TeaThe public debate on the Army’s politically imperative structural reform for a theater command system got a booster dose when former Army Chief General MM Naravane described The prevailing implementation approach as “putting the cart before the horse” without a national security strategy. This is a smoking gun claim for slow progress of reform and indicates a militaristic approach that lacks political guidance to accomplish the assigned task.
In April 2018, the Ministry of Defense announced the formation of a Standing Defense Planning Committee (DPC). It was to be chaired by the NSA and include the Foreign Secretary, the Defense Secretary, the chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force and the Expenditure Secretary of the Ministry of Finance. The Chief of Integrated Defense Staff (IDS) was to act as the Member Secretary. It had a vast mandate which included ‘analyzing and evaluating all relevant inputs for defense planning’ and drafting the National Security Strategy (NSS). Later, in December 2019, the government approved the creation of the post of CDS and mandated theater command system reform.
As of January 2023, all intentions remain unfulfilled and still a bridge too far.
What to do in the absence of NSS
A question of concern that needs immediate investigation is what should the military leadership do in the absence of the NSS? One has to start by ascertaining what it is that the NSS is expected to provide that will pave the way for decision making with regard to theater commands.
National security doctrine, national security strategy, defense strategy and military strategy are expected to provide guidance at various levels and help to articulate the interests that are to be protected and promoted by the various sectors of the national security architecture. The military role is essentially about the use of force or the creation of threats in pursuit of political objectives derived from national interests.
For military leadership, those interests/concerns are essentially related to establishing control over geographic spaces. The essential place where national sovereignty should prevail shall be related to the boundaries of India which extend to land, sea and air. The Global Commons also contains areas in the maritime, air and space domains where national property is to be protected and mainly relates to trade and communication arteries that are required to be kept free and open.
It should not be difficult for political leaders to point out the necessary places. However, the challenging exercise is to link places based on a politico-strategic imagination about the likely state of relations with countries that are either perceived to pose potential threats or may remain neutral or both in case of a dispute. Can provide support to the parties. It has been clear for quite some time that China and Pakistan are the primary threats in the continental and maritime domains. This used to be a fundamental planning parameter for the military, even when the political leadership harbored notions of China being a non-threat. But for more than a decade, China’s assertive stance and aggressive moves should have left us in doubt from a military planning perspective. The threat from Pakistan has never subsided, terrorist activities are taking center stage. In the absence of the NSS, nothing can stop the military leadership from seeking answers to questions that they feel need to be clarified by the political leadership to move forward on implementing reform.
The creation of a theater command system is an organizational reform that is expected to optimize India’s military resources more efficiently and effectively. Its primary working is based on the belief that the reorganization will provide enhanced co-operation among the three services through integrated functioning and this is the principle basis of the political mandate. Military leaders have signed all mandates. Moving on, the differences are about the structural framework of the theater command system and are in short Which service controls what. The absence of a written and publicized NSS is a shortcoming, but should not be an excuse for the military leadership’s inability to establish a theater command system and pursue it functionally in a transactional spirit.
Read also: Who Should Call the Shots in Theater Command – Air Force, Army, Navy? let the context decide
Bring theater command, first things first
Strategy links available resources with objectives that are distilled from interests. It is an endless process, which has to be adjusted as the need arises with changes in the strategic landscape and involves a continuous dialogue between objectives and resources. It is a product of bilateral or multilateral engagement with various nations with hostile or friendly intentions. Generally, the test of a good strategy is its ability to endure. Important strategic vectors affecting the state of relations between nations are often outside the control of individual nation-states; Strategy as practice is, therefore, a casual edge that cannot be easily overcome by long-term planning and belongs to a realm where people and businessmen in seats of power are subject to constant testing. For the military, what the NSS can facilitate is long-term planning to identify and develop military equipment that is optimally optimized to fulfill its envisaged roles.
The Theater Command System is expected to simplify the use of available military equipment. It may also provide better long-term integrated planning for the construction of military assets, but this is not the primary reason for its construction. Therefore, to say that theater command systems should await the development of the NSS would seem to suffer from a predilection to bring to the fore a second-order element at the expense of the first-order objective – the efficient and effective use of existing military resources. Let’s get the job done, first things first.
It is time for military leaders to realize that their inability to implement an important political mandate is due to intra-service and intra-service disagreements. Since some of them have so far proved inconsistent, the time has come for the political leadership to be told by the CDS that it would be better if the approach is changed and headed by a political leader with a military background and relevant experts be included. would be tasked with developing a theater command system outside the government. Since most of the in-house studies have been completed, group work has been simplified and is now mostly concerned with final decision making.
To persist with the current approach, which expects the three services to resolve differences, is to remain a helpless bystander, oblivious to the organizational undercurrents that animate the professional divide between the three services. A divide that can only be hoped to be bridged through political will.
The Narendra Modi government has shown political will by announcing a commendable military reform. It is clear that the time has come to once again demonstrate the same political will to translate spoken and written words into action.
Lt. Gen. (Dr.) Prakash Menon (Retd.) is the Director of Strategic Studies Programme, Takshashila Institute; Former Military Advisor, National Security Council Secretariat. He tweeted @prakashmenon51. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)