Aiming for a military power working in unison

Air Marshal Brijesh Jayal (retd) 
Former Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, South Western Air Command

Observing that the scope and nature of warfare were changing, in view of which the military power will have to work in unison, and to address changes that experts have long been advocating, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently announced his government’s decision to create the post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). 

 A recall of recent history will, perhaps, indicate why I believe that the PM’s call for ‘military power working in unison’, whilst laudable, is unlikely to be achieved merely by the addition of the CDS post. The Kargil Review Committee (KRC) had highlighted various shortcomings in the security system, recommending a complete review. In pursuance, a GoM (Group of Ministers) formed four task forces, of which the one on Management of Defence was led by Arun Singh, former Union Minister of State for Defence and a keen student of military affairs. Recommendations of these task forces were reviewed by the GoM, whose report was released in 2001. 

The core weaknesses in our higher defence management system are in two areas. One, linkage between the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the services’ headquarters and the other, of jointmanship and integration amongst the services. These are central to where in governance the nation wishes to place its armed forces and what authority it is willing to endow upon them, apart from the traditional gun-fodder role for which there are no competitors any way. 

In respect of the former, the KRC had noted: “India is perhaps the only major democracy where the armed forces' headquarters are outside the apex governmental structure. The chiefs of staff have assumed the role of operational commanders of their respective forces rather than chiefs of staff to the Prime Minister and Defence Minister.” 

Both the KRC and the Arun Singh task force had, hence, recommended the integration of services’ HQ with the MoD. The GoM, however, did not favour this approach where both civil and uniformed personnel could work side by side, contributing to jointness in policy formulation. Instead, it suggested a cosmetic change of nomenclature of service headquarters from ‘attached offices’ to ‘integrated headquarters’.  

Further, by emphasising that there will be no dilution in the role of the defence secretary as the principal defence adviser to the defence minister on all policy matters, the GoM ensured that genuine integration within the MoD remained a mirage. Ironically, the KRC’s caution that “political, bureaucratic, military and intelligence establishments appear to have developed a vested interest in the status quo” had prevailed.

No justification had then been put forth to indicate why physically integrating the services’ HQ with the MoD was not considered viable, a model that works perfectly well in Western democracies. One can only guess that the political executive preferred to deal with the uniformed fraternity through a bureaucratic cushion and the civil bureaucracy feared dilution in its authority by working alongside the uniformed. A sad commentary on our governance mindset in an age of 'revolution in military affairs' where, as the PM observed, “both the scope and nature of warfare were changing.”

On jointmanship and integration within the services, the CDS, as proposed by the GoM, was to be the principal military adviser to the defence minister, provide single-point military advice to the government and  exercise administrative control, as distinct from operational military control, over the strategic forces. 

Further, he was expected to promote efficiency in planning, budget and equipment prioritisation and so on without in any way being accountable for the impact of his decisions on the operational potential of the services. This dichotomy stemmed from the fact that operations would have continued to remain the responsibility of the respective service. With one more layer of bureaucracy being added, albeit in uniform, not all were enthusiastic. 

There is a recent view that since an integrated HQ now already exists, all that is needed is a CDS to head this. This shows a superficial understanding of jointmanship in the complex arena of individual service ethos, training and war-fighting. 

In the US, where also lack of jointmanship was acutely felt, the concept of joint chief of staff had to be mandated through the Goldwater-Nicholas Act in 1986. Mindful of single-service ethos challenges, the Act also formalised the concept of professional military education (PME) and mandated the strengthening of focus on joint matters in courses of instruction offered by PME schools and the maintenance of rigorous standards for the education of joint specialty officers. It is pertinent that for an officer to be posted in the JCS in the US, he/she must have undergone some of these PME courses. 

The concepts of integrating services’ headquarters with the MoD and designating a chief of defence staff along with its associated joint staff cannot be considered mutually exclusive. Indeed, together they constitute national military power. In a model generally followed by other democracies and in keeping with the principle of designating authority with associated accountability, the chiefs, as part of the MoD, are expected to concentrate on managing their service with regard to budgeting, future planning, recruitment, training, operational readiness, while shedding the actual operations to the CDS who can then focus on joint fighting and operational prioritisation. By shying away from the concept of integrating the services’ headquarters with the MoD and focusing merely on the CDS, we do no justice to the PM’s vision of military power working in unison. It is this mindset that has cost the nation a model of higher defence management that best suits our national security needs.

Now that the PM has flagged a vision for military power working in unison, he may consider the setting up of a Blue Ribbon Panel to look at the entire issue of civil-military relations and arrive at an organisational and higher defence management model that can best achieve this vision, in keeping with the national ethos and genius. This can form the basis of a blueprint for a potential National Defence Act for the nation and Parliament to debate and adopt.