Dragon on Our Doorstep: Managing China Through Military Power
is a vast book covering virtually every aspect of India’s defence
policy, from 1947 to the present. It examines issues as diverse as
China’s grand strategy, the demolition
of Babri Masjid, to building military power and the succession of the
Dalai Lama. But its focus is quite clear, managing India’s real security
problem – the rise of China.
Given the enormous asymmetry that has already developed in the
comprehensive national power of China and India, there is no resolution
that is possible, the issue can only be managed and the authors suggest
that to even begin that process, India must set its defence system
right. This is not, as its name may imply, a hawkish call to arms, but a
sober analysis which argues that military power is an important part of
the mix of any country’s geopolitical perspective. But India has
diluted this ingredient, has suffered the consequences and will continue
to do so till it changes its approach. So, it is critical of those who
speak blithely of a two-front war with China and Pakistan, arguing that
even a one-front war was not an option. What it advocates is an
effective military capacity as a precondition of building durable peace
with Pakistan and China.
This is a provocative book and deliberately so, aimed at shaking Indian complacency. As the editors of Force
magazine, the authors have traveled across the country, visited
numerous facilities and units, and spoken and interacted with a large
number of military officers in key positions. A great deal of this is
evident in the material that has been marshalled in the book, as well as
in the assertions that they make in the book. You may or may not agree
with all of them, but they definitely provoke thought.
Over the years, political leaders, bureaucrats and even military
leaders have begun to work with the assumption that no external force
can dare to attack India, not just because we have nuclear weapons now,
but that we are so big and populous that it would be a foolhardy
enterprise.
They may not have understood the character of defeat. More often than not, it is a state of mind – within two weeks
of the German offensive in 1940, with Paris and most of France still
to be conquered, the French government threw in the towel and accepted
defeat. This was not very different from November 1962, when a broken
Pandit Nehru wrote off Assam and appealed to the US for military
assistance, or the slow defeat of the US in Vietnam between 1968 and
1975.
At the root of India’s problems, the authors write, is the erroneous
belief that a large and well equipped military alone can win wars. Given
the fact that wars are an extension of politics, the one thing that
India has not been able to get is its politicians to understand this.
Not only do politicians tend to shun things military, but they also
systematically exclude the military from higher defence management.
Carl von Clausewitz is well known for his observation that, “war is
nothing by the continuation of policy with other means” – in other
words, without political ends, war is meaningless. And repeatedly, as
the authors show in India’s case, those political ends have not been
clear – the most recent being the 2002 Operation Parakaram. If fighting
must have a political purpose, surely it behoves those who are involved
to closely integrate the political and military means. It is not just a
question of political ends, but the necessity of the political leader
to control every aspect of war – its intensity, its direction and length
etc.
Given this, it is vital for the politicians to have a grasp of
military affairs, or, at least, clearly understand what the military is
all about. Of course, it goes without saying that military leaders, too,
need to understand national policy. So while the politics must always
be in command, the military must be in a position to influence the
leader. But the leader and his political ilk must make it a point to
understand why their country is spending a vast fortune in buying guns,
tanks, maintaining millions of men in arms. They cannot depute this
function to the civilian bureaucracy as they have done till now, to the
detriment of the security of the nation. Only the political leader can
take decisions that may simultaneously span diplomacy, trade, military
operations and politics.
In some ways, for example, the success of the Allies in World War Two
arose from the ability of an arch imperialist (Winston Churchill), a
half democrat (Franklin D. Roosevelt) and a dictator (Stalin) to work
together towards a common goal. They coordinated their diplomatic
strategy, military offensives, military assistance while their
adversaries were an axis only in name, with little coordination and
diplomacy.
India’s official defence budget is now over Rs 3,59,000 crore,
including pensions. If you add the nuclear and space activities it is
even greater. It is vastly more than what we spend for health, social
welfare and infrastructure.
Surely, this would mean that the politicians in-charge would take the
task of purposefully spending this money, managing the men and ensuring
that the country gets the best bang for the buck. But, as we know, this
is far from the case. Indeed, the country’s defence system is seriously
dysfunctional, making it unfit for a major war as became evident when
the challenge came – following the terrorist attack on parliament in
2001 and the Mumbai attack of 2008. By their own reckoning, the
modernisation of the three wings of the armed forces is delayed by at
least a decade. There is no point trying to blame a single minister or
government – the problems are systemic. Efforts have been made by expert
committees and even the standing committee on defence in the parliament
to recommend change, but the government has been firmly proof against
any advice.
Things have not changed much with the Narendra Modi government. The
authors note that the ambitious ‘Act East Think West’ slogan raised by
the government has no place for military power in its planning. In their
view, “thinking strategically and developing an appreciation of
military power are two major shortcomings of India’s foreign policy.”
This foreign policy weakness is compounded by the fact that India
does not have a defence policy either. For the past decade a small group
of strategic specialists have been trying to push the government to
adopt a strategic defence review, duly approved by the cabinet committee
on security, to outline India’s priorities in the area of defence and
provide a coherent narrative as to how it plans to cope with the
challenges. The main aim of this is to ensure that the entire
governmental system is on the same page when it comes to the vital area
of defence. Though documents have been drafted by the National Security
Advisory Board, the governments of the day have not seen it fit to
study, let alone accept or reject them.
This is an impressive piece of work and beyond the actual
recommendations, there is a wealth of information that an interested
reader can gather about the way India’s defence system works (or
doesn’t).
The Wire February 13, 2017
Thursday, April 06, 2017
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