The future beckons: Why India must project power abroad

By B Raman Since 1947, India has had four in-house and one inter-ministerial reviews on certain aspects of national security management. The in-house reviews looked into the deficiencies in national security management as noticed during the Sino-Indian war of 1962, the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965, the Mizo uprising of 1966 and the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai. The inter-ministerial review by the Kargil Review Committee (KRC) headed by the late K Subramanyam in 1999 went into the operational deficiencies noticed during the Kargil military conflict in 1999. Of these five reviews, three were totally Pakistan-centric, one (of 1962) was China-centric, and one was terrorism-related. All these reviews were the result of perceptions of failures in national security management which led to specific situations having a detrimental impact on national security. All of them were essentially post-mortems with restricted terms of reference. They did, however, bring about significant modifications or additions to the national security architecture — such as the creation of the Directorate-General of Security after the 1962 war to enhance our capabilities vis-à-vis China, the creation of the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) after the 1965 war with Pakistan and the Mizo uprising, the creation of the  National Security Council and its Secretariat, the Defence Intelligence Agency and the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) after the Kargil conflict, and the National Investigation Agency and the proposed national intelligence grid after the 26/11 terrorist strikes. All the major recommendations that came out of these reviews were implemented – barring one that related to the creation of the Chief of the Defence Staff system; there were reportedly differences among the three wings of the Armed Forces over the need for it. Overall, the reviews did make significant contributions to a revamping of our national security architecture. However, since the previous reviews were triggered by perceptions of specific failures or deficiencies, they focused on identifying the reasons for those failures and deficiencies and making  changes to prevent a repetition of those failures or deficiencies. Need for a forward-looking strategy Since independence, there has never been a comprehensive, proactive strategic review of our national security management system that is forward-looking and all-encompassing — and is not just a panic reaction to past failures. Such a futuristic review has to project over different time-frames the threats to national security that could be expected in the short, medium and long terms, examine whether we have the required capabilities to meet those threats, identify existing deficiencies in capabilities, recommend action to remove them and suggest a time-frame for removing them. [caption id=“attachment_35033” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Under the new context of India’s expected emergence as a major power, national security management will  involve identification of  not only likely threats to our national security, but also likely hindrances to our emergence as a major power. Mukesh Gupta/Reuters”] [/caption] Any futuristic, forward-looking exercise has to go beyond classical or conventional perceptions of national security management and the national security architecture. Its objective should be not only to enable us to anticipate and meet future threats, but also to make a benign projection of our power abroad. Under the new context of India’s expected emergence as a major power of the region and ultimately of the world, national security management will  involve identification of  not only likely threats to our national security in the classical sense, but also likely hindrances to our emergence as a major power and recommending action to prevent or remove those hindrances. The Manmohan Singh government needs to be complimented for setting up a National Task Force headed by Shri Naresh Chandra to make a futuristic review of our national security management system and make recommendations. The Task Force, as constituted, has eminent persons who had occupied senior positions in the armed forces, the intelligence community and the Atomic Energy Commission, and non-governmental experts. Naresh Chandra’s credentials for heading such a futuristic exercise are impeccable. He has served as Home Secretary and Defence Secretary and retired as Cabinet Secretary to the Government of India. He is familiar with the working of the armed forces and the intelligence community. He has also served as Ambassador to the US at a difficult time and is no stranger to the world of big power diplomacy. He serves on the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) – he was its convenor for some time – and is thus familiar with the deficiencies that have crept into the working of our national security management system since the Kargil review of 1999. How useful such a futuristic exercise, being attempted for the first time since 1947, will be depends on the constitution of the Task Force, its terms of reference, its methods of work and concepts, and the co-operation that it is able to get from the serving national security managers of today. Unless one is able to convince the serving officers of today of the need for changes, reforms, new thinking and new concepts and ideas, even the best of Task Forces will fail to meet the objectives for which it was set up. Get the big picture right One hopes that the government has carefully worked out the terms of reference of the Task Force. Its organisation, methods and concepts have to be decided by the Task Force itself; the government should have no role in the matter. The Task Force should devote the first month of its existence to a brain-storming with different sections of our national security management world in order to get its ideas and concepts right before plunging into the nuts and bolts of the exercise. We tend to have excessive fascination with nuts and bolts and an allergy for concepts. The reports of such reviews ultimately turn out to be a plethora of nuts-and-bolts recommendations without a proper conceptual framework that can sustain our national security management system in the coming 10 years, if not longer. We should avoid this in carrying forward this important exercise. B Raman is Additional Secretary (Retired) in the Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India. He is currently Director of the Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai; and Associate of the Chennai Centre for China Studies. Republished with permission from the Chennai Centre for China Studies.