Introduction
Every nation needs a capable military to protect both its sovereignty as well as its economic and other vital interests. A strong military is a deterrent to conflict, and only through the overall ambit of such protection, can a nation peacefully pursue its development agenda. History bears testimony to the fact that great civilisations flourished when they had the protection of a strong army. When military power waned, the state withered away. The invasion of Sindh in 711 CE by Muḥammad bin Qāsim, an Arab military commander of the Umayyad Caliphate is an apt example. After defeating Raja Dahir, the ruler of Sindh, Qasim established for the first time, Muslim rule in a part of India. Other invasions followed over the course of the next thousand years, till the arrival of the British and other western powers. We can never allow that to happen again.
From ancient times, military capability has been a sum total of well trained and equipped soldiers with a sound organisational structure, good fighting doctrines and possessing superior technological capability. The same is true today. As an example, in ancient times, elephants were used to fulfil a variety of military functions. Generally, elephants were used for their routing ability, being able to get rid of enemy soldiers with one sweep, and also in scaring the enemy horse cavalry and for trampling chariots. The shock and awe effect was psychological, a function performed today by tanks and armoured personal carriers, artillery, missiles and fighter aircraft. The advent of the horse provided mobility to the battlefield, which became a lethal weapon system when the riders were equipped with swords or mounted as archers. Battlefield communication was done by visual signalling, flags and runners, who carried messages during the battle. Fundamentally, the principles of war which were true for those days, remain true today. It is the means of warfare which have changed, providing advantage to the side that is mobile, has better battlefield transparency, precision long-range weapon systems, good and secure communications and well equipped and trained soldiers.
Technology and its adaptation has shaped the outcomes of wars since ancient times. But it was only in the nineteenth century that gigantic leaps in technological developments started taking place. The machine gun invented by Hiram Maxim was used in the Boer War and the Spanish American War. The machine gun became notorious for the deadly manner it was used by European powers in their pursuit of colonies. Used extensively in both the World Wars, they machine gun is now a standard weapon in the armies of all nations. Likewise, the British invented the tank during World War I to provide troops with mobile protection and firepower. They were used for the first time in the Battle of Flers-Courcelette on 15 September 1916. Since then, the tank has become a sophisticated and powerful tool of war. The first successful flying machine was invented in 1903 by the Wright Brothers. Today, the widespread use of both fixed and rotary wing aircraft to control the airspace is vital for observation, reconnaissance, air to air combat and for engaging ground and maritime targets. In recent times, the Gulf wars and the US war in Afghanistan has brought home to the world the power which long-range precision weapon systems bring to the battlefield. This, combined with advances made in communication technology, has given rise to what came to be known as the Revolution in Military Affairs. But technology, though a major war-winning factor, cannot by itself win wars. The US, despite its superiority, could not subdue the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Gulf wars too, have still not come to any conclusion. When fighting battles far from one's shores, different geo-political and geo-strategic factors come into play. There is also a need for boots on the ground for successful mission accomplishment. A strong and capable Armed Force is hence a sum of multiple factors, to include political will, speedy decision making, training and morale of troops, sound organisational structures, war fighting doctrines and exploitation of technology. All this must be supported by a strong military industrial complex within the country.
Securing the National Interest
Broadly, the term National Interest (NI) refers to protecting and defending a nation's physical, political and cultural identity. In specific terms, it means, preserving one, the territorial integrity of the state, two, the existing politico-economic structure and three, the nation-states’ cultural ethos and traditions. Post World War I, US President Woodrow Wilson, while formulating US foreign policy, drew upon the work of scholars and philosophers like Sir Alfred Zimmer, Nicholas Murray Butler. The effort was essentially Utopian in concept and was dedicated to promoting a more peaceful world. American foreign policy took on a more realistic hue, post World War II,
Post the Second World War, American foreign policy was driven by a sense of realism, promoted by the work of authors such as Hans J. Morgenthau, Reinhold Niebuhr and others. Morgenthau was a German-American jurist and political scientist, considered one of the "founding fathers" of the realist school in the 20th century, who propagated the role of the nation state in international relations, viewing the same as primarily concerned with the study of power. Niebuhr was a theologian, whose work looked at “Christian Realism, ” laying stress on egoism and the pride and hypocrisy of nations and classes. In India, however, the political leadership formulated foreign policy sans an institutionalised doctrinal approach. Consequently, India’s national security policy-making process too were neither institutionalised, nor was the role of stakeholders incorporated and defined. India's foreign policy formulations remained personality driven and highly individualistic.
In 1995, Shri Jaswant Singh referred to the 'operational directive,' as the document which brought out the threat assessment to India. This was formulated by the three Services, the Ministry of External Affairs, the Home Ministry and the Prime Minister's office and finally approved by the Defence Minister. Jaswant Singh stated that the document required considerable change because of the enormous changes that have taken place in India since 1947. This statement by Shri Jaswant Singh, who has served as India's Defence Minister as well as External Affairs Minister, was telling and indicative. No surprise then, that George Tanham came to the conclusion that India's political elites lacked a strategic mindset. Tanham however, had little understanding of India's civilisational ethos and history. It was ancient India's Sanskrit treatise on statecraft, Kautilya's Arthashastra, which spoke of political science, economic policy and military strategy—a veritable treatise on the science of governance. Similar reference is found in Hindu Scriptures—the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, Hitopadesa, Manu Smriti, Bhagavatam Purana and others. Statecraft finds prominent mention in all of them. India had a strategic culture, which enabled it to be leading nation in the world for millennia. We need to get back to our roots and reclaim our heritage.
Much however has changed since 2014, when the BJP led NDA government was swept to power with an overwhelming majority. The objectives of India’s National Security were clearly defined to include, one, national stability and integrity; two, social, political and economic progress; and three, global peace and stability. India’s national security as an essential component to securitise its national interest must be seen in terms of these larger goals. The Modi led NDA government, when it assumed power in 2014, started the process to achieve this, led by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi. India's foreign policy is consequently now seen to be more bold, proactive, innovative and ambitious—a policy that will not compromise on the nation's integrity and honour. The era of reticence is over. The era of proactive engagement has begun. We now see a greater engagement with India's diaspora, renewed emphasis on building relations in the neighbourhood, cooperation in the field of counter terrorism, renewed economic vigour and emphasis on physical and cultural connectivity.
Countering Chinese Belligerence
The India-China relationship remains strained, the unresolved border issue being the major irritant. China refuses to recognise the legal status of the McMahon Line and consequently, besides being in illegal occupation of the Aksai Chin plateau in Ladakh, China now also lays claim to India's Arunachal Pradesh. Within Tibet, China has concentrated on upgrading infrastructure which has a distinct military bias, enhancing Chinese military capability and in the process, posing an exponential military threat to India.
Chinese transgressions across the undemarcated Line of Actual Control (LAC) have been a constant feature for many decades. Since 2014 however, such transgressions are being responded to with an element of firmness which was not displayed earlier. For example, in 2017, when the Chinese PLA transgressed in Doklam, a tri-junction between Bhutan, India and China, India responded with a matching response. The stand off continued for 70 days, during which time the Chinese state-controlled media as well as spokespersons of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) resorted to issuing statements threatening India. Indiai however refused to budge and Chinese PLA personnel finally had to move back. The clash in Galwan in June 2020 was the first incident which led to a loss of lives on both sides. The face-off continues till date, with both India and China enhancing the force levels in the area. Once again, China tried to intimidate India, but received a firm response, displaying the strength of India's political and military leadership. India also took, for the first time, certain economic measures against China, banning over 320 Chinese apps over security considerations as well as taking action on other fronts.
As a part of its overall effort to counter China across the Himalayas, a huge push has been given to infrastructure development, both in Arunachal Pradesh and in Ladakh. Key infrastructure development projects includes the construction of roads, tunnels, bridges and airfields. One of these projects is the strategically important 300 km long Nimmu-Padum-Darcha road between Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh. This is an all weather road nearing completion and will provide all year connectivity to Ladakh as also an alternate axis to the Leh-Manali Highway. On the Manali-Leh axis, the Rohtang Pass lying on the eastern end of the Pir Panel range, connects the Kulu Valley with the Lahaul and Spiti Valleys. This remains closed for about four months in a year due to heavy snowfall in winter. Now, a 9 km long tunnel has been constructed under the Rohtang Pass, to provide year-long connectivity to the region. This tunnel, named the Atal Tunnel was inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi on 3 October 2020. Many such projects are coming up all across the border to provide strategic mobility to the military throughout the year. The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) which is responsible for these projects was allotted Rs 3500 crore for FY 2022-23 - a record increase of 40 percent over the Rs 2500 crore allowed in FY 2021-22. This is a reaffirmation of the Modi Government's resolve to focus on border development to enable speedy mobilisation of the Armed Forces to strategically important sectors, further bolstering the security environment.
India's space capability will also play a major role in countering Chinese actions. In the event of hostilities breaking out with China, the key to victory for either side will lie in information dominance, battlefield transparency and air superiority. Inter alia, both sides will leverage space to get that edge. Space is thus, the final frontier. The criticality for India will lie in monitoring in real time, Chinese troop movement, build up of artillery and logistic nodes, command and control centres, missile bases and aerial assets. This would require continuous satellite coverage over the Tibetan plateau, for which India would need adequate satellites of its own or leveraging information from satellites of friendly partner countries. Towards that end, India's space capabilities are also being enhanced to take on any threat.
The Pakistan Factor
Pakistan has been hostile to India since independence. Ideological and other differences have led to four wars with India. Pakistan continues to support terrorist activity within India, using terrorism as an in instrument of its foreign policy. The interests of both Beijing and Islamabad converge when it comes to dealing with New Delhi and for long, Beijing has been using Pakistan to contain India. Besides cross border terrorism, it is the nuclear, missile and military hardware nexus between China and Pakistan that is of concern to India. India is thus geographically placed between two hostile neighbours, both of whom are nuclear armed, which imposes its own security dynamic on India.
At the economic level, the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is a part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), connects China’s Xinjiang province to Gwadar in Balochistan, Pakistan. CPEC consists of two major projects. One, the development of Gwadar port and the other a construction of a road, rail, pipeline and optical fibre corridor, between Gwadar and Xinjiang province. China has invested more than USD 55 billion in infrastructure development and energy sector but the CPEC continues to face many hurdles in terms of financial constraints and security concerns due to a host of internal security problems within Pakistan. Since 1948, the Baloch people have been engaged in freedom struggle which the Pakistani establishment has not been able to suppress. While Baloch freedom fighters target Pakistan's security forces, they also consider Chinese workers in Pakistan as legitimate targets. The TTP (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan), an umbrella group of a number of militant organisations based on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border also pose a serious security threat to Pakistan. They seek Islamic law in the country and pose a threat to the Pakistan military as well as to the CPEC. As the CPEC lies along militant infested area, there are huge costs involved in protecting the same. In the prevailing circumstances, it is unlikely to be operational in the near to mid term. India opposes the CPEC as it passes through Gilgit-Baltistan, which is illegally occupied by Pakistan.
India's response to Pakistan backed terror activity in India was reactive for many years. This changed under the Modi government, with the government calling out the Pakistan nuclear bluff and carrying out a surgical strike on 29 September 2016 against terrorist bases across the Line of Control and then again, in an air strike which destroyed a base of a terrorist organisation, Jaish-e-Mohammad, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, once again calling out the Pakistani nuclear bluff. The messaging in both these attacks was important. It conveyed the will of the Indian State to protect its security interests by hitting out at targets far from its shores. The abrogation of the Special Status given to J&K by Article 370 and 35 A on 5 August 2019 has further reduced Pakistan's ability to support terrorist operations in India, though such support still continues, albeit on a far lower scale than hither to fore.
India's assertive policy in taking on the threat from Pakistan supported cross-border terrorism, has led to a reduction in levels of violence in J&K, though much work still remains to be done for total normalcy to return. Pressure at the political, diplomatic and military level being applied against Pakistan is yielding results, but would require to be vigorously continued with till such time as Pakistan abandons its policy of using terrorism as an instrument of state policy and hands back to India, the territory that it has illegally acquired. India's focus therefore, over the next decade, must be on recovering lost territories through political, diplomatic and if necessary, military means.
The Indian Ocean Region
India's location in the Indian Ocean gives it great importance as a maritime power. While India’s focus since indolence has been based on its land borders, due to the necessity of dealing with two hostile neighbours, the focus now is increasingly on exploiting India's maritime resources. India's neighbourhood first policy has seen a distinct push towards improving relations with West Asia to secure energy supplies and to support the Indian diaspora working in these regions and with South East Asia to expand trade through the Act East policy. This marks a shift from a more militarised continental approach towards an economically focussed strategy for the region.
Prime Minister Modi enunciated his vision for the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) when he spoke of SAGAR, an acronym for Security And Growth for All in the Region. Further, he defined India's area of interest as stretching from the East Coast of Africa to the West coast of the USA, marking the Indo-Pacific as a new domain in India’s foreign policy engagements, thus marking a shift in New Delhi’s strategic environment. Now, besides a focus on its continental borders, India is looking increasingly at its maritime space.
India's emphasis in the IOR is focussed on trade and freedom of navigation. As trade is an important component of India's economic growth, India's interests lie in keeping the sea lanes of communication, safe and secure. This would be the challenge for India in the coming years. Chinese belligerence in the South China Sea and the increasing presence of the PLA Navy (PLAN) in the IOR poses challenges to India and would require further strengthening of India's naval capability. India would need to look into indigenous manufacture of another aircraft carrier, as well as strengthening its submarine fleet. The Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) grouping of India, Australia, Japan and the United States has seen a tremendous fillip over the last few years with annual summit level meetings and periodic meeting between the defence and foreign ministers of the respective countries. The Quad as of now is an informal strategic grouping, which works for a free, open, prosperous and inclusive Indo-Pacific region. The coming years is likely to see the Quad expanding to what can be termed as the 'Quad plus', to counter possible Chinese aggressive moves. It would also see a deepening of economic, diplomatic and military ties amongst the member countries.
Enhancing Military Power
A major initiative to enhance India's military power is a focus on indigenisation, through the 'Atma Nirbhar Bharat' push in defence production capability. India has been one of the world's largest importers of weapons and this is now set to change with emphasis being laid on restricting imports and on Make in India. Two defence Corridors have come up-one in Tamil Nadu and the other in Uttar Pradesh. Investments of Rs 20,000 crore have been envisaged in these corridors by the year 2024 by public as well private sector companies. When fully functional, these will facilitate production of indigenous military hardware, making India a major defence manufacturing hub in the world.
The role of the public sector in defence production has also been streamlined. The erstwhile Ordnance Factory Board has been dissolved and in its place, seven new Defence Public Sector Undertakings have been carved out. This would provide much need accountability in the system, enhance speedy decision making and lead to greater user satisfaction in terms of timely delivery of weapons and equipment with appropriate quality control.
Another important initiative has been in providing a greater role to the private sector in defence production. This is significant as earlier, the Defence Industry sector was reserved for the public sector. A slew of measures taken over the last few years is the revision of DPP-2016. This has been revised to Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP)- 2020, which is driven by the tenets of Defence Reforms announced as part of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’. In the Capital Acquisition Budget, the major share now goes for domestic capital procurement. In addition, in order to promote indigenous design and development of defence equipment ‘Buy {Indian-IDDM (Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured)}’ category has been accorded top most priority for procurement of capital equipment. We now also have a positive indigenisation list, for which there will be an embargo on the import beyond the timeline indicated against them. This would offer a great opportunity to the Indian defence industry to manufacture these items using their own design and development capabilities to meet the requirements of the Armed Forces in the coming years.
The ‘Make’ Procedure of capital procurement has also been simplified. There is a provision for funding up to 70% of development cost by the Government to Indian industry under Make-I category. In addition, there are specific reservations for MSMEs under the ‘Make’ procedure. Procedure for ‘Make-II’ category (Industry funded), introduced in DPP 2016 to encourage indigenous development and manufacture of defence equipment has number of industry friendly provisions such as relaxation of eligibility criterion, minimal documentation, provision for considering proposals suggested by industry/individual etc. FDI in Defence Sector has been enhanced up to 74% through the Automatic Route for companies seeking new defence industrial license and up to 100% by Government Route wherever it is likely to result in access to modern technology or for other reasons to be recorded.
Another major initiative is opening up the defence sector for exports. This is a marked shift from earlier policies which were reticent on this front. Prime Minister Modi has set up a target of achieving USD 5 billion in defence exports by 2025, which most likely will be surpassed. India has started export of the Brahmos missile to Philippines with the BrahMos Aerospace Chairman Atul D Rane stating that they are hopeful of more such orders and that the BrahMos Aerospace will by itself be able to achieve the target set by the Prime Minister. With India now manufacturing its own Aircraft Carrier, indigenous Tejas fighter jets and helicopters, artillery pieces and a host of other advanced weapon systems, the field of exports appears bright. More importantly, this will help make India's defence industrial base more robust, decrease dependence on imports, provide jobs for the Indian work force, give a fillip to the economy and lead to India becoming Atma Nirbhar in defence capability.
In terms of organisational structures, the creation of the post of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) was a much needed reform. Announced by PM Modi on 15 August 2019, Gen Bipin Rawat was later appointed as India's first CDS on 1 January 2020. The CDS acts as the Principal Military Adviser to the Defence Minister on tri-Service matters. He is a member of the Defence Acquisition Council and Defence Planning Committee, and also heads all specialised triservice divisions, special operations, cyber and space commands.
Another important reform has taken place in the recruitment of soldiers, the scheme of which was announced by the Ministry of Defence. Called Agnipath, it envisages the enrolment of selected candidates in the Armed Forces for a period of four years, after which these soldiers will go back to civil society as disciplined, dynamic, motivated and skilled work force, with 25 percent being retained in the Service. The aim is to maintain a youthful profile of the Armed Forces and to attract young talent from society to effectively exploit, adopt and use modern technologies. This is still a work in being and is likely to be tweaked as more experience is gained in its implementation.
Conclusion
There is a greater focus now in addressing India's security concerns. This is being addressed through multiple initiatives being taken both in the realm of foreign policy as well as in defence sector reforms. The focus over the next decade will be on holistic management of India's security for which the driving force will be political and military leadership, supported by a strong defence industrial base.
