ajay-srivastav/how-india-can-become-a-5-trillion-economy/article23562940.ece

6     Op cit. The Economist.

7     The Economic Times. May 13, 2016. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/15-year-development-agenda-to-replace-five-year-plans-to-include-internal-security-defence/articleshow/52247186.cms

8     The Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/forces-seek-rs-27-lakh-crore-over-next-5-years-for-defence-projects/articleshow/59613786.cms

9     Defence Procurement  Procedure (DPP)  for  Capital Procurement 2016. Annexure 1 to Appendix C of Chapter 1. Pp 53 – 54.

10  MOD E Book, July 2016. Pg 7. https://mod.gov.in/e-book.  

11  MOD E Book May 2018. Pg 13. https://mod.gov.in/ebook-2018/mod-ebook.html#p=1

12  Shukla Ajai. If our army wants to avoid the fate of Saddam’s army… .Rediff.com. December 27, 2017. http://www.rediff.com/news/special/if-our-army-wants-to-avoid-the-fate-of-saddams-army/20171227.htm

       Katoch PC. Foreclosure of Army’s Battlefield Management System.MAI – Military Aerospace Internal Security. January 10, 2018. http://www.spsmai.com/experts-speak/?id=482&q=Foreclosure-of-Army-s-Battlefield-Management-System

13  Dutta Sujan. Indian Army puts Mountain Strike Corps aimed at China in cold storage. The Print. July 12, 2018. https://theprint.in/security/indian-army-puts-mountain-strike-corps-aimed-at-china-in-cold-storage/82319/

14  Generations of Warfare

• Second Generation Warfare:. Primarily, attrition warfare developed by the French Army, during and after, World War I. It emphasises on coordinated employment of infantry, tanks and artillery  and on application of mass firepower, primarily  indirect artillery. This is the primary pattern of defence along LC and LAC in the Indian context.
• Third Generation Warfare:. Non linear manoeuvre warfare, as against second generation, attrition warfare. Adopted primarily on our Western borders in desert and semi desert terrain.
• Fourth Generation Warfare: Absence of monopoly of state as prosecutor of war. Use of non- state actors as instruments of war, in concert with or independent of the state forces. Religion and ideology, as against a nation may be the unifying glue for these combatants. Terrorism is used as a tool of warfare and the targets are not soldiers alone, even the civilian population is considered to be a legitimate target. Nature of war being waged by Pakistan against India.
• Fifth Generation Warfare. High technology, non- contact war. Incorporates elements of network centric, multi domain (land, air, sea, cyber, space), fusion warfare.

15  Standing Committee on Defence (2017-2018), (Sixteen Lok Sabha) Ministry of Defence Demands for Grants  (2018-19), Capital Outlay on Defence Services, Procurement Policy and Defence Planning (Demand No. 21). Forty Second Report. March 2018. Paras 1.23 – 1.25.Pp 20- 21.http://164.100.47.193/lsscommittee/Defence/16_Defence_42.pdf

16  UK Ministry of Defence.  Joint Concept Note 1/17: Future Force Concept. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/643061/concepts_uk_future_force_concept_jcn_1_17.pdf

17           China Power project. CSIS. What does China really spend on its military? https://chinapower.csis.org/military-spending/

 

(Lt Gen Anil Ahuja (Retd) is a former Deputy Chief of the HQ Integrated Defence Staff who was responsible for Policy Planning and Force Development.)

 

(This article is carried in the print edition of September-October 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)

Crystal Ball: The Two New Defence Industrial Corridors

Executive Summary
India’s defence manufacturing industry has reached an inflection point and very large scale change is on the way. The Government of India has now decided to construct two large Defence Industrial Corridors (DICs) one in Uttar Pradesh’s Bundelkhand region and the second along the Chennai–Bangalore stretch. A sum of Rs 40,000 crore has been committed in the February 2018 Union budget to be invested in these corridors with Rs 20,000 crore allocated to each corridor.
Within this new defence corridor platform, Indian companies will, over the next 10 years, re-imagine and re-build the country’s defence industrial base using new business models and collaborative operating models that will enable the nation to achieve a quantum jump in military equipment production.
Private Companies and the Defence PSUs / DRDO will also develop new collaborative models that maximise the use of existing infrastructure in ways that will surprise. It is therefore, definitely going to be a far more active industry.
Developing advanced military technologies in India will require business model innovation and operating model innovation and asset light configurations that maximise the knowledge element within the defence manufacturing business. This is not just about import substitution and saving USD 200 billion in foreign exchange over the next 10-15 years by producing military equipment locally. We will also begin thinking in terms of leapfrogging technologies and move to next generation Artificial Intelligence based weapon systems by re-imagining conflict itself and develop systems that are suited to the new types of security challenges that we are likely to face.
The article below is a strategic designers view on the future. It explores new ideas that could transform India’s Defence Industry base by introducing a range of concepts such as deploying Design Thinking and fast prototyping in New Weapons development to re-configuration and re-wiring existing infrastructure to create an advanced Defence Industrial ecosystem in India over the next 10 years. All of this technological change will provide our military with the weapons to eliminate any threat to our security in any part of the world or outer Space by 2035.
Introduction
In early 2014, when I visited Pragati Maidan for DEFEXPO, it was immediately evident to me that the industry needed new paradigm changing ideas that could replace the inefficient Defence PSUs/DRDO and eliminate the touts and dealers who represented foreign defence contractor interests in India.
Within two hours of entering the DEFEXPO venue, I had started sketching on the pamphlets I had gathered at the EXPO and soon I had a schematic design sketched out for what would later become the Defence Industrial Corridor Project.
It may interest readers to know that when I had first thought about it, I had called it the Defence Economic Zone (DEZ) project.
I showed my rough sketches to Mr. Ratan Tata, whom I accosted outside the Raytheon stall as he emerged from a meeting there. Mr. Tata very quickly understood what I was saying (About Industry Structure and the need for a Defence Economic Zone). He gave me his card with the instruction that the project be sent to him once I had written it. Four months later I did, as he had bid me to do and I did receive a very nice thank you note from him.
The crucial investment decision by the Government of India happened a year later in May 2015 when I met Mr. Manohar Parrikar, the then defence minister. He was very supportive of the project and pushed it within the Government. It was with his initial support that the project got an investment commitment of Rs 40,000 crore from the Government of India in the February 2018 union budget.
Separately, pilots from the Indian Air Force helped identify the Bundelkhand region in Uttar Pradesh as a possible location for the Defence Corridor. As the designer, I wanted to inject an advanced military project into the most under-developed region of Uttar Pradesh and had asked my friends in the air force to identify a location. Once they came back with Bundelkhand, all that was needed was a helping hand from Mrs. Meenakshi Lekhi (BJP MP) to give a final push to the project by speaking about it in Parliament. Many more discussions took place within the government before the Prime Minister announced the Bundelkhand defence industrial corridor. The Chennai–Bangalore corridor was chosen separately.
Designers Brief – Need for an Alexandrian Solution
It all starts with a design brief and so in March 2014, I asked myself a simple question, “What can we possibly do, so that India (a newcomer in the world’s weapons Industry) could become a leader, by changing the structure of the industry if necessary?
Firstly, it was clear that the Defence industry in India (in 2014) lacked an over-arching concept that could put industry players into project mode. That was the first challenge.
Secondly, the designed solution had to be large enough and innovative enough to overcome the massive inertia within Defence PSUs and DRDO and vested interests in the Arms lobbies and their political networks.
In fact, what was required was an Alexandrian solution if we were to attempt an indigenisation of 75 % – 80 % of defence equipment production by 2030 thereby saving USD 200 billion in foreign exchange. It may be recalled that in 333 BCE, Alexander while wintering in Gordium had attempted to untie the knot which held an ox-cart to a post within the palace of the former kings of Phrygia. When he could not find the end to the knot to unbind it, he sliced it in half with a stroke of his sword, producing the required ends (the so called “Alexandrian Solution”).
The other factors that went into the design exercise were, firstly, the need to create a large number of jobs and secondly, the need to create an innovation ecosystem in the country by designing a structure for it.
The defence industries cluster design which emerged from this thinking had the following deliverables on the Macro Economic front:
(a) Macro Project Benefits
(b) Project Design Reference Frame
(c) Enabling Asset Light Business Models
(d) Revenue Potential – Ballpark Estimates
(e) Strategic Innovation Framework
(a) Macro Project Benefits
1. The two Defence Industrial Corridor projects, together had to save India USD 200 billion in Foreign Exchange over the next 10 years.
2. New job creation on account of the two projects had to be of the order of 5,00,000 jobs in hi-tech defence manufacturing and allied industries.
3. The largest benefit of the project however is the creation of a National Innovation Backbone Infrastructure and the creation of nearly 5,000 small yet highly specialised vendor companies with a strength of just 20-40 employees each which will form the backbone of India’s High-Tech manufacturing ecosystem in line with the Mittelstand (mid – sized company) model that exists in Baden-Wurttemberg in Germany.
(b) Project Design Reference Frame
It has to be remembered that India is at a critical stage in its development. For instance, the Defence Industrial Corridor has been conceived at a time when India is revving up, to take a Giant leap, to triple the size of the economy from USD 2.5 trillion in 2018 to USD 7.5 trillion by 2032 at a projected GDP growth rate of 8.75 %.
Given the shortage of private capital for strategic national investments it was necessary for the Government to create an initial enabling ecosystem by providing a sound regulatory environment on the one hand while also investing in the creation of basic infrastructure such as roads, power transmission and distribution facilities, military equipment testing facilities, airstrips etc.
The Government has now rightly decided to invest Rs 20,000 crore in the creation of this basic infrastructure in each DIC, to set the ball rolling and to catalyse private sector investment.
All of this Government investment will help the private sector to set up their facilities at reduced cost and help them achieve an earlier break-even on their investments.
(c) Enabling Asset Light Business Models
The Defence Industrial Corridors as per the original design, have been structured in a manner that allows for various Business Plans and Monetisation strategies, depending on how individual companies want to participate in the project.
Each Defence Manufacturing Corridor will accommodate several large defence Contractors (i.e. Anchor participants) and around 2500 smaller vendor companies. There are also three broad categories: Land Systems, Naval systems and Air Defence, in which both Indian and foreign defence contractors and companies can participate.
The project has been specifically designed to accommodate a large variety of Business Models that can be deployed in a plug and play fashion depending on the risk – return profile of potential investors.
Asset Light business models can be designed and structured to allow companies to keep upfront capital costs low while maximising their long term returns in the form of a dominant long term presence in the Defence corridor and the Defence Knowledge Network which is a critical aspect of this project.
The most profitable business models will be those which are designed as knowledge plays. These business models will be sophisticated, asset light and will take maximum advantage of the network and the collaborative opportunities provided by the Defence Cluster which is what the Corridor represents.
Secondly, setting up the Corridor is actually a large Negotiation and the Innovation lies in the way the Negotiation is organised and executed.
Within this, the design of the Knowledge network is a critical aspect as it effects how companies collaborate in one area while they compete in other areas so as to reduce their common costs while maximising their revenues.
It may interest readers to know that the collaborative model for the DIC project came from “Project Deep Star” which is a collaborative technology development model in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico by companies such as Chevron, Shell and others.
(d) Revenue Potential – Ballpark Estimates
For potential participants and investors in the Bundelkhand and Chennai–Bangalore corridors, the revenue projections are critical from a business perspective. The potential revenue numbers for each of these is as follows:
1. Defence Offset based revenue (alone) : USD 5.0 billion / year
2. DPP Quota based * : USD 5.0 billion / year
3. Defence Engineering : USD 4.5 billion / year
4. Components & Spare Parts : USD 7.5 billion / year
Total : USD 22 billion / year
* DPP Quotas [Buy (Indian) and Make and Buy and Make]
How companies in the corridor achieve these numbers depends on how they plan and operate their business models.
Each Defence Manufacturing Corridor therefore represents a potential revenue opportunity of USD 22 Billion each year for participants depending on whether the Govt. also includes conditions for preferential procurement from factories located within the corridors.
Companies will need to decide whether they should focus their efforts on the Bundelkhand Corridor or in the Chennai-Bengaluru corridor or both. Therefore how a company designs its Business model will also be a critical determinant of how much of the USD 44 billion / year in revenue (for both corridors) they will be able to capture for themselves and their business partners.
Business Model design is therefore a critical determinant of success.
Readers may please note that the USD 44 billion / year number forecast as the potential size of the Indian Defence Equipment and Services market (circa 2025) is real as India’s economy is getting set up to double in size by 2025 and then triple in size over 2018 levels by 2032 and the national defence budgets will only get larger as we expand and modernise our armed forces.

(e) Strategic Innovation Framework
An essential part of the DICs design is its Innovation framework that had to be self-sustaining. The Defence Manufacturing Corridors have therefore been conceptualised as industrial clusters based on the diamond model developed by Professor Michael E. Porter of Harvard University.
Specifically, the approach is to provide the necessary infrastructure and a policy framework that encourages unprecedented innovation in defence technologies. Such industry specific clusters are found in Baden-Württembergin Germany (Precision Machinery), Boston in the United States (Biotechnology) and Florence in Italy (Leather industry). Professors Michael Porter and Scott Stern found that the striking innovative output of Israeli firms is due, not just to more effective technology management, but also to Israel’s favourable environment for innovation, including strong university-industry linkages and a large pool of highly trained scientists and engineers.

The Defence Industrial Corridors (DICs) are therefore designed to apply these concepts by bringing together a number of large Indian companies and their foreign joint venture partners in a vertically integrated structure comprising of nearly 2500 vendors and small scale industries within each corridor . The foreign holdings in the JVs will vary between 49 % and higher depending on the technology area and other factors.

Michael Porter Four Forces Model

This vertically integrated structure and its numerous players will then develop deep linkages with a large number of IIT / University departments offering degree courses in Inter-disciplinary defence engineering related disciplines.
In fact each DIC will have a designated IIT or group of IITs as partners who will together set up 6 IIT Research departments and start Inter-disciplinary courses that will admit its first batch of 500 inter-disciplinary Military Technology Graduates by 2021. This first batch will graduate by 2025-26 and be immediately deployed within the companies setting up facilities within the DICs.
This diverse group from industry and academia will in turn interact with Government representatives and actual users from the Armed Forces (Army, Navy and Air force) to design and develop new defence technology and most importantly work to adapt advanced technologies from foreign sources to make new weapons with next generation technologies including Artificial Intelligence in India.
IIT Kanpur is the designated technology partner for the Bundelkhand DIC and IIT Chennai is the technology partner for the Chennai- Bangalore corridor.
Using Design Thinking to Create New Weapon Systems
The Defence Industrial Corridors and the ecosystem that they create will bring the latest ideas in Design to new weapons development. Design Thinking is user centric in nature. All major defence contractors around the world depend on design thinking in the development of New weapon systems and new weapons. The DIC’s have been designed to incorporate these ideas.
The following international defence contractors use design thinking to bring un-precedented innovation to weapons design:
1. Lockheed Martin
2. Raytheon
3. Boeing
4. Rolls Royce
5. United Technologies
6. Thales
7. Northrop Grumman
8. US Department of Defence
The IIT Technology partners in each DIC will help each of the Companies setting up facilities within the corridor to start their own design thinking cells.
These will be dynamic brainstorming units which will rapidly prototype and test new and innovative ideas for components and weapon systems.

Engineering units from the Army, Navy and Airforce will set up an joint inter-disciplinary command in each DIC where serving military engineers and actual users of the equipment (field regiment personnel for instance or special forces) will be consulted while developing the designs of new weapons.

Weapon design Workshop in progress involving both Special forces personnel and Military Scientists

Special weapon testing units from the Armed forces staffed with actual users (Artillery or Missile unit personnel for instance) will be set up in both the Bundelkhand and the Chennai–Bangalore corridors and they will work directly with private companies to develop new weapon systems.

US Military Engineers and Special forces troops provide “Actual User “ inputs to scientists and weapon designers from private companies to test a New bomb disposal Robot that uses Artificial Intelligence

Software companies will also set up units within the Defence Corridors to develop dual use software and artificial intelligence (AI) applications for the Indian Military.
Employing Foreign Military Scientists Within the Defence Corridors
Soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Chinese Government moved fast and hired over 5000 Russian military scientists who were without work. The hiring of these 5000 Russian experts led to massive advances in the development of the Chinese military machine and China’s technology base. China has gained immensely from employing Russian experts in areas such as advanced avionics, material science and most importantly metallurgy.
It would therefore be a good idea for the Government of India to allow Indian companies to employ foreign experts in areas such as metallurgy to begin with and then move on to other areas as we get more used to deploying this strategy. Today no Indian company has some of the more advanced knowledge in the areas of Material Science and especially in the area of Military alloys. Retired military scientists from Russia and Eastern Europe as well as the United States represent huge promise. All roadblocks towards hiring of foreigners and foreign military scientists should therefore be removed.

The Innovation is in the Contracts, Not in the Technology
Setting up a successful Defence Industrial Corridor is actually a large negotiation and the innovation is in the contracts, not necessarily in the technology. There is also huge potential to think about New Business Models that capture and retain value for companies setting up units in the Defence Industrial Corridors.
Conclusion
The two Defence Industrial Corridors will employ 2,50,000 people each and transform the Industrial landscape in the state of Uttar Pradesh and along the Chennai–Bangalore corridor.
Technologically, they represent a huge technology leap for India. All of this is possible if we as a country focus more on the value that can be added by good Design.

(Ashish Puntambekar is the designer of the Defence Industrial Corridor project which has received an investment commitment of Rs40,000 crore from the Indian Government. His original concept was presented to Shri Manohar Parrikar, the then Defence Minister in May 2015. This paper is a revised version of the author’s original concept. Views expressed are personal.)

(This article is carried in the print edition of September-October 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)

Introduction

India’s Armed Forces are among the largest in the world. They embody the will of the Indian people. In return, their high morale and cohesion provide a sense of well-being and confidence to the masses. What has significantly changed in this relationship is the nature of the mission, which now includes growing domestic security, safety and administrative responsibilities. The fallout includes greater public visibility and scrutiny. Mission success under these conditions demands sustained support from the masses. Consequently, public perception has become a critical factor in military planning and operations.

Paradoxically, public perception is becoming increasingly hard to cultivate, in spite of latent goodwill and faith reposed in the Armed Forces. Perceptions today are also liable to change within a blink of an eye, given the speed at which content propagates within a susceptible, angst-ridden society. The Indian Armed Forces are especially vulnerable, given the traditionally restricted scope of civil-military dialogue. This is aggravated by limitations in scope and thought, obsolescence in practice, and a centralised, top-down, unwieldy, at-arms-length approach to public relations. The inability to stay abreast of, and optimally leverage optimal social engagement methods is preventing the Armed Forces’ narrative from becoming accessible to a larger audience, which is routinely exposed to a disproportional amount of negative commentary on social media. This is adversely affecting the military’s image and gradually eroding its brand image.

Social media engagement is undoubtedly the biggest influencer of public perception today and will be a focus of this piece, since the potential for brand enhancement is immense. The social media success of India’s paramilitary organisations, Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and select examples from other Armed Forces signifies the potential gains that may be achieved, based on better ‘design’ of content, a robust PR ‘structure’ empowered with speed of trust across the hierarchy, and healthier ‘interaction’ with the masses.

The Indian Armed Forces’ Social Media Score Card: Untested Assumptions, Misguided Efforts

The Indian Army, the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Indian Navy manage social media channels, largely showcasing promotional activity, inputs about visits, exercises, appointments, community support activities and trivia about past battles and military heroes. Focusing primarily on events and activities, they rarely communicate the vision, mission and ideas of the organisation, assuming that the audience will figure this out on their own. This failing could be due to an inability to understand the target audience, or an unwillingness to address their expectations, instrumental in most perception management failures. These issues, their impact and possible solutions are discussed below by first focusing on ‘design and treatment’ of content – an execution-related issue, and then moving on strategy and planning.

Quality of Recruitment and the Inefficacy of Promotional Videos

The Indian Armed Forces suffer from a perennial staffing problem, unable to attract the right quality of talent in spite of changes in terms of service or huge spends on promotional activities. Considering that the Armed Forces offer decent pay, perks, privileges, as well as intangible benefits like job security and respectability, doubts about better opportunities elsewhere leading to a shortfall in talent are not fully merited, given the one lakh plus average, trainable, high integrity individuals entering the work force every month. But what if we are unknowingly targeting only a narrow pool of talent in the first place?

Presently, social media promotional activities revolve around motivational videos and eye-catching advertisements with a call for action around key themes like adventure, physical exhilaration, high technology and challenging leadership avenues. This has two problems. First, it indicates that the profession is only suitable for adrenalin junkies, weeding out the majority from the candidate pool. Secondly, by focusing 80% of promotional content on 10% of actual roles / tasks, it sets incorrect expectations in the minds of a candidate. Since one can’t leave the Armed Forces at will, this gets passed on to a disillusioned candidate pool who opt not to take a chance. The other lacuna with promotional activity is that the branding is designed as per the ‘insider’s view of what a potential recruit will get swayed by’, which is validated by the steady stream of ‘self-aggrandisement’ themed promotional activity over the decades. There are three suggestions to improve this activity:

(i) Appealing to a mass audience: Consider the universal, time-tested expectations of job-seekers. These include self-esteem, advancement, feedback, public adulation, up-skilling, etc1. All these attributes can be realised at an Armed Forces desk as effectively as on a high-adrenalin field assignment. A predominant focus on high-energy, action-oriented messaging weeds out a larger pool of potential candidates, who may have preferred a less action-oriented career. Importantly, in a society where parents play a major part in career decisions, promotion activity focused on the job seeker solely has the disadvantage of playing up risks vis-à-vis benefits from the parents’ perspective, further narrowing the talent pool. In trying to project an Armed Forces career as an attractive differentiator vis-à-vis other professions, there exists a risk of alienating the public, a majority of whom are seeking job security and stability.

(ii) Including contemporary concerns into the narrative to cater to an entirely new audience set: Millennials prefer individual attention over social approval, and tend to seek out a career that matches unique lifestyle expectations2. Instead of a value proposition focused on patriotism, pride, valour, and courage, promotional messaging could be made more relevant by focusing on sustainability, freedom of expression and other hooks of national purpose, beyond security. While it is not recommended to lift and shift campaigns from another culture, a military recruitment campaign from Norway could be a good pointer, which reflects national values and purpose without a single direct reference to military roles and tasks3. Similarly, non-traditional aspirations relevant to the target audience could be integrated within promotional campaigns.

(iii) Infusing fresh language and a wider range of emotions: Moving beyond the use of heavy emotions, messaging could reflect an element of ‘fun-in-adventure’. Fresh college and school graduates, while aspiring to a life of great deeds and sacrifices in uniform, also tend to associate the profession with a life of perpetual seriousness. A training academy video from the USAF is informative in this regard, significant in that it carries risky content, done in a fun and matter-of-fact manner. In contrast to paratroopers breaking into a sweat before a jump, a clip of young trainees jumping off planes without batting an eyelid makes the larger-than-life become achievable4.

The point being made is that we need to sell reality, and provide hooks relevant to the present generation. If the hooks don’t work, it may mean that we are portraying a wrong reality – of the job being all action, loaded with heavy emotions, and markedly different from a nine to five lifestyle.

A detailed assessment of promotional activities and recruitment messaging may also help the Armed Forces reinvent themselves. The successful ‘walk-the-talk’ by the IAF with regards to its ‘women power’ campaign opened up opportunities for an entire demography, and enhanced the credibility of its engagement efforts. This is critical, because no amount of appealing content will sway today’s youth if there exists a marked difference between values exhorted and actions / conduct on ground. It can be safely assumed that every candidate and their parent will scrutinise Armed Forces’ activities carefully. In this context, sustaining the larger narrative will remain critical.

Social engagement, because everyone else is doing it: The Armed Forces’ social media handles have a healthy followership, upwards of a few million in the Indian Army’s case. But a major reason for this is the nation’s latent support for the men in uniform – a well-wisher premium. This number does not reflect the popularity enjoyed by other social media influencers, a main reason being that these handles are not able to establish a unique identity. They largely replicate official content or post commemorative content which is also shared by other social media pages and individuals. In following this process, the Armed Forces fail to appreciate the stark difference in engagement objectives, criteria, audience types, etc. between the official and online engagement mediums, one of which is to constantly hone engagement based on audience ‘feedback’, the ability to hear, interpret and refine engagement.

A social engagement strategy must have clarity about the strategic purpose of engagement, and unique call to action. These could be fundamental perception building queries like – what do citizens think of the Armed Forces?, who are its major supporters / detractors and why?, and, is there a changing trend in the public’s perception of the Armed Forces?, etc. all of which boil down to an important question – how relevant are the Armed Forces to India’s public today? A few thousand likes, shares or mentions are by themselves no indicators of any of these queries.

Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) across India provide a good example of online community engagement, in spite of traditional structural and social handicaps. They too have to work around tightly controlled and centralised communication protocols. Moreover, as a public service dealing with law and order, their relations with society have traditionally bordered on fear, hostility and even anger. From their humour-infused and empathetic interactions, it is clear that an important ‘strategic imperative’ was to mitigate their ‘confrontationist’ dynamic with the public. Their focus on reassurance and their receptivity to inputs from the public has been instrumental in unearthing issues, building confidence and encouraging positive community relations. In addition, by generating objective debates around constructive topics like safety and well-being, they are able to avoid politicising the narrative, weed out extreme opinions, and still generate healthy participation and support from the masses.

Twitter Handle (A)	Account setup date (B)	No. of Tweets (as on 30 Jul 2018) (C)	Followers   (D)	Likes by the page (E) Engagement factor E = C/E
Bengaluru Police	Aug 2012	75,700 (1,066 per month)	1.24 Million (Mn)	12,600 E=6
Mumbai Police	Dec 2015	69,600 2,245 per month)	4.62 Mn	2,236 E=31
Indian Army	Feb 2013	7,555 (113 per month)	5.59 Mn	63 E=120
Indian Air Force	Oct 2016	1,394 (66 per month)	173,000	122 E=11
Indian Navy	Jun 2016	6,335 (253 per month)	99,000	255 E=25
BSF	Mar 2015	2,907 (72 per month)	200,000	1909 E=1.5
CRPF	Jul 2016	5,454 (227 per month)	196,000	7373 E=0.7

 

*The per month figures above do not reflect actuals, but denote an average over the handle’s existence. What distinguishes the Armed Forces /Paramilitary forces from the LEAs in the above graphic are the frequency of their tweets. Since military/paramilitary forces do not have a direct public interface in their daily working, this is understandable. But as public scrutiny increases, and as they begin to earn greater mindshare among the population, their number of interactions (number of tweets, for example) should ideally increase.

*Engagement Factor (E): indicates the handles’ liking of other content (their external engagement on Twitter) relative to their own broadcasts. BSF and CRPF have fewer number of overall tweets, comparable to the Armed Forces, but have substantial followership, which can be partially attributed to their engagement factor of 1.5 and 0.7. Such engagement makes an handle seem opinionated but also accessible. This could be a reason for their relative popularity, compared to the Indian Air Force or the Indian Navy.

As public interface and the public’s mindshare increases with respect to military matters, greater amount of social media interaction focused on sharing relevant content and addressing concerns. Only then can we expect to credibly provide the necessary ‘context’ about military life, roles and operations to an audience that is likely to benefit from better quality awareness and knowledge. The ideal social engagement strategy will straddle the two halves between restraining opinion and sharing profusely, with the ideal balance arrived at by focusing on the larger strategic queries posed above, and refining the strategy periodically. Thus, a healthy civil-military dialogue would require the Armed Forces to take charge of the narrative, in contrast to their present day passive approach.

Surrendering the Narrative: Today, the Armed Forces’ external communication activity is ‘awareness’ oriented. This, however, is not sufficient to change perceptions. With multiple sources and conflicting opinions populating the national discourse, attention spans are getting severely constrained, encouraging snap judgments based not on objectivity, but emotions and sentimental appeal. Managing reputation under this reality requires sustained, constructive engagement, with a built-in ability to respond in near-real time to damaging / defamatory content. Failure to institutionalise this will result in a slow erosion of reputation and brand of the Armed Forces built over centuries and after countless sacrifices.

This is all the more pressing, given that a minority opinion wielding a false counter-point can, even unwittingly bring disrepute to the Armed Forces. A recent example of this includes an op-ed by an Indian US based journalist, on Pakistan’s election outcome. His contention was that for an Imran Khan-like figure to rise politically in India, he won’t be able to rely on the army to help him gain top office, since Indian generals would be busy playing golf, rather than playing politics5. Inserting comments totally irrelevant to the argument and taken out of context is how spoilers claim glory by insinuating organisations which have limited capacity for recourse.

Even veterans of high repute resort to public bashing of the Armed Forces. Lt. Gen. Panag’s media trial about a sub-judice matter involving a serving officer reflects the kind of reputational damage the Armed Forces may have to regularly contend with, even if done unwittingly, or in their ‘best’ interests6.  Rather than treating these as solitary cases, the damage needs to be appreciated from the perspective of a steady loss of confidence among the public, given the numerous misquotes and allegations that form part of a daily commentary. The handicap of not being able to rebut encourages brand-bashing among such activists to the detriment of the Armed Forces. This is also likely to have long-term adverse effect on the serving rank and file who get caught in the cross-fire, and on potential talent who may harbour second thoughts about a career in the Armed Forces.

Controlling damage and restoring public faith would require real-time spotting of such content and a quick rebuttal in a matter of hours. In order to deter such activity, subsequent actions should be followed up expeditiously. A positive fallout of a good image on social media is the possibility of self-enforcing similar standards on ground by serving personnel. There are enough example of ‘unit’ ethos and culture bringing about positive change in personalities, and creating a good social media brand can only add to it.

Meaningful engagement around relevant concerns and narratives can be achieved using three prongs, focused on the official organs of communications/ public relations, serving personnel who can act as eyes and ears, and the columns of passive supporters outside the system who can force-multiply official efforts.

Upgrading the Quality of Our Official Communications: The essence of a successful perception management strategy is accuracy, unambiguity and timely response. To achieve this, the Armed Forces need to modify their PRO-based centralised information control/dissemination structure – by integrating a OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) decision model, employed widely in military planning. This would require a clear chain of command from the PRO down to field formations and include: (1) Facilities for improving situational awareness at each level, (2) A structure and method for sharing of information in real time between elements, and (3) A decision/escalation matrix to respond to unforeseen situations. The model would need to be adequately flexible to ensure quick learning through necessary trainings/tools, to build confidence in the system through positive relationships and transparency, and to enable pro-activeness in response. Success will depend on routine coordination at multiple levels. The basic structure would revolve around PROs and field formations as a hub and spoke model, with ownership over observing and acting (disseminating online or on-ground). It could extend upward to the Chief’s office, for orientation and decision, completing the respective service linkage. Depending on the nature of the issue, it could further link up to the MoD, the Integrated HQs and the other two services. In addition, coordination with agencies like the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) could help craft appropriate responses to sensitive issues within the ambit of international law, potentially enhancing international credibility. Frequency and type of coordination needs to be refined with an aim to keep the lower levels orientated about issues and potential fallouts, while on the other hand enabling them to pass relevant ‘observations’ up the chain in quick time.

The OODA Loop, originally conceptualised by Col John Boyd, USAF (Ret.)

(Source: Patrick Edwin Moran[i])

 

Sensitising Serving Personnel About Their Role and Influence in Brand Building: The BSF jawan video clip of Jan 2017 complaining about the poor quality of food served8 indicates that official information control measures can be conveniently subverted by disgruntled elements, that content about the Armed Forces has a high potential of gaining virality (in this case abetted by adversaries across the border), and that in the confusion leading up to identifying the elements responsible, allied organisations may suffer damage, in this case the Indian Army. Given this reality check, it is recommended that while the PRO remains the hub of the model, all serving personnel need to be included in the larger narrative. While not expecting the individual units to interface with the public (except in case of crises), it is imperative that all should clearly understand the vision of the organisation.The consistency in thought, action and projection across the chain of command adds to the credibility of official communications. A proactive step in this direction would be to designate ‘situational awareness, communication and engagement officers’ at the unit / field level. These can act as the pivot around which the command’s vision and mission is communicated down the chain, in exchange for sharing local sentiment and information with the apex.

A positive outcome of understanding the larger picture may also infuse empathy among people removed from the decision matrix. Rational and consistent interactions on this pattern is likely to positively impact morale and discipline, and possibly deter public outpouring of disgruntled behaviour.

The personnel could be selected from local intelligence formations and could be linked with regional / central PROs. With Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) from social channels providing valuable inputs regarding community sentiment and enhancing situational awareness, this will also partially serve the intelligence mandate of the formations.It is assumed that these individuals would have a base level of understanding about modern communication techniques, mass psychology, and emerging social issues, which could be further honed. This cadre can then be expanded, to include personnel from units, to be trained by these individuals. Aside from linking hierarchies and mapping sentiment on the ground, these units could also be trained to respond to emergent situations proactively, and provide appropriate inputs to higher formations in quick time.

To augment this, the Armed Forces should consider institutionalising perception management training cells at training institutions beginning with junior courses and extending up to higher command curriculum, incrementally covering the tactical, operational and strategic nuances of the topic. A positive fallout of this could be an enhancement of critical thinking among personnel, and a more empathetic view of decision and policies afforded by a bigger picture understanding of the operational context.

Promoting Supporters and Converting Fence-Sitters: An option that can be put into action in quick time would be to cultivate external sources – supporters, veterans and stakeholders – including academics, journalists, etc. who are both interested and knowledgeable on service matters and who have a strong followership on social channels. These individuals can force-multiply the efforts of the Armed Forces by acting as their eyes and ears, while operating in arms-length manner, so as to maintain objectivity and ensure credibility. This may involve imaginative thinking, like the commissioning of ‘unofficial’ handles controlled by official spokespersons, which can permit sharing of a wider range of opinion. The Armed Forces could set up a working group involving such personalities which can meet at regular intervals to enhance collaboration potential. A key deliverable of such a collaboration should be to identify brand damaging content in real-time and create a response strategy within a defined time window, preferably not extending beyond 24 hours from the time the issue first surfaced. Executing such a mandate would require a skilled team under the auspices of the PRO, comprising social media experts, sociologists, and military scholars straddling the middle and senior management of the Armed Forces. It should also have a legal element, to coordinate with neutral bodies like the ICRC, study clauses and precedents, and analyse avenues to craft appropriate responses to all contingencies, within the auspices of international law.

Conclusion

For those equating this ‘capacity enhancement’ proposal with a double-edged sword need to keep in mind the numerous cases of disgruntled individuals and the ready-to-strike capabilities of adversaries who can easily augment these efforts, as was done in the BSF video clip case. Under such onslaught of misinformation, maintaining credibility will be difficult, unless countered in quick time. Other militaries have become wise to this, and are building capacity to mitigate such damage. One among many recent examples of such social media rebuttals came within 12 hours, by a handle supporting Israeli security forces9. The force-multiplier effect is there for all to observe.

While it may be that “the truth does not ever quite catch up with the initial lie if the initial lie is emotional and juicy enough”,10 countering baseless allegations and outright lies should be an important responsibility of militaries, which set the benchmark for national unity and cohesion. The Indian Armed Forces today remain a comfort zone for anyone seeking their support, and a home for anyone who has served in uniform. They stand for respect, order, uniformity, accountability and dedication, which can inspire and motivate society like few other. Appreciating this larger goal, it is high time the Indian Armed Forces took control over their social narrative and reimagined their engagement with the Indian people.

References:

1     https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293605705_Career_Expectations_and_Organizational_ commitment_of_Millennials_in_Indian_IT_industry_-_An_SHRM_perspective

2     http://www-personal.umich.edu/~prestos/Downloads/DC/pdfs/Redman_Sept29_TwengeCampbell2008.pdf

3     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B_TlHJq1-4

4     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUo8REevWQM

5     https://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/what-pakistan-teaches-india-one-or-two-good-decades-is-not-enough-to-guarantee-a-smooth-path-to-development/

6     https://www.newslaundry.com/2018/06/07/panag-major-gogoi-indian-army-transgressions-human-shield

7     https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3904554

8     https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/pak-sites-lapped-up-jawans-video/article18700988.ece

9     https://twitter.com/TheMossadIL/status/1027572117431361537

10           https://www.weeklystandard.com/jenna-lifhits/deepfake-videos-are-a-national-security-threat

 

(Squadron Leader Anshuman Mainkar (Retd.) served with the IAF (2003-14) as a Fighter Pilot and Air Intelligence Officer. A Computer Science graduate from the National Defence Academy, he also holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He heads the Strategic Intelligence, Communications and Engagement team at Reliance Global Corporate Security. He can be reached at @anshumig /anshuman.mainkar@ gmail.com Views expressed are personal.)

(This article is carried in the print edition of September-October 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)

 

The US high power delegation led by the Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, and including the US Army Chief, has just concluded its visit to India. The two countries are moving towards closer cooperation in their efforts for regional and global peace and development. The US lately recognizes that the strongest and the largest democracy in the world should have convergence on approach to many regional and global problems with terrorism at the top of them all.

Strategic importance of relationship between the US and India lies primarily in their political arrangement of democratic governance. While the US is the strongest democracy in the world India is the largest. Both are multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, multi-religious and multi-cultural societies. Together they send a message to the entire world that they are living examples of unity in diversity, something which other countries with diversified social structures can emulate and adapt voluntarily. In a world torn by contradictions and controversies democratic dispensation is the time tested module of accommodating different shades of opinion and approach. Protection and preservation of democracy against the forces of exclusiveness becomes a priority with the two countries.

Security and trade are crucial to development. Both countries have stakes in the security of the region which is catalyst to free flow of trade. Three-fourth of oil requirement of the world passes through the Arabian Gulf and equal size of international trade has to flow through the Straits of Malacca. This speaks loudly for the need of security of the Gulf and India-Pacific regions. Good relations between India and the US are a key to the imperative of security and trade with development as the final destination.

The United States was favourably disposed towards the leadership of Indian freedom movement against colonial power. However, during the cold war era the US found its interests served better by patronizing Pakistan. India pandered to the Soviet bloc. Nevertheless, the US did not fail to understand that despite many odds, India was wedded to democratic governance. Therefore relations never reached a freezing point which reflected maturity of statesmanship on either side. This understanding was reflected in the US offering huge quantity of wheat to India to overcome her grave food shortage during 1950s. The PL- 480 programme is a significant landmark in the history of bilateral relations. India improved its agriculture sector as a result of collaboration with the advanced agricultural expertise of the US. This was part of PL – 480 and later on it became catalyst to what Indians call “Green Revolution” or self-sufficiency in food production.

A marked change appeared in India’s policy towards the US after the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991. Heads of the two governments exchanged friendly visits. India found vast scope for collaboration in many areas of development like strategic security, trade and commerce, science and technology, energy resources etc. But the most significant area was that of civil nuclear cooperation. The civil nuclear initiative has been strengthened by the regular meetings of the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Working Group (CNWG).

Cooperation between two major democracies purports prosperity of people in both countries and the world at large. Modi government’s objective of cooperation with the US is multi-dimensional but regional security and free and fair trade concept is at the centre of this cooperation. At present, the trade side of the U.S.-India partnership is vastly underperforming. Two-way trade in goods and services is about $115 billion. This pales out in comparison with two-way trade between the United States and China, which at about $650 billion is almost six times as large. Modi believes that raising bilateral trade to match the size of Sino-US trade is the key to the success of his doctrine of “Make India”. Here lies the importance of a “free and fair” trade agreement between the two sides that would serve their common interests. A fair and free trade agreement when signed could go a long way in strengthening bilateral relations. However, for the time being the process of finalizing such an agreement remains in suspended animation owing to unjustifiable tariff regulations on either side. Once they clinch an agreement, India could take care of other areas like energy, defense production, anti-terror and the growing influence of China in the region on its own.

Mechanisms like defense and anti-terrorism cooperation; strategic consultation, mutual investment programmers, space civil science cooperation, energy development projection etc. are the instruments that will enhance trade and economic prospect of both countries.

Trump administration’s India policy is a component of US’ South Asia policy overarched by Indo-Pacific strategy. Initially Trump’s strong stand on H-1B, EB-5 visa and immigration caused disquiet to New Delhi. His predecessors were liberal on these matters. Trump’s accusation that India was seeking billions of dollars from advanced countries in exchange for its support for the Paris Climate Change Agreement caused serious concerns in New Delhi. However, Prime Minister Mode’s US visit to the US helped normalize the situation.

Trump-Putin understanding bodes well for New Delhi. It can stop Russia from falling into the embrace of Xi Jinping. It allows India greater room in proposing important projects like the International North-South Trade Corridor.

President Trump’s deviation from the lukewarm policy of the Bush and Obama administration in dealing with terrorism and extremism gives satisfaction to India which is a victim of terrorism. During his visit to India, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had hoped that India would take her rightful place at the global table meaning the Security Council. The two sides have also focused on strengthening cooperation in the Indo-Pacific and respecting freedom of navigation, over-flight and commerce. It is a matter of great relief for India. Revival of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue among the US, India, Japan, South Korea and Australia last year indicates expanded bilateral engagement between New Delhi and Washington. However, accusing India of raising tariff on US imports is the latest irritant in Indo-US relationship. Their representatives are scheduled to meet soon to find a solution to the issue.

In his South Asia policy statement in 2017, President Trump said India was crucial to America’s interests in peace and stability in Asia-Pacific region. Previous administrations in Washington did not seriously think so. Trump administration also recognizes India’s role in stabilizing Afghan peace and economy. In Trump administration’s “Defense, Technology and Trade Initiatives” India occupies a prominent place as the world’s largest democracy and fast developing economy conducive to strengthening of peace in Asian region and the world. Calling ties with India as of utmost importance, US Defense Secretary Mattis said, “Washington would pursue a long term partnership with India to stabilize Asia-Pacific region.”

Trump has not minced words in declaring US’ determination of fighting terrorism to let humanity live in peace. He has made a resolve to take on these enemies of peace with the cooperation of democratic countries in the region. Indian Prime Minister Modi has been emphasizing on world powers to understand the seriousness of terrorist and extremist threat to peace. This shows convergence of policy of fighting the menace of terrorism.

Trump administration will support India’s membership in the Security Council as well as in NSG. The US supports Quad – 4 viz. Japan, Australia, South Korea and India. Thus Trump administration recognizes the strategic importance of India to peace and security of the Indian Ocean.

However, among the irritants in their relationship are the trade imbalance and Trumps’ decision to do away with EB-5. In both cases prospective Indian investors will be affected adversely. However, the two sides will be talking to resolve differences.

Asia-Pacific idea, dating back to 1960s was related to Cold War strategy of the US in the East. The proposition that future world history would be actually the history of Asia made the American think-tanks focus on broad East Asian cooperation in Asian politics and economic growth. However, China’s rapid economic growth enabled her go militarily strong enough to intimidate the South China Sea states and make naval forays into the Indian Ocean. This posed threat to the vital world maritime trade route passing through the Straits of Malacca. The concept of Indo-Pacific was thus born to meet military and commercial challenges in the Pacific region.

The concept was first expressed by the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in his address to the Indian Parliament in 2006. In 2010 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke about “expanding our work with the Indian Navy in the Pacific because we understand how important Indo-Pacific basin is to global trade and commerce.” The rationale for re-cycling the nomenclature is that the region now boasts the world’s three largest economies, seven of its eight fastest growing markets, and seven of the world’s ten largest armies and it is expected to produce more than half of the world’s economic output in the coming years. The reason why the US prefers Indo-Pacific instead of Asia-Pacific is that it acknowledges the historical reality and the current-day reality that South Asia, and in particular India, plays a key role in the Pacific and in East and Southeast Asia. Secondly, it is in the interests of the region, that India plays an increasingly weighty role in the region. India is a nation that is invested in a free and open order. It is a democracy. It is a nation that can bookend and anchor the free and open order in the Indo-Pacific region, and it’s America’s policy to ensure that India does play that role, does become over time a more influential player in the region
(Prof. K.N. Pandita is the former Director of the Centre of Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University, Srinagar.)