Delaying National Security Strategy can be perilous

Maj Gen Ashok K Mehta (Retd)

Military Commentator

FORMER Jammu and Kashmir Governor NN Vohra is passionate about national security and defence. He brought then CDS Gen Bipin Rawat to speak at the India International Centre (IIC), New Delhi, in September 2021. India’s National Security Challenges, a book edited by Vohra, was released last month. He has made a suggestion for creating a separate national security service to support the National Security Council secretariat, which is finally drafting the National Security Strategy (NSS). A strategic imperative before drafting the NSS is to conduct a national defence and security review, from which must flow the NSS and the National Defence Strategy.

The book was previewed at the IIC, with former NSA Shivshankar Menon being the keynote speaker and former Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran moderating the event. Profoundly revealing was the fact that an NSS was prepared and was ready for a launch thrice earlier but was aborted by the political leadership. All three security gurus said the NSS document never saw the light of day because politicians feared accountability. Listening to them, I wondered why they could not persuade the political leadership to release the NSS document, which was vital for the instrumentalities of higher defence management. I also wondered why our service chiefs, who grope in the dark for strategic guidance and parameters and derive these from Prime Ministerial speeches at Commanders’ conferences, had not sought the same from the Defence Minister and the Prime Minister. They are content with drafting “their own guidelines” and operational missions. The Defence Minister’s operational directive was prepared by the Army’s Military Operations Directorate, but later the Integrated Defence Staff took over its responsibility. One operational directive was issued to service chiefs in 2009 and another was prepared in 2019, but probably not issued — such is the hesitation on the part of the Defence Minister and his team.

In this era of wars, it is extremely hazardous to postpone the preparation of an NSS document, especially for a country that aspires to sit at the high table. Nurturing the fourth largest standing military in the world without strategic political guidance is fraught with risks and miscalculations. The current year has witnessed three wars: the Russia-Ukraine war (which is 21 months old now), Azerbaijan’s attack on Armenia and Israel’s Gaza retaliation. High-intensity and prolonged wars of attrition have witnessed the deployment of high technology, elite weapons and air power, missiles and drones, especially targeting populated areas.

Menon advised that for starters, the government could release a White Paper in lieu of the NSS. Many countries have done that, but it must be followed with a national security policy document. All democracies without exception have the NSS or the NSD. Pakistan released the National Security Policy 2022-26 and China produces one periodically. With President Xi Jinping as Commander-in-Chief, China undertook its biggest defence reforms process of restructuring and theaterisation. The news that NSC Secretariat under NSA Ajit Doval is to start writing the NSS is really no big deal as three previous drafts can serve as its framework.

Credible reports suggest that theaterisation has gone back to the drawing board, pending the completion of the NSS. Other issues hampering its evolution have reappeared, like geographical and operational limits of theatres, their number, the ranks of theatre commanders and the diminished role of service chiefs. Civilian bureaucrats see an increase in four-star-rank officers as a threat to their de facto control of the military. An Army Commander told me six months ago that PM Modi would announce the formation of theatre commands on August 15; this did not happen, apparently because of lack of consensus among the services. Another Army Commander has confided that nothing will happen on theaterisation till after the 2024 elections even if the NSS is ready.

Consensus is a highly misused and misinterpreted word, just like strategic partnership. With numerous countries, India has strategic partnerships prefixed or suffixed by a variety of adjectives. India had wanted the CDS for years, blaming its absence on inter-service rivalry or lack of consensus. Eventually, the ruling BJP took a political decision without any consensus. In the US, the UK and Australia, to name a few, the CDS’s appointment was made by the political executive and not by consensus.

Menon noted that absolute security was unattainable. He said the external situation had worsened in the past decade and a half. Deterrence has broken down on the LAC due to a political and military standoff with China. The reforms process begun by Gen Rawat is incomplete; the MEA and the MoD are working in silos; and the Agnipath scheme will adversely affect relations with Nepal. Wrapping up, Saran said it was clear that the national security process lacked political guidance; he cited the confusion that prevailed following the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. He added that once the NSS was released, work on framing a national nuclear strategy must also start. He said the National Security Advisory Board had produced a 40-page national nuclear strategy in 2015. India’s nuclear security policy, framed in 2004, was updated after Pakistan’s induction of tactical nuclear weapons following India’s Cold Start doctrine, which, in turn, triggered a debate on reviewing India’s No First Use policy. There is no closure on that.

The political leadership has become deft at dodging responsibility, invariably relying on the military to shoulder it, as we witnessed prominently during the launch of the Agnipath scheme, which is the government’s way of reducing the salary and pension bill in the guise of bequeathing to the nation a more youthful armed force and ploughing back ‘unre-enlisted’ Agniveers into society as disciplined members. This great deception will have serious consequences for military manpower and the NSS.

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.

#Jammu #Kashmir