The UPA has not even attempted to reform the national security system

Last week I wrote, perhaps a shade effusively, about the achievements of the Manmohan Singh government — the performance of the economy under its watch, the legislation it has passed and so on. On security issues, however, the comments were more by way of negative achievements — that no event like Gujarat or Kargil had marred its record.
Unlike in other fields, the government has little to show by way of positive achievement in the area of defence and security. In the last four years the country has not faced any major threat to its security. This was even more reason why the government could have taken the opportunity to reform and restructure the defence and security apparatus of the country. But that has not happened and in the main we must blame the political leadership for this. As the experience of the National Democratic Alliance revealed, so huge is the task that it can only have been done by the political class. The United Progressive Alliance government inherited a positive impulse in this area in the form of decisions taken by the NDA based on the recommendations of a Group of Ministers which looked into the issues of defence management of the country. The recommendations of the GOM were well thought out and reflected a system-wide consensus.

Integration
But the UPA government has not just dithered, they have simply ignored any effort towards reform. The key area in which they were to have taken a decision was that of a Chief of Defence Staff who would be the chief military adviser to the government, along with the Defence Secretary who would be the senior-most civilian adviser. The CDS would have channeled all defence purchases to ensure there was no unnecessary duplication of effort. More important, his appointment would have initiated the process of integrating the three wings of the armed forces into a single fighting unit. This is crucial because the technological imperatives of the revolution in military affairs are already upon us. The RMA, based on new technologies of situational awareness and precision strike, cannot be effectively exploited unless the services fight as an integrated unit.
In the hands of the UPA, the GOM has become an instrument of blocking or evading decisions. The one major opportunity that the UPA had for defence reform related to the Defence Research and Development Organisation, but that was wasted by having a review committee headed by a former scientist of the organisation itself and some other former defence officials. In other words, the opportunity to make a decisive break from the organisation’s unfortunate history has been wasted.

Intelligence
It is not as though that the services have been starved of funds and equipment. Things may work slowly, but the Indian armed forces are being equipped with the best money can buy and the UPA government has not stinted on this score. The charge against it, however, is that it has not bothered to monitor how and why the money is being spent. The government has paid little attention to the larger issues of restructuring and reforming the services. The steady attrition of the army’s officer corps, with the best officers putting in their papers, and fewer signing up, is not a consequence of their pay alone. The problem is of a wider loss of esprit de corps of the force, manifested by instances of corruption and moral turpitude.
Other reforms pertained to the intelligence services. Most of the recommendations of the task force led by former Research & Analysis Wing Chief G.C.(Gary) Saxena were classified, but it is known that they called for extensive reform of the system. The 244-page paper given to the GOM was prepared by, among others, current National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan, former Foreign Secretary K. Raghunath and former R&AW official B. Raman.
It called for the creation of a new integrated Defence Intelligence Agency, a new agency called the National Technical Research Office which would own all the high tech assets of the intelligence services, and new data handling and inter-agency coordination systems. But in the four years of the UPA implementation of the recommendations have been fitful. They have been actively sabotaged by bureaucratic vested interests and undermined by inter-agency wrangling. The country’s ability to tackle the mutating terrorist threats is seriously in doubt, notwithstanding the hype about the recent SIMI captures. The key failure arises from the very fountainhead of the system — the National Security Council and its support bodies which were supposed to supervise this change. The NSC rarely meets and its support bodies are left to carry on routine tasks. Key decisions such as empowering the NTRO have not taken place. Neither have steps to ensure meaningful coordination among the MEA, IB, R&AW, the DIA and the state police intelligence services.
The primary reason for the failure in both the defence and security fields has been political. With the passing of J.N.(Mani) Dixit, the government lost whatever impulse it may have had to reform any part of the system. Former Intelligence Bureau chief Narayanan who succeeded him has been unable to overcome the limits of his own background and has been content to allow things to drift. But it is not his fault. He is by background a bureaucrat, accustomed to managing the system as it is. The onus for change lies with the political authorities. Unfortunately, this is where the problem lies. The Prime Minister, his other senior ministers and the chairman of the United Progressive Alliance are good people concerned about aam admi, social justice and India’s image abroad. Like Jawaharlal Nehru, they are not temperamentally inclined to bother about issues relating to security, especially since a threat does not appear to be imminent. The two key ministries dealing with security and defence have had very poor leadership. The less said about Mr. Shivraj Patil, the better. But equally both Mr. Pranab Mukherjee and Mr. A.K. Antony have proved to be failures in handling the defence ministry.

Guidance
The NSC system had been set up not to deal with the problems of today, but to anticipate those of tomorrow and initiate policy measures to counter them. In these circumstances, the past four years would have been a good time to push for restructuring the armed forces and the intelligence services. In these years, a new future has already come upon us. The Maoist threat does not have the capability of overthrowing our system, though it is exercising its ability to debilitate the country enormously. But all that the UPA has done is to acknowledge that there is a problem, not solve it. Terrorism has struck new and different roots in the country, expanding into urban centres in the South. For years there was an assumption that the situation in Tibet was stabilising and that the Indian agreements with China would lead to a border settlement. But recent events have belied that. The Tibetan rebellion and the Chinese response indicate that the region could remain a flashpoint in Sino-Indian relations for some time. The Maoist sweep in Nepal elections has introduced another area of uncertainty in our northern and unprotected border.
In the past decade or so, the Chinese have built up a formidable logistical capability in Tibet, including a railroad. In addition, the People’s Liberation Army has been completely modernised and restructured. Their Indian counterparts have not wanted for money or equipment, but they have not had the political guidance or leadership to take the steps needed to meet the challenges of tomorrow.
This article appeared in Mail Today April 16, 2008

Our politicians are good at splurging public funds

This article was written on the eve of the Union Budget for 2008-09. Its focus was not the expected Rs 60,000 crores giveaway in the form of the loan waiver, but the expenditure of nearly Rs 150,000 crores for defence and security without any effort to monitor the expenditure, or propose economies which would make our forces more effective, if smaller in size.

The budget documents have already been sealed and are ready to be tabled in Parliament. So a plea for a hard look at our humongous security budget would make little difference. It could have provided some perspective in the budget debate, but that is if and when the Lok Sabha begins to actually debate budgets, rather than rubber-stamp them. So this is really for the public record.

The coming budget will see the annual outlay for defence breaching the Rs 100,000 crore barrier for the first time. This only covers the three wings of the armed forces and not the central police forces, intelligence services and the defence-related components of the departments of nuclear energy and space. Neither does it factor in the rising pension bill which amounted to Rs 14,600 crores last year. If all these were to be totaled up, the expenditure on security would be nearer to Rs 150,000 crores. For all this, are we getting the best bang for the buck — the short answer is, no. Our military may be the envy of the region, but the security threats within — the continuing insurgencies in the east, the growth of Maoism, and terrorism — make us appear hollow.

Waste

The defence budget is the largest single departmental item in the Union budget, exceeded only by the Rs 150,000 crores paid as interest payments on internal and external debt. Yet it does not get the kind of scrutiny that other components get. With an economist Prime Minister and Finance Minister, the civilian side of the demands get a thorough political screening. But on the defence side, the system is that the services make their demands, civilians from the generalist bureaucracy make sure that the i's are dotted and the t's crossed, and pass them on to the politicians.

Being entirely devoid of any expertise or help, the politicians in the Cabinet use the simple arithmetical formula — so much for plan expenditure, so much left over for interest payments on loans, add to this the sums for fertiliser and other subsidies, and the balance is kept for defence. This should cover the normal rise in pay and allowances of the forces, maintenance of existing assets and provide for some modernisation. Expenditure on education, rural development, environment, health and family welfare come, in the main, from plan expenditure, and in any case totaled some Rs 86,000 crores in the past year.

Given the huge claim on resources by a hungry, illiterate and unemployed population, such an approach is scandalous. But there it is. Instead of scrutinising the expenditure and directing economies, Members of Parliament not only rubber-stamp the demands, but often demand additional spending.

Till 2000, the political system made little or no effort to overhaul the system. Then, the Vajpayee government constituted a Group of Ministers to suggest a set of reforms for the national security system. In May 2001, the Cabinet approved all 24 recommendations of the GoM, but it deferred appointing the Chief of Defence Staff, pending consultations with various political parties.

Five years later we have not moved an inch. An integrated staff organisation has been created, but it remains headless because ill-informed considerations have persuaded the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government not to press ahead. The result is, that the person who would become the chief military adviser of the government, and coordinate the far reaching reform on equipping and managing our defence system, remains to be appointed.

In 1952, the government of the day arbitrarily decreed that the defence forces headquarters would become an “attached office” of the Ministry of Defence. The manual of office procedures decrees that while “departments” like the MoD could make policy, their “attached offices” merely implemented it. Since then, all policy is made by the Ministry, though the factual position is that they never take major decisions without consulting with the armed forces, not because they think this is a good thing, but because they lack the technical expertise to make them.

Reform

The decision at the time reflected a fear in the minds of the civilian leaders, including Pandit Nehru, of the armed forces. Remarkably enough, two years ago, a top functionary of the government told me that the reason why the CDS idea would not fly with the UPA was because Sonia Gandhi felt that it could encourage a “coup”. The dynasty's view, no doubt shaped by bureaucrats and intelligence officers who themselves hold vast unaccountable powers, clearly trumps all reason and the 60 years of disciplined service the armed forces have given to the country.

The current system of individual services is not only inefficient, but it adds needless costs and creates security gaps. The Army and Air Force maintain two separate infrastructure for training, spares support, repair and overhaul of their helicopter fleets. As Air Marshal Brijesh Jayal has pointed out in Vayu, one of the reasons why the Kargil incursion was not discovered was that the Army was using hand-held cameras for tactical reconnaissance from helicopters, an improvisation that could not work because of the high vibration levels in a chopper. They did not think of calling on the Air Force to do the job with the help of their sophisticated photo and thermal imaging equipment. But perhaps even if they had done so, the Air Force may have demurred with this or that excuse.

Because the government cannot decide on a CDS, which would, over time, lead to integrated commands, India is blessed with 18 or so regional commands of the three services; most are not co-located. The Army's eastern command is in Kolkata, the Navy's at Vizag and the Air Force’s is at Shillong. The huge savings that could come with half the number of command establishments are manifest. So are the efficiencies that would come with fusing the three wings of the armed forces into one integrated force.

If the government does not want a CDS, they must decide on an alternative system to coordinate and arbitrate between the demands of the three services.Obviously the person or the institution must have the requisite expertise. That is why the CDS was seen as a tri-service institution where the single-service identity of the officers would slowly meld into one. New communications technologies have brought a revolution in military affairs. But to take advantage of the revolution, you need new structures and organisations.

Incomprehension

So when the defence budget comes up on Friday and then is allegedly debated by our Parliament, there will be little effort at scrutiny or a pause for some introspection. There will be no suggestions at saving a couple of thousand crores from the huge security expenditure to meet urgent needs in the field of public health or infrastructure. Since no one has thought it through, for example, the very serious implications— political and financial— of the missile defence system that the DRDO is touting, a couple of hundred crores will be given to them to go ahead. Similar sums will be dished out to this or that scheme without any thought. The primary issue is not cost; after all a country will willingly pay what it must to secure itself. It is the efficacy, or to be precise the lack of it, of the way the present system functions.

In the absence of any political audit, our technology czars and bureaucrats will squander ever larger sums of money without check. So we will have missiles that don’t work, tanks and aircraft that are unlikely to see war, or at least the kind that requires tanks and fighters. Nothing in the performance of the UPA government, or its ministers associated with security, suggests that they are capable of understanding these issues, let alone acting on them.

This article appeared in Mail Today February 27, 2008