http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/fortify-defence-framework-to-combat-threats/29687.html
NATIONAL SECURITY FORUM
Part-1
PART-1
http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/bipartisan-national-security-policy-is-vital/28794.html
Excerpts from the presentations at the Roundtable on National Security, Key Challenges Ahead, organised by The Tribune National Security Forum in collaboration with the Indian Council of World Affairs
In the obtaining global security environment, our country’s foremost concern is to protect and safeguard our territorial integrity and ensure the safety and security of all our citizens. Sustained development and progress are possible only if there is peace and normalcy within the realm.
We are a large country, with land boundaries of over 15,000 km, maritime frontiers of over 7,500 km, open skies all around and multiple threats from various quarters. I shall reflect briefly on certain aspects of internal security.
The maintenance of national security faces serious challenges on many fronts, among which are:
Considering the serious security challenges faced by the country, it is urgently necessary that we must have a reliable security management apparatus which safeguards all important arenas of activity which would, inter alia, include food security, water security, economic security, energy security, science and technology security, environmental security and so on.
It is relevant to note that in the management of matters relating to internal and external security, a rather clear line has developed in the past decades. Thus, the Ministry of Defence is responsible for the defence of India and the Ministry of Home Affairs is responsible for internal security. And then there are a number of central agencies like the Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing, Joint Intelligence Centre, and several other institutions which provide important information and support to the Home and Defence Ministries and other authorities involved in security management at the central level.
One Approach to Security
In the years past, the Centre-State relations in the arena of security management have been largely based on periodic consultations. Such arrangements are inadequate in the obtaining security environment in which terrorists strike at will, with total surprise and lightning speed. If our response has to be prompt and effective, there is no scope whatsoever for any time being lost in consultations. On the contrary, it is of vital importance that we lose no more time in building the capacity to prevent, pre-empt and, whenever a situation arises, to effectively respond without any loss of time.
And this leads me to the next question — do we have a national policy and a supporting security management apparatus which can deliver an immediate response to a sudden terrorist strike anywhere in the country? The answer is that, so far, we do not have a cohesive National Security Policy which is fully agreed to between the Centre and the States. We also do not have a countrywide logistical framework, manned by thorough professionals, which has the capacity of speedily responding to any arising emergency.
After the Centre has finalised a bipartisan National Security Policy, in agreement with the States, it would be essential to lose no time in critically reviewing the efficacy of the extant security management apparatus, whether run by the Centre or the States, and to particularly assess the training, experience and professionalism of the personnel who are operating the system.
In the past years, the States have generally taken the position that the Centre must not do anything which interferes with their constitutional jurisdiction to maintain public order within their realms. In taking such a posture, the States have erred in failing to recognise the crucial difference between dealing with law and order situations within their territories and the pan-India management of serious security threats. The States have perhaps also not recognised that terrorists are no respecters of territorial boundaries. As the attacks on Parliament and in Mumbai have shown, a terrorist strike anywhere in the country is an attack on the unity and integrity of India.
It also needs to be noted that varied serious problems relate to the functioning of the State police forces which, for want of resources and prolonged neglect, suffer from significant professional and logistical inadequacies and are, therefore, not invariably capable of effectively handling the more serious internal disturbances which may arise in the States. As experience in the past more than half a century has shown, whenever a serious disorder is arising in any part of the country, the affected State promptly seeks help from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. And the latter has been traditionally responding by deploying Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) to assist the States in dealing with arising insurgencies. It is relevant to also note that whenever situations have arisen which cannot be handled by the CAPF, the Centre has been invariably deploying the Army in aid of the civil authority.
It is a matter for concern that whenever a serious disorder is emerging in any State, the Union Home Ministry has hardly ever been in a position to question the State government concerned about the root causes of the problem and why these were neglected to allow a serious situation to develop. Another worrying aspect is that, as has been seen in the North–East region, Army deployments for extended periods have invariably led to complaints about human rights violations and other serious problems.
This brings me to the next question: What is the Centre’s role and responsibility in regard to the management of internal security which is now inextricably intermeshed with external security? The Constitution prescribes that it is duty of the Union to protect every State against external aggression and internal disturbance. Thus, there is no doubt about the Centre’s constitutional obligation to ensure that internal security is effectively managed in the States. However, in actual practice, the Centre-State relations in the arena of internal security management have been largely defined by “requests” and “persuasions” to elicit the “cooperation” of the States. The pursuit of a persuasive approach has led to many avoidable failures, particularly as cooperative arrangements do not invariably enable prompt and effective handling of security situations.
Engaging, involving States
The Centre is constitutionally empowered to issue directives to the States to take preventive action in regard to arising situations. Instead, the Union Home Ministry has traditionally resorted to merely sending “advisories” to the States about likely developments on the security front. This approach has not invariably proved effective.
To arrive at reliable Central–State understanding in the arena of security management, it is extremely important to establish the requisite mutual trust and reliability. In this context, the Government of India may do well to reconsider whether the central security apparatus should continue to be run only by its own cadres. Instead, for progressively establishing the desired levels of mutual trust, it may be beneficial to follow a joint Central-State management approach which will, over time, eradicate the strong doubts and suspicions which are recurringly voiced by the States.
The Inter-State Council, which is headed by the Prime Minister, is a very good forum for arriving at the required Centre-State understanding in the arena of national security management. Another approach could be to also set up Empowered Committees comprising Home Ministers of States to deal with various complex security management issues, e.g. the powers and jurisdiction of the National Investigation Agency (NIA). I refer to the NIA as despite the fact that issues relating to this agency have been endlessly debated in the past years, it still does not have even the powers enjoyed by the CBI viz powers of search, seizure, deputing its functionaries abroad for investigations, etc. Debates about the structure and functioning of the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) have also been continuing for the past over a decade now. Such important matters could be quickly resolved by involving the States in meaningful discussions. After 9/11, the joint-management approach has worked extremely well in the USA where Joint Terrorism Task Forces have been working effectively from the highest federal level to the municipal levels in the States of America. I would reiterate the vital importance of ensuring that our National Security Policy must be founded in very strong Centre-State understanding.
Besides time-bound steps being taken to finalise the National Security Policy and establishing a cohesive security management apparatus all over the country, it is necessary to also critically review the professional worthiness of those who will man and run the machinery. The traditional approach, even in filling top posts in the Home and Defence Ministries, has been to appoint the best available officer, notwithstanding that such a functionary may not have had any past experience at all of working in the security administration arena. The result of such an ad-hoc approach has been that officials of varied different backgrounds with no past experience get deployed in the various security administration departments and agencies. Needless to say, the best among such randomly picked up officers, with no past training and limited tenures, cannot deal meaningfully with the growingly complex security related issues which our country faces.
Security Management
In 2000, I was asked to chair a Task Force to examine issues relating to internal security. In the report, one of my recommendations was to draw from all the services, in the Centre and the States, including the armed forces, and establish a dedicated cadre whose members would undergo relevant training before being deployed in the arena of national security administration. Consequently, an officer of this specialised cadre may spend his entire career working in the Home or Defence Ministries or in any other security management organisation. After extensive consideration by a Group of Ministers, chaired by the then Deputy Prime Minister, this recommendation was accepted. The fact that this decision has not been implemented in the past 14 years reflects the importance which is devoted to security management in our country.
I recommend that no further time should be lost in setting up a National Security Administrative Service and firm Centre-State understanding arrived at for members of this cadre to be deployed for manning the nationwide security management apparatus.
There are many other concerns about National Security Management. I shall very briefly comment on a few issues.
Criminal cases, even those which relate to the most heinous offences, take years to be concluded and, furthermore, only a small percentage result in convictions and deterrent punishments because of the prolonged delays and serious deficiencies in the investigative, prosecution and trial procedures. As reported, several million criminal cases continue to be pending all over the country, every year. It is also a matter for serious concern that, progressively, corruption has firmly enveloped the cutting edge of the judicial system. And an inefficient and corrupt judicial system cannot be expected to timely punish offenders to generate the kind of deterrence which is essential for effective National Security Management.
Another arena of serious concern relates to the continuing failure of the States to implement vital police reforms.
Regrettably, police forces in many States of the country are still being run on the basis of the 1861 Police Act! Needless to say, if national security is to be effectively managed, the States must seriously discharge their constitutional responsibility and maintain adequately trained, equipped and highly professional civil and armed police forces in adequate strength. Also, the management of the police organisations must be totally free from political interference of any kind.
Corruption erodes the very foundations of the rule of law and the Constitution and cuts at the roots of National Security Management. The common man’s loss of faith and trust in the functioning of the governmental apparatus generates anger, disgust, helplessness and, finally, a species of despair which leads to alienation and adoption of the gun culture.
Corruption also leads to the subversion of the governance apparatus. Many years ago, in 1993, I chaired a committee whose report, later referred to as the Criminal Nexus Report or the Vohra Committee Report, had concluded that the nexus between corrupt politicians, dishonest public servants and the mafia networks was subverting the constitutional framework and displacing the duly established authority in several parts of India. Over two decades have since elapsed and, undoubtedly, the criminal nexus has enlarged its network and become far stronger.
I would conclude by stressing that there is no more time to be lost. We must establish a clearly bipartisan approach urgently to:
These are excerpts of the Special Address delivered by NN Vohra at The Tribune-ICWA Roundtable on National Security. The J&K Governor spoke extempore
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Security, Development are Inter-Related
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Part-2
http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/security-development-are-inter-related/29215.html
Suresh Prabhu, Union Minister for Railways
National security means different things to different people and at different times, it will change. Whenever you feel insecure, obviously as a nation that is an issue of national concern and should be addressed as a national security issue. We have been dealing with a large number of issues which we think are supposed to be addressed as national security issues, like protecting our borders, making sure that the internal law and order is maintained, peace is established. But all these have been there for long. One point that is very important is the issue related to security and development.
It is an established fact that you cannot have development unless you are secure. Nobody is going to come and make investments in a country, not even our own citizens, in a place that is not secure. For a long time we were thinking that for development we need resources and, therefore, development and defence did not go hand in hand because there was a time traditionally when the defence expenditure was one of the very large items on the expenditure side of the budget. If you look at it, over a period of time, that's changed considerably. Now, in fact, defence is not as significant an item as it used to be once. It may be still there in large numbers, but if you go by the percentage, there are far more important items of expenditure which are occupying a permanent place in the Union Budget than defence. For example, interest has now become a far bigger liability of the Government of India and for the states.
So, if you really talk about development, if you really want to bring in a transformation and, therefore, want to make us a very strong and vibrant country and a society, then we must identify issues which will spread development. To do that, we must find out not defence items or defence expenditure alone, but so many other items which are eating into the possible investment in defence. Then we come to a large number of issues which are also directly related to security. One of them is energy.
If India continues to import energy of a kind that you are importing today, how could we ever claim that we are secure? Obviously, there will be an argument that we need to protect our maritime routes because that is the supply chain from where our energy resources are imported into India. Therefore, we need a strong Navy to protect our supply lines, to begin with. Maritime security is in any case, irrespective of whether we are importing or not importing, very important. In fact, our neighbourhood is not just in the SAARC countries; we have a much wider neighbourhood if you consider our maritime boundaries.
But do we definitely need to import the kind of energy that we are importing? Today, the argument may be slightly blunted because the oil prices have come down dramatically, but you know, like blood pressure, it could go down or go up again and therefore this is a time to strategise and not to gloss over it. Energy is a very important component of national security of any country and that again has implications in terms of how we actually plan our finances.
The second issue that is important is food security. Today, we are far, far better. We cannot imagine a situation when we talk about the 1960s, now that we are exporting rather than importing foodgrains. It happened thanks to the Green Revolution. But its home state is now seriously threatened. Why it is threatened is because of water, too much use of water. Punjab’s the largest irrigated state in the country definitely, but also largest in the irrigated part of the world. There we have used so much of water that now the salinity and therefore the groundwater being used for growing rice is actually eating into a lot of our natural resources. So, the question is, if you want food security, could we get it without thinking of the concept of soil security? Are we thinking about soil security in all seriousness that it deserves?
Then to the land. There is enough land even in Rajasthan and Gujarat in the desert; can you grow anything there? We cannot, because there is no top soil. The top soil is rich in fertility and is threatened because of the type of cropping pattern we are adopting today. That in turn will affect our food security. When we do not have food security, we need more Navy to protect supply lines to bring in food. Therefore, we must think about issues going beyond and traversing the traditional security pattern in terms of the Army, in terms of police, in terms of national security architecture, in terms of creating new institutions. All this is important, but there are certain basic policy issues that we need to create which will decide the impact of our domestic policies, which will impact some of the sectors, which will then create new demands for the security architecture of the country.
We need to look at why as a society we are not so cohesive. Therefore, we really need to revisit some of the issues of additional security establishment and the security community. We must bring in a sense of patriotism in our citizens. If all children feel strongly for the country, that is what will really keep us guarded against the threat that we always encounter. Education, the path of military training that we must provide and the path of civic sense we must inculcate in the minds of the people. Therefore, it is something which must start now. “Catch them young” is the slogan which should be used and, therefore, we should try to really create an edifice.
First, have a strong foundation, then the edifice will be stronger. National security is a far, far important issue. I think now nobody needs to really invest a large amount of money in military hardware. Because we can have all the military hardware operated by the electronic system. I just talked about energy, but that is something which is in terms of our resources. The cost, the amount of money that we have to use for electronic hardware imports will be probably far more than exports if you do not take corrective steps immediately.
If there are 900 million phone users in India, how many of these phones are imported? So does it make sense that we actually are creating a market for the products to support other economies and not make something of that in India. If you continue to do that, it will lead to an adverse balance of payment; once you have an adverse balance of payment, you have an adverse current account situation.
What we need in India first of all is a strategic-threat assessment institution. An institution which will actually assess that in the next 10 years, 15 years’timeframe, what strategic place India is going to have. I really do not know whether we have such an institution which really looks into that. We need a service, but that itself may not be able to create the type of talent that we require. It has to be something which must go beyond them, we must tell the large number of people who are working in the city, even in the private sector, in many other sectors, who could probably contribute to this assessment about the threats that India is going to face in the next few years. Once we assess those threats, then probably you can come back and then find out the type of response mechanism that we need to assess those threats.
But if you do not assess all the time whether the structure is commensurate with the type of threat that we are going to encounter, not today or tomorrow but in the next several years’time, then what will we do? So, we really need an institution like this. Yes, states are extremely critical in working in any area, whether it is development or whether it is security. Though under the Constitution, foreign policy and defence are exclusive domains of the Central government.
We often forget the fact that Bangladesh is India's neighbour, but not Delhi's neighbour. Bangladesh is West Bengal's neighbour. Nepal is definitively India's neighbour, but also a neighbour of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and therefore, what is important is, we should not forget the fact that the states are as important; they actually really deal with the situation on a day-to-day basis. Rajasthan will always have a problem of security if there is a problem in Pakistan. Punjab will have problems, so therefore states' role in foreign policy and security issues is far more. We really need to engage with them. The states also must know, as we cede some powers from the Central government to the states on these issues, that they too need to think about ceding some of their authority on the issue of maintaining national security.
States must also be able to work with the Central government in a way that there could be one single authority to deal with national security issues, and any state government should not feel that how can you come to my district and talk without my permission, because the district is also of India's. Therefore, we should really try to find out how we can work together in this particular way. I think that would really help.
For Part-1, click here
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Kanwal Sibal, Former Foreign Secretary
Jan 14, 2015
Excerpts from the presentations at the Roundtable on National Security Key Challenges Ahead organised by The Tribune National Security Forum in collaboration with the Indian Council of World Affairs See also www.tribuneindia.com
To be able to deal with threats, we have to first identify them. Historically, the threat to us has been from the west. Today, Pakistan has become the embodiment of that threat. We had no historical threat from the north, but now China embodies it. The eastern part of the country remains disturbed, with local insurgencies there having some external connections even now.
Southwards, seaborne threats are rising. The 1993 Mumbai attack and the subsequent 26/11 attack were staged from the sea, opening a new area of vulnerability. As our Home Minister has pointed out, while our major ports are well secured, there are over 200 minor ports and 1,500 landing points which still appear vulnerable.
Further south, with the Chinese presence growing in the Indian Ocean area, we have to increasingly contend with a new threat to our security. India is, therefore, uniquely challenged as the threats are from all directions. India's territorial integrity is threatened. Two countries claim Indian territory: Pakistan and China. No other example exists of unsettled borders involving a country of India's size in an environment of conflict and competition.
Both Pakistan and China collaborate with each other against India, presenting us with a two-front situation. Both countries do not accept the territorial status quo, which alone could be the basis of eventual compromises. But Pakistan wants a part of Kashmir and China, at the minimum, wants Tawang. China has neutralised us strategically in South Asia by transferring nuclear and missile technologies to Pakistan. Consequently, despite acquiring nuclear capability, India has not been able to deter sufficiently territorial and other pressures from China and Pakistan.
Under cover of its nuclear capability, Pakistan uses the instrument of terror against us. As is the case with its nuclear capability that Pakistan is constantly augmenting without any serious countervailing action from the West despite its nonproliferation phobias, the Western powers have been remarkably tolerant of Pakistan's terrorist affiliations too. This is a problem for us.
The argument that putting pressure on an ailing state like Pakistan will push it towards failure, raising the danger of its nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of extremists, is unconvincing when the US and EU are willing to impose punishing sanctions on a major nuclear power like Russia and seek its economic collapse.
India has not found an adequate answer to the terrorist menace from Pakistan as the option of serious punitive action carries great risks. In our neighbourhood, the Taliban remains a disruptive force and ideology. The future of Afghanistan is uncertain, with the planned withdrawal of US/NATO forces as well as the pursuit of Pakistan's strategic ambitions there.
The rise of ISIL potentially adds to the menace of religious extremism that India faces. The question is whether this ideology will creep ever closer to India. We do not know how many Indians have joined ISIL. It is difficult to assess how many in India are vulnerable to this ideology. We cannot overlook the connection between this threat and extremist Muslim groups in India, which points to the need to properly manage our internal communal situation.
China is undermining our security in the south through its thrust in the Indian Ocean directed at Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Its submarines docked at Colombo very recently, signifying an increasing Chinese naval presence near our shores. China has repackaged its so-called String-of-Pearls strategy as the maritime silk route project. In the north, the economic belts it is promoting are intended to link other countries in the region economically to China, assisting the flow of Chinese goods.
China will thus become the centre to which the periphery is tied. It has vastly improved its military infrastructure in Tibet. We are feeling the pressure of this through its periodic intrusions into our territory. While additional border mechanisms to maintain peace and tranquility on the border are being agreed to by both sides, ironically, the military dispositions of both in the border regions are being simultaneously expanded. China wants to keep us under pressure on the border and not lose this leverage by resolving the border issue. It does not even want to clarify the Line of Actual Control so that it can have a free hand to engage in power play with us as needed. It is undermining our influence in our neighbouring countries, whether Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and even Bhutan. To counter us even more effectively in our own region, it is now seeking membership of SAARC.
We have neglected our defences and failed to develop indigenous defence manufacturing capacities. We cannot be really secure if we remain import-dependent, or be a big power without some autonomy in defence manufacturing. We need to accelerate our strategic programmes to better ensure our security, as the military gap between India and China is growing. We need to consider whether to partially revise our nuclear doctrine in view of Pakistan's decision to introduce tactical nuclear weapons in the region.
Our borders are porous, especially with Nepal and Bangladesh. Both countries have been used by Pakistani agencies against our security. We need to control these borders better, but how to do it without destroying the “special relationship” with Nepal? How to integrate Bangladesh increasingly with our economy and simultaneously tighten border movement?
Cyber security has become a major concern. How do we protect our critical infrastructure against cyber attacks? Chinese companies have entered our telecom and power sectors in a big way. We are now inviting them into our railway sector. How do we manage the cyber threat even as we seek more Chinese involvement in the economy?
The social media has become the instrument of many kinds of threats to our security, especially terrorism and incitement of social conflict from outside our borders. How we monitor the social media without infringing on privacy and freedom of expression is a challenge.
China has acquired formidable economic power that is now translating itself into political influence and military strength. We should, however, not engage in an arms race with China. Our focus should be to build our defence capacities as rapidly as possible. The ‘Make-in-India’ policy, increasing the ceiling of FDI in the defence sector and opening it to the private sector are steps in the right direction.
We have to develop our sea-based deterrent rapidly. We have to preserve our strategic autonomy but enhance politico-military cooperation with the US, Japan, Australia and Vietnam to the extent that serves our interests and does not disturb the overall balance of our policies. The platforms for engaging China should be preserved but other platforms and relationships that hedge against China's aggressive behaviour should not be spurned. India has not been able to take advantage of the situation to build our defence capabilities against China when the latter has remained under a western arms embargo, but arms from those sources have been available to us. Russia had earlier become more reticent about arms sales to China, but is now releasing advanced arms to it, including the S-400 air defence system. Russia is also preparing to sell attack helicopters to Pakistan in a bid to pressure us to obtain more defence contracts.
Despite concerns about overdependence on Russia, it is strategically important for us to maintain a stable defence relationship with Russia, as it remains the source of defence equipment and technologies not easily available elsewhere. Our strategic autonomy, and hence our security, requires strong ties with Russia, which is currently under huge pressure from the West, reminiscent of Cold War years.
The assumption that we have no option but to have a dialogue with Pakistan, and that without good relations with our neighbours we cannot act on the world stage credibly has to be revised. Our neighbours need us more than we need them. Because our biggest problem with Pakistan is terrorism, we should insist on a link between dialogue and terrorism. Our threats from Pakistan will not be diminished by making concessions to it. We should not hold any discussion with Pakistan on Siachen. Opening up of LoC links in Kashmir and encouraging the idea of a united Kashmir is dangerous to our security as we do not fully control the ground situation inside Kashmir, especially its orientation away from Sufi Islam.
We should raise the issue of Chinese presence in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir more forcefully and not miss any occasion to protest at China-Pakistan agreements pertaining to that territory, just as China does with regard to Arunachal Pradesh. We have to be tougher with Sri Lanka on the issue of China’s naval vessels docking in its ports, and about its advocacy of China, even within SAARC. We should also be more forthright with Nepal and the Maldives on this count.
Ties with Gulf, East
We should maintain a balance between our relations with the Gulf states and Iran, even though we have greater financial, trade, manpower and energy interests with the former. The Gulf states are the source of destabilising extremist ideologies that threaten us. The Al-Qaida has announced a new outfit for targeting South Asia. The Look-East policy strengthens our security in various ways by giving us an enhanced role in developing an Asian security architecture and countering Chinese north-south connectivities with the east-west connectivities that we are promoting. This policy has now been upgraded to ‘Act East’, which essentially means better implementation of our initiatives and policies.
Building a stronger relationship with Japan is important as it contributes to our security. A strong relationship with Israel serves our security interests, but it should be balanced with attention to the Arab world to maintain a degree of balance. The relationship with the US should be strengthened as much as possible but without any illusion that the US will get involved on our side in India-Pakistan or India-China differences. Good relations with the US, however, open diplomatic space for us in all directions. These relations should not be threat-linked, but interest-linked.
For Part-1, click here
For Part -2, click here
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Well-being of People Essential for Security
Get Serious about Defence Manufacturing
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Part-4
Jan 15, 2015
SECTION - ONE
http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/india-s-security-apparatus-far-from-satisfactory/30037.html
Satish Chandra Former Deputy National Security Adviser
The concept of national security is often defined in excessively narrow terms and taken to simply connote the preservation of territorial integrity and sovereignty of the state. Accordingly, the safeguarding of national security is felt to be largely dependent upon the state's military capabilities, the efficacy of its internal security system and its ability to forge effective diplomatic alliances designed to keep foes in check.
Such a limited construct of national security is clearly inadequate. It neither takes into account the innumerable additional factors impinging on national security, nor the new challenges of the 21st century such as globalisation, climate change, terrorism, cyber crime, proliferation, pandemics, etc.
Indeed, in a paper entitled “Redefining Security”, Richard H Ullman compellingly argues that defining national security primarily in military terms is dangerous as it causes states to “concentrate on military threats and ignore other, perhaps even more harmful, dangers. Thus, it reduces their total security”. A good example of the dangers of overly focusing on military muscle, at the cost of other aspects of nation building, is the breakup of the Soviet Union, which can, in part, be attributed to its huge defence spending during the Cold War. An even better example, closer home, is Pakistan’s single-minded focus on its military, to the neglect of other sectors of national life with obvious disastrous consequences.
One of the important additional factors critical to the preservation of national security is economic strength. This is essential not only for maintaining the coercive institutions of the state, but also the basic infrastructure such as roads, railways, telecommunications, energy and industrial systems, which constitute their backbone. It also enables the state to enhance its influence abroad.
Another critical component of a country’s national security is the well-being of its people. Taken in its broadest sense, well-being constitutes a powerful and effective vaccine against disaffection as well as a propellant for development and economic growth. Such well-being not only demands the availability of all basic economic requirements of life for the common man, but also that of good education, healthcare and employment in an environment conducive to the liberty of thought and expression, with the state ensuring the rule of law and good governance.
Clearly, national security — in our complex and interdependent world — must necessarily be viewed in a holistic and an all-encompassing manner. It requires the preservation of the independence, integrity and sovereignty of the state against external and internal adversaries; promotion of economic growth with equity, ensuring food, energy and water security, besides human development with particular emphasis on education, health, housing and sanitation; creation of a knowledge-based society with a focus on science and technology; deft management of multifaceted challenges like terrorism, proliferation and climate change, which are a feature of globalisation; provision of good governance, where the rule of law and the efficient delivery of services is assured in a non-discriminatory fashion; and effective institutional mechanisms to manage national security. In short, there is no facet of national life that does not impinge on national security.
Underperformance in any area of national life inevitably impinges adversely on national security.
Such a holistic view of national security recognises that the determinant of security is not just the coercive elements in a state’s armoury, but its comprehensive national power. The latter is a composite of capabilities in many areas such as coercive institutions, science and technology, economy, manpower (both in terms of size and quality), infrastructure, governance, leadership, etc.
National security index
In order to assess how well-secured a nation is, as compared to its peers, it is necessary to develop a national security index that evaluates its comprehensive national power. In fact, such an exercise was undertaken in a preliminary fashion by the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) in 2001. The factors included for the assessment of comprehensive national power are size and intrinsic resources, human capital, scientific and technological capabilities, economic strength, military power and leadership quality. The results are not particularly flattering to India. It ranks 23rd among 30 countries. The top five countries are the US, Australia, China, Canada and Japan.
The holistic nature of national security demands that appropriate structures are in place for its oversight and for providing direction. Such structures were created in India in 1999 by way of the National Security Council system, comprising the National Security Council and other appropriate adjuncts by way of the National Security Adviser, NSCS, National Security Advisory Board and Strategic Policy Group.
It is unfortunate that though all adjuncts of the NSC, in particular the NSCS, exist solely for enhancing India's national security, and, indeed, dream, think and breathe security, the nation's performance in this area remains far from satisfactory. This may be attributed to apex-level lack of sensitivity to security, both in the political class and bureaucracy. This is reflected in the non-implementation of many recommendations contained in the Group of Ministers’ report on “Reforming the National Security System” that had been accepted by the Cabinet Committee of Security in May 2001, and the more recent recommendations on security-related issues by the Naresh Chandra Committee in 2012. It is also borne out by the fact that the NSCS — far from having been nurtured and strengthened as it was in the first few years of its existence — was allowed to atrophy inter alia through the introduction of multiple chains of command and a hiving off of some functions, resulting in severe staff depletion and loss in efficacy. Clearly, if we are serious about making India secure, the NSC system must be reinvigorated because it alone is specifically mandated to think holistically about national security and is equipped to provide across-the-board oversight in this regard.
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http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/get-serious-about-defence-manufacturing-at-home/30050.html
SECTION - TWO of PART-4
Amitabh Kant Union Industry Secretary
Excerpts from the presentations at the Roundtable on National Security Key Challenges Ahead organised by The Tribune National Security Forum in collaboration with the Indian Council of World Affairs See also www.tribuneindia.com
India can never be a secure nation till it does not grow at rapid rates of 9-10 per cent per annum, year after year, for the next three decades to be able to create jobs for its very young population. India has grown at this rate for a relatively short period, but it needs to do this for three decades. Manufacturing is a crucial issue and compels a very strong component of our GDP. Today, it is stagnant at around 16 per cent. It must go up to 25 per cent.
Other than manufacturing is how we manage our process of urbanisation; because in the next four decades, we are going to see 70 crore people move from rural areas to urban. Every minute, 30 Indians are moving away from rural areas. How we manage this in a planned, sustainable manner will be extremely critical for India. But when we touch on the aspect of defence manufacturing, we need to know that India is the world's largest importer of defence equipment. We import 70 per cent of our defence equipment. In the next several years, we will be importing close to $140 billion worth of equipment. In addition, we will be importing about $110 billion worth of homeland security equipment. These are the key challenges.
This government, after coming to power, has taken a series of measures to encourage domestic manufacturing in defence, one of which is key in terms of deregulating almost 55 per cent of the items on the defence category list. These have been removed and one can now go and manufacture after taking approval from the RBI. The challenges of deregulation and de-licensing have been undertaken by the government. Secondly, it has allowed the FDI to go up from 26 to 49 per cent; you can go up further to 100 per cent under certain conditions. One of the most critical things was that the earlier government had restricted it and said we will not allow FII to come in at all. And, therefore, a number of projects were held up because every single manufacturer across the world always has some FII component. This government has allowed it through the automatic route; in defence, you can go up to 24 per cent. In fact, in the last three to four months, we have cleared almost close to 44 applications where no licence may be required. We have also cleared 21 applications held up for various reasons. So, there is a huge amount of buoyancy as far as manufacturing within India is concerned.
Manufacturing Constraints
A number of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) from abroad are looking at manufacturing in India, but having said that, there are several constraints in defence manufacturing for various reasons, one of which is simply the lack of preparedness within our Defence Ministry and the armed forces headquarters. The Government of India has adopted the “Make-in-India” programme, which is similar to what in the US is called the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) programme. What this programme envisages is that you will handle the private sector manufacturer, you will support him with research and development, you will do integrated planning, you will do intellectual property development within India. Over the last six-seven years, only two major programmes have been rolled out under this. One is the Future Infant Combat Vehicle, and the second is the Tactical Communication System.
In both these programmes, you need integrated project management teams to handle the private sector and both programmes have suffered high costs and gestation delays because of the constant changes in the integrated project management teams, people with inadequate knowledge, and lack of continuity. If you keep changing every two-three years, when you need six-seven years to develop the project, you will never be able to make defence equipment in India. Hence, first and foremost, you need integrated project management teams that are going to be there for the life of the projects. Short-term project management teams, ad-hoc changes, lack of knowledgeable people won’t do. You need men of the highest vision, with the highest technology skills, men of great capabilities to steer these projects through their life cycle.
Secondly, India should roll out about 30 more projects, not two, which is what it has done in the last five-six years. India needs to burst out of the long-term integrated project plans prepared by the armed forces. You need to look at what is the plan for 2012 through 2027, pick out 30 to 35 big-term ideas, put long-term perspective planning around it and see that these get manufactured in India. This requires a big vision, big perspective, big canvas, and unless that is done, defence manufacturing will be very difficult to do in India.
We need to prepare feasibility reports by the integrated defence staff headquarters; you need projects, concepts that are already identified, and you need to really push them hard. It is very important to pick up these projects and monitor them in a time-bound manner.
Resources for R&D
The third point is that defence procurement is essentially monopolistic and oligopolistic in nature and so you need to put in a lot of resources in R&D. You need to amortise that cost over a long period of time. You need a life cycle cost of technologies, you need to evaluate them over a long period of time and you need very specialised agencies to evaluate these projects.
If you want to become a great defence manufacturer, you need to give the private sector an equal footing, you need to produce not for India alone, but for global markets, and that can only be done by your private sector. You need to handle them, you need to really enhance partnership with the private sector and that the Defence Production Ministry is incapable of doing at the moment. Therefore, you need to create an agency that will strengthen and give the private sector an equal footing.
The US has a defence cost audit accountancy agency, which has 14,000 persons, all of whom sit in the offices of the OEMs. All the big military industrial complexes that you have seen emerging are all based on a cost-plus mechanism. It is not based on L1, so let us just forget L1. It is a very compact cost audit accounting system based on a plus-plus model and the Defence Ministry does not have a cost audit accounting strength. Unless you do not strengthen that, you will never be able to strengthen your private sector. If you keep going on L1, you will never be able to build it. You need to say, you need to create national champions. You need to say I want to have 25 big defence manufactures in India, private-sector driven, identify them, create them into national champions, boost cost accountants and create great national champions who would become your great defence manufacturers and drive India’s defence manufacturing. If that does not happen, it will be very difficult to do this.
Diplomacy has to play a very critical role. Defence manufacturing is technology-related and many countries do not pass on technology. It is when you do defence procurement on a long-term basis that diplomacy has to play a very critical role to enable the transfer of technology to take place. You can have the most liberal FDI regime, but you will not gain from it unless the Defence Ministry works very closely in tandem with the Ministry of External Affairs to enable the technology to be shifted.
The final point is that it is not just about manufacturing in the long run, it is also about manufacturing at very competitive rates, and to be able to make defence a very, very efficient industry. It requires a lot of work to kickstart projects and a lot of capacity-building within the armed forces headquarters and the Defence Ministry. It requires unleashing of new projects so that India can become a very credible military industrial complex. Great power status can never come till you do not become a great defence manufacturer, and defence manufacturing requires a huge amount of hard work, rather than merely allowing FDI.
For Part-1, click here
For Part -2, click here
For Part -3, click here
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* ‘Real’ inclusion must for internal security
* Planning to tackle economic vulnerabilities
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NATIONAL SECURITY FORUM
Part-1
Bipartisan National Security Policy is vital
NN Vohra Governor of Jammu and Kashmir (The writer is also a former Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Union Home Secretary and Defence Secretary).
Recommendations
- A well-discussed, well-understood and well-agreed-upon National Security Policy, arrived at through a documented approach
- Centre, States must work cohesively to deal with National security management; a bipartisan approach is imperative
- Conceive and perceive national security issues in holistic terms
- India just cannot afford to distinguish between internal and external security management
- Needed: All-India institutions which are manned both by the Centre and the States, like a National Security Administration Service
PART-1
http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/bipartisan-national-security-policy-is-vital/28794.html
Excerpts from the presentations at the Roundtable on National Security, Key Challenges Ahead, organised by The Tribune National Security Forum in collaboration with the Indian Council of World Affairs
In the obtaining global security environment, our country’s foremost concern is to protect and safeguard our territorial integrity and ensure the safety and security of all our citizens. Sustained development and progress are possible only if there is peace and normalcy within the realm.
We are a large country, with land boundaries of over 15,000 km, maritime frontiers of over 7,500 km, open skies all around and multiple threats from various quarters. I shall reflect briefly on certain aspects of internal security.
The maintenance of national security faces serious challenges on many fronts, among which are:
- Pakistan’s continuing proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir.
- Activities of the Pakistan-based jihadi terrorist groups which have established their networks in various parts of India, particularly in the hinterland.
- Activities of the Naxal groups which have established “liberated” zones in large areas, where their writ runs.
- Organised crime and mafia groups, drug cartels, and fake currency networks whose unlawful activities are causing enormous damage.
Considering the serious security challenges faced by the country, it is urgently necessary that we must have a reliable security management apparatus which safeguards all important arenas of activity which would, inter alia, include food security, water security, economic security, energy security, science and technology security, environmental security and so on.
It is relevant to note that in the management of matters relating to internal and external security, a rather clear line has developed in the past decades. Thus, the Ministry of Defence is responsible for the defence of India and the Ministry of Home Affairs is responsible for internal security. And then there are a number of central agencies like the Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing, Joint Intelligence Centre, and several other institutions which provide important information and support to the Home and Defence Ministries and other authorities involved in security management at the central level.
One Approach to Security
In the years past, the Centre-State relations in the arena of security management have been largely based on periodic consultations. Such arrangements are inadequate in the obtaining security environment in which terrorists strike at will, with total surprise and lightning speed. If our response has to be prompt and effective, there is no scope whatsoever for any time being lost in consultations. On the contrary, it is of vital importance that we lose no more time in building the capacity to prevent, pre-empt and, whenever a situation arises, to effectively respond without any loss of time.
And this leads me to the next question — do we have a national policy and a supporting security management apparatus which can deliver an immediate response to a sudden terrorist strike anywhere in the country? The answer is that, so far, we do not have a cohesive National Security Policy which is fully agreed to between the Centre and the States. We also do not have a countrywide logistical framework, manned by thorough professionals, which has the capacity of speedily responding to any arising emergency.
After the Centre has finalised a bipartisan National Security Policy, in agreement with the States, it would be essential to lose no time in critically reviewing the efficacy of the extant security management apparatus, whether run by the Centre or the States, and to particularly assess the training, experience and professionalism of the personnel who are operating the system.
In the past years, the States have generally taken the position that the Centre must not do anything which interferes with their constitutional jurisdiction to maintain public order within their realms. In taking such a posture, the States have erred in failing to recognise the crucial difference between dealing with law and order situations within their territories and the pan-India management of serious security threats. The States have perhaps also not recognised that terrorists are no respecters of territorial boundaries. As the attacks on Parliament and in Mumbai have shown, a terrorist strike anywhere in the country is an attack on the unity and integrity of India.
It also needs to be noted that varied serious problems relate to the functioning of the State police forces which, for want of resources and prolonged neglect, suffer from significant professional and logistical inadequacies and are, therefore, not invariably capable of effectively handling the more serious internal disturbances which may arise in the States. As experience in the past more than half a century has shown, whenever a serious disorder is arising in any part of the country, the affected State promptly seeks help from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. And the latter has been traditionally responding by deploying Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) to assist the States in dealing with arising insurgencies. It is relevant to also note that whenever situations have arisen which cannot be handled by the CAPF, the Centre has been invariably deploying the Army in aid of the civil authority.
It is a matter for concern that whenever a serious disorder is emerging in any State, the Union Home Ministry has hardly ever been in a position to question the State government concerned about the root causes of the problem and why these were neglected to allow a serious situation to develop. Another worrying aspect is that, as has been seen in the North–East region, Army deployments for extended periods have invariably led to complaints about human rights violations and other serious problems.
This brings me to the next question: What is the Centre’s role and responsibility in regard to the management of internal security which is now inextricably intermeshed with external security? The Constitution prescribes that it is duty of the Union to protect every State against external aggression and internal disturbance. Thus, there is no doubt about the Centre’s constitutional obligation to ensure that internal security is effectively managed in the States. However, in actual practice, the Centre-State relations in the arena of internal security management have been largely defined by “requests” and “persuasions” to elicit the “cooperation” of the States. The pursuit of a persuasive approach has led to many avoidable failures, particularly as cooperative arrangements do not invariably enable prompt and effective handling of security situations.
Engaging, involving States
The Centre is constitutionally empowered to issue directives to the States to take preventive action in regard to arising situations. Instead, the Union Home Ministry has traditionally resorted to merely sending “advisories” to the States about likely developments on the security front. This approach has not invariably proved effective.
To arrive at reliable Central–State understanding in the arena of security management, it is extremely important to establish the requisite mutual trust and reliability. In this context, the Government of India may do well to reconsider whether the central security apparatus should continue to be run only by its own cadres. Instead, for progressively establishing the desired levels of mutual trust, it may be beneficial to follow a joint Central-State management approach which will, over time, eradicate the strong doubts and suspicions which are recurringly voiced by the States.
The Inter-State Council, which is headed by the Prime Minister, is a very good forum for arriving at the required Centre-State understanding in the arena of national security management. Another approach could be to also set up Empowered Committees comprising Home Ministers of States to deal with various complex security management issues, e.g. the powers and jurisdiction of the National Investigation Agency (NIA). I refer to the NIA as despite the fact that issues relating to this agency have been endlessly debated in the past years, it still does not have even the powers enjoyed by the CBI viz powers of search, seizure, deputing its functionaries abroad for investigations, etc. Debates about the structure and functioning of the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) have also been continuing for the past over a decade now. Such important matters could be quickly resolved by involving the States in meaningful discussions. After 9/11, the joint-management approach has worked extremely well in the USA where Joint Terrorism Task Forces have been working effectively from the highest federal level to the municipal levels in the States of America. I would reiterate the vital importance of ensuring that our National Security Policy must be founded in very strong Centre-State understanding.
Besides time-bound steps being taken to finalise the National Security Policy and establishing a cohesive security management apparatus all over the country, it is necessary to also critically review the professional worthiness of those who will man and run the machinery. The traditional approach, even in filling top posts in the Home and Defence Ministries, has been to appoint the best available officer, notwithstanding that such a functionary may not have had any past experience at all of working in the security administration arena. The result of such an ad-hoc approach has been that officials of varied different backgrounds with no past experience get deployed in the various security administration departments and agencies. Needless to say, the best among such randomly picked up officers, with no past training and limited tenures, cannot deal meaningfully with the growingly complex security related issues which our country faces.
Security Management
In 2000, I was asked to chair a Task Force to examine issues relating to internal security. In the report, one of my recommendations was to draw from all the services, in the Centre and the States, including the armed forces, and establish a dedicated cadre whose members would undergo relevant training before being deployed in the arena of national security administration. Consequently, an officer of this specialised cadre may spend his entire career working in the Home or Defence Ministries or in any other security management organisation. After extensive consideration by a Group of Ministers, chaired by the then Deputy Prime Minister, this recommendation was accepted. The fact that this decision has not been implemented in the past 14 years reflects the importance which is devoted to security management in our country.
I recommend that no further time should be lost in setting up a National Security Administrative Service and firm Centre-State understanding arrived at for members of this cadre to be deployed for manning the nationwide security management apparatus.
There are many other concerns about National Security Management. I shall very briefly comment on a few issues.
Criminal cases, even those which relate to the most heinous offences, take years to be concluded and, furthermore, only a small percentage result in convictions and deterrent punishments because of the prolonged delays and serious deficiencies in the investigative, prosecution and trial procedures. As reported, several million criminal cases continue to be pending all over the country, every year. It is also a matter for serious concern that, progressively, corruption has firmly enveloped the cutting edge of the judicial system. And an inefficient and corrupt judicial system cannot be expected to timely punish offenders to generate the kind of deterrence which is essential for effective National Security Management.
Another arena of serious concern relates to the continuing failure of the States to implement vital police reforms.
Regrettably, police forces in many States of the country are still being run on the basis of the 1861 Police Act! Needless to say, if national security is to be effectively managed, the States must seriously discharge their constitutional responsibility and maintain adequately trained, equipped and highly professional civil and armed police forces in adequate strength. Also, the management of the police organisations must be totally free from political interference of any kind.
Corruption erodes the very foundations of the rule of law and the Constitution and cuts at the roots of National Security Management. The common man’s loss of faith and trust in the functioning of the governmental apparatus generates anger, disgust, helplessness and, finally, a species of despair which leads to alienation and adoption of the gun culture.
Corruption also leads to the subversion of the governance apparatus. Many years ago, in 1993, I chaired a committee whose report, later referred to as the Criminal Nexus Report or the Vohra Committee Report, had concluded that the nexus between corrupt politicians, dishonest public servants and the mafia networks was subverting the constitutional framework and displacing the duly established authority in several parts of India. Over two decades have since elapsed and, undoubtedly, the criminal nexus has enlarged its network and become far stronger.
I would conclude by stressing that there is no more time to be lost. We must establish a clearly bipartisan approach urgently to:
- Finalise and promulgate a National Security Policy which is based on deep-rooted understanding between New Delhi and the States.
- Enact relevant laws, for effective all-India enforcement, to enhance national security objectives.
- Establish a National Security Administrative Service (NSAS), comprising an intensively trained cadre of specialised personnel, to man the security apparatus.
- Operate a countrywide security management apparatus which is manned by highly trained NSAS professionals.
These are excerpts of the Special Address delivered by NN Vohra at The Tribune-ICWA Roundtable on National Security. The J&K Governor spoke extempore
NEXT :
Security, Development are Inter-Related
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Part-2
http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/security-development-are-inter-related/29215.html
Security, development are Inter-Related
Suresh Prabhu, Union Minister for Railways
Recommendations
- Have a strategic threat assessment institution, which will assess India's strategic place in the years to come
- We need a strong Navy to protect supply lines, but also foodand energy security
- For a transformation and to make India a strong and vibrant country, identify issues which will spread development
- States' role in foreign policy and security issues is important. There’s a need to constructively engagewith them
Part-2
Excerpts from the presentations at the Roundtable on National Security Key Challenges Ahead organised by The Tribune National Security Forum in collaboration with the Indian Council of World AffairsNational security means different things to different people and at different times, it will change. Whenever you feel insecure, obviously as a nation that is an issue of national concern and should be addressed as a national security issue. We have been dealing with a large number of issues which we think are supposed to be addressed as national security issues, like protecting our borders, making sure that the internal law and order is maintained, peace is established. But all these have been there for long. One point that is very important is the issue related to security and development.
It is an established fact that you cannot have development unless you are secure. Nobody is going to come and make investments in a country, not even our own citizens, in a place that is not secure. For a long time we were thinking that for development we need resources and, therefore, development and defence did not go hand in hand because there was a time traditionally when the defence expenditure was one of the very large items on the expenditure side of the budget. If you look at it, over a period of time, that's changed considerably. Now, in fact, defence is not as significant an item as it used to be once. It may be still there in large numbers, but if you go by the percentage, there are far more important items of expenditure which are occupying a permanent place in the Union Budget than defence. For example, interest has now become a far bigger liability of the Government of India and for the states.
So, if you really talk about development, if you really want to bring in a transformation and, therefore, want to make us a very strong and vibrant country and a society, then we must identify issues which will spread development. To do that, we must find out not defence items or defence expenditure alone, but so many other items which are eating into the possible investment in defence. Then we come to a large number of issues which are also directly related to security. One of them is energy.
Energy Security
But do we definitely need to import the kind of energy that we are importing? Today, the argument may be slightly blunted because the oil prices have come down dramatically, but you know, like blood pressure, it could go down or go up again and therefore this is a time to strategise and not to gloss over it. Energy is a very important component of national security of any country and that again has implications in terms of how we actually plan our finances.
The second issue that is important is food security. Today, we are far, far better. We cannot imagine a situation when we talk about the 1960s, now that we are exporting rather than importing foodgrains. It happened thanks to the Green Revolution. But its home state is now seriously threatened. Why it is threatened is because of water, too much use of water. Punjab’s the largest irrigated state in the country definitely, but also largest in the irrigated part of the world. There we have used so much of water that now the salinity and therefore the groundwater being used for growing rice is actually eating into a lot of our natural resources. So, the question is, if you want food security, could we get it without thinking of the concept of soil security? Are we thinking about soil security in all seriousness that it deserves?
Then to the land. There is enough land even in Rajasthan and Gujarat in the desert; can you grow anything there? We cannot, because there is no top soil. The top soil is rich in fertility and is threatened because of the type of cropping pattern we are adopting today. That in turn will affect our food security. When we do not have food security, we need more Navy to protect supply lines to bring in food. Therefore, we must think about issues going beyond and traversing the traditional security pattern in terms of the Army, in terms of police, in terms of national security architecture, in terms of creating new institutions. All this is important, but there are certain basic policy issues that we need to create which will decide the impact of our domestic policies, which will impact some of the sectors, which will then create new demands for the security architecture of the country.
Strong Foundation
First, have a strong foundation, then the edifice will be stronger. National security is a far, far important issue. I think now nobody needs to really invest a large amount of money in military hardware. Because we can have all the military hardware operated by the electronic system. I just talked about energy, but that is something which is in terms of our resources. The cost, the amount of money that we have to use for electronic hardware imports will be probably far more than exports if you do not take corrective steps immediately.
If there are 900 million phone users in India, how many of these phones are imported? So does it make sense that we actually are creating a market for the products to support other economies and not make something of that in India. If you continue to do that, it will lead to an adverse balance of payment; once you have an adverse balance of payment, you have an adverse current account situation.
Strategic Threat
But if you do not assess all the time whether the structure is commensurate with the type of threat that we are going to encounter, not today or tomorrow but in the next several years’time, then what will we do? So, we really need an institution like this. Yes, states are extremely critical in working in any area, whether it is development or whether it is security. Though under the Constitution, foreign policy and defence are exclusive domains of the Central government.
We often forget the fact that Bangladesh is India's neighbour, but not Delhi's neighbour. Bangladesh is West Bengal's neighbour. Nepal is definitively India's neighbour, but also a neighbour of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and therefore, what is important is, we should not forget the fact that the states are as important; they actually really deal with the situation on a day-to-day basis. Rajasthan will always have a problem of security if there is a problem in Pakistan. Punjab will have problems, so therefore states' role in foreign policy and security issues is far more. We really need to engage with them. The states also must know, as we cede some powers from the Central government to the states on these issues, that they too need to think about ceding some of their authority on the issue of maintaining national security.
States must also be able to work with the Central government in a way that there could be one single authority to deal with national security issues, and any state government should not feel that how can you come to my district and talk without my permission, because the district is also of India's. Therefore, we should really try to find out how we can work together in this particular way. I think that would really help.
For Part-1, click here
NEXT
- Fortify defence framework to combat threats
- Threats from non-traditional sources a challenge
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Fortify Defence Framework to Combat Threats
Kanwal Sibal, Former Foreign Secretary
Part-3
Jan 14, 2015
Excerpts from the presentations at the Roundtable on National Security Key Challenges Ahead organised by The Tribune National Security Forum in collaboration with the Indian Council of World Affairs See also www.tribuneindia.com
To be able to deal with threats, we have to first identify them. Historically, the threat to us has been from the west. Today, Pakistan has become the embodiment of that threat. We had no historical threat from the north, but now China embodies it. The eastern part of the country remains disturbed, with local insurgencies there having some external connections even now.
Southwards, seaborne threats are rising. The 1993 Mumbai attack and the subsequent 26/11 attack were staged from the sea, opening a new area of vulnerability. As our Home Minister has pointed out, while our major ports are well secured, there are over 200 minor ports and 1,500 landing points which still appear vulnerable.
Further south, with the Chinese presence growing in the Indian Ocean area, we have to increasingly contend with a new threat to our security. India is, therefore, uniquely challenged as the threats are from all directions. India's territorial integrity is threatened. Two countries claim Indian territory: Pakistan and China. No other example exists of unsettled borders involving a country of India's size in an environment of conflict and competition.
Both Pakistan and China collaborate with each other against India, presenting us with a two-front situation. Both countries do not accept the territorial status quo, which alone could be the basis of eventual compromises. But Pakistan wants a part of Kashmir and China, at the minimum, wants Tawang. China has neutralised us strategically in South Asia by transferring nuclear and missile technologies to Pakistan. Consequently, despite acquiring nuclear capability, India has not been able to deter sufficiently territorial and other pressures from China and Pakistan.
Under cover of its nuclear capability, Pakistan uses the instrument of terror against us. As is the case with its nuclear capability that Pakistan is constantly augmenting without any serious countervailing action from the West despite its nonproliferation phobias, the Western powers have been remarkably tolerant of Pakistan's terrorist affiliations too. This is a problem for us.
The argument that putting pressure on an ailing state like Pakistan will push it towards failure, raising the danger of its nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of extremists, is unconvincing when the US and EU are willing to impose punishing sanctions on a major nuclear power like Russia and seek its economic collapse.
India has not found an adequate answer to the terrorist menace from Pakistan as the option of serious punitive action carries great risks. In our neighbourhood, the Taliban remains a disruptive force and ideology. The future of Afghanistan is uncertain, with the planned withdrawal of US/NATO forces as well as the pursuit of Pakistan's strategic ambitions there.
The rise of ISIL potentially adds to the menace of religious extremism that India faces. The question is whether this ideology will creep ever closer to India. We do not know how many Indians have joined ISIL. It is difficult to assess how many in India are vulnerable to this ideology. We cannot overlook the connection between this threat and extremist Muslim groups in India, which points to the need to properly manage our internal communal situation.
China is undermining our security in the south through its thrust in the Indian Ocean directed at Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Its submarines docked at Colombo very recently, signifying an increasing Chinese naval presence near our shores. China has repackaged its so-called String-of-Pearls strategy as the maritime silk route project. In the north, the economic belts it is promoting are intended to link other countries in the region economically to China, assisting the flow of Chinese goods.
China will thus become the centre to which the periphery is tied. It has vastly improved its military infrastructure in Tibet. We are feeling the pressure of this through its periodic intrusions into our territory. While additional border mechanisms to maintain peace and tranquility on the border are being agreed to by both sides, ironically, the military dispositions of both in the border regions are being simultaneously expanded. China wants to keep us under pressure on the border and not lose this leverage by resolving the border issue. It does not even want to clarify the Line of Actual Control so that it can have a free hand to engage in power play with us as needed. It is undermining our influence in our neighbouring countries, whether Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and even Bhutan. To counter us even more effectively in our own region, it is now seeking membership of SAARC.
Defence Manufacturing
We have neglected our defences and failed to develop indigenous defence manufacturing capacities. We cannot be really secure if we remain import-dependent, or be a big power without some autonomy in defence manufacturing. We need to accelerate our strategic programmes to better ensure our security, as the military gap between India and China is growing. We need to consider whether to partially revise our nuclear doctrine in view of Pakistan's decision to introduce tactical nuclear weapons in the region.
Our borders are porous, especially with Nepal and Bangladesh. Both countries have been used by Pakistani agencies against our security. We need to control these borders better, but how to do it without destroying the “special relationship” with Nepal? How to integrate Bangladesh increasingly with our economy and simultaneously tighten border movement?
Cyber security has become a major concern. How do we protect our critical infrastructure against cyber attacks? Chinese companies have entered our telecom and power sectors in a big way. We are now inviting them into our railway sector. How do we manage the cyber threat even as we seek more Chinese involvement in the economy?
The social media has become the instrument of many kinds of threats to our security, especially terrorism and incitement of social conflict from outside our borders. How we monitor the social media without infringing on privacy and freedom of expression is a challenge.
China has acquired formidable economic power that is now translating itself into political influence and military strength. We should, however, not engage in an arms race with China. Our focus should be to build our defence capacities as rapidly as possible. The ‘Make-in-India’ policy, increasing the ceiling of FDI in the defence sector and opening it to the private sector are steps in the right direction.
We have to develop our sea-based deterrent rapidly. We have to preserve our strategic autonomy but enhance politico-military cooperation with the US, Japan, Australia and Vietnam to the extent that serves our interests and does not disturb the overall balance of our policies. The platforms for engaging China should be preserved but other platforms and relationships that hedge against China's aggressive behaviour should not be spurned. India has not been able to take advantage of the situation to build our defence capabilities against China when the latter has remained under a western arms embargo, but arms from those sources have been available to us. Russia had earlier become more reticent about arms sales to China, but is now releasing advanced arms to it, including the S-400 air defence system. Russia is also preparing to sell attack helicopters to Pakistan in a bid to pressure us to obtain more defence contracts.
Despite concerns about overdependence on Russia, it is strategically important for us to maintain a stable defence relationship with Russia, as it remains the source of defence equipment and technologies not easily available elsewhere. Our strategic autonomy, and hence our security, requires strong ties with Russia, which is currently under huge pressure from the West, reminiscent of Cold War years.
The assumption that we have no option but to have a dialogue with Pakistan, and that without good relations with our neighbours we cannot act on the world stage credibly has to be revised. Our neighbours need us more than we need them. Because our biggest problem with Pakistan is terrorism, we should insist on a link between dialogue and terrorism. Our threats from Pakistan will not be diminished by making concessions to it. We should not hold any discussion with Pakistan on Siachen. Opening up of LoC links in Kashmir and encouraging the idea of a united Kashmir is dangerous to our security as we do not fully control the ground situation inside Kashmir, especially its orientation away from Sufi Islam.
We should raise the issue of Chinese presence in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir more forcefully and not miss any occasion to protest at China-Pakistan agreements pertaining to that territory, just as China does with regard to Arunachal Pradesh. We have to be tougher with Sri Lanka on the issue of China’s naval vessels docking in its ports, and about its advocacy of China, even within SAARC. We should also be more forthright with Nepal and the Maldives on this count.
Ties with Gulf, East
We should maintain a balance between our relations with the Gulf states and Iran, even though we have greater financial, trade, manpower and energy interests with the former. The Gulf states are the source of destabilising extremist ideologies that threaten us. The Al-Qaida has announced a new outfit for targeting South Asia. The Look-East policy strengthens our security in various ways by giving us an enhanced role in developing an Asian security architecture and countering Chinese north-south connectivities with the east-west connectivities that we are promoting. This policy has now been upgraded to ‘Act East’, which essentially means better implementation of our initiatives and policies.
Building a stronger relationship with Japan is important as it contributes to our security. A strong relationship with Israel serves our security interests, but it should be balanced with attention to the Arab world to maintain a degree of balance. The relationship with the US should be strengthened as much as possible but without any illusion that the US will get involved on our side in India-Pakistan or India-China differences. Good relations with the US, however, open diplomatic space for us in all directions. These relations should not be threat-linked, but interest-linked.
For Part-1, click here
For Part -2, click here
NEXT:
Well-being of People Essential for Security
Get Serious about Defence Manufacturing
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Part-4
Jan 15, 2015
SECTION - ONE
India’s Security Apparatus Far From
Satisfactory
http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/india-s-security-apparatus-far-from-satisfactory/30037.html
Satish Chandra Former Deputy National Security Adviser
Such a limited construct of national security is clearly inadequate. It neither takes into account the innumerable additional factors impinging on national security, nor the new challenges of the 21st century such as globalisation, climate change, terrorism, cyber crime, proliferation, pandemics, etc.
Indeed, in a paper entitled “Redefining Security”, Richard H Ullman compellingly argues that defining national security primarily in military terms is dangerous as it causes states to “concentrate on military threats and ignore other, perhaps even more harmful, dangers. Thus, it reduces their total security”. A good example of the dangers of overly focusing on military muscle, at the cost of other aspects of nation building, is the breakup of the Soviet Union, which can, in part, be attributed to its huge defence spending during the Cold War. An even better example, closer home, is Pakistan’s single-minded focus on its military, to the neglect of other sectors of national life with obvious disastrous consequences.
One of the important additional factors critical to the preservation of national security is economic strength. This is essential not only for maintaining the coercive institutions of the state, but also the basic infrastructure such as roads, railways, telecommunications, energy and industrial systems, which constitute their backbone. It also enables the state to enhance its influence abroad.
Another critical component of a country’s national security is the well-being of its people. Taken in its broadest sense, well-being constitutes a powerful and effective vaccine against disaffection as well as a propellant for development and economic growth. Such well-being not only demands the availability of all basic economic requirements of life for the common man, but also that of good education, healthcare and employment in an environment conducive to the liberty of thought and expression, with the state ensuring the rule of law and good governance.
Clearly, national security — in our complex and interdependent world — must necessarily be viewed in a holistic and an all-encompassing manner. It requires the preservation of the independence, integrity and sovereignty of the state against external and internal adversaries; promotion of economic growth with equity, ensuring food, energy and water security, besides human development with particular emphasis on education, health, housing and sanitation; creation of a knowledge-based society with a focus on science and technology; deft management of multifaceted challenges like terrorism, proliferation and climate change, which are a feature of globalisation; provision of good governance, where the rule of law and the efficient delivery of services is assured in a non-discriminatory fashion; and effective institutional mechanisms to manage national security. In short, there is no facet of national life that does not impinge on national security.
Underperformance in any area of national life inevitably impinges adversely on national security.
Such a holistic view of national security recognises that the determinant of security is not just the coercive elements in a state’s armoury, but its comprehensive national power. The latter is a composite of capabilities in many areas such as coercive institutions, science and technology, economy, manpower (both in terms of size and quality), infrastructure, governance, leadership, etc.
National security index
In order to assess how well-secured a nation is, as compared to its peers, it is necessary to develop a national security index that evaluates its comprehensive national power. In fact, such an exercise was undertaken in a preliminary fashion by the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) in 2001. The factors included for the assessment of comprehensive national power are size and intrinsic resources, human capital, scientific and technological capabilities, economic strength, military power and leadership quality. The results are not particularly flattering to India. It ranks 23rd among 30 countries. The top five countries are the US, Australia, China, Canada and Japan.
The holistic nature of national security demands that appropriate structures are in place for its oversight and for providing direction. Such structures were created in India in 1999 by way of the National Security Council system, comprising the National Security Council and other appropriate adjuncts by way of the National Security Adviser, NSCS, National Security Advisory Board and Strategic Policy Group.
It is unfortunate that though all adjuncts of the NSC, in particular the NSCS, exist solely for enhancing India's national security, and, indeed, dream, think and breathe security, the nation's performance in this area remains far from satisfactory. This may be attributed to apex-level lack of sensitivity to security, both in the political class and bureaucracy. This is reflected in the non-implementation of many recommendations contained in the Group of Ministers’ report on “Reforming the National Security System” that had been accepted by the Cabinet Committee of Security in May 2001, and the more recent recommendations on security-related issues by the Naresh Chandra Committee in 2012. It is also borne out by the fact that the NSCS — far from having been nurtured and strengthened as it was in the first few years of its existence — was allowed to atrophy inter alia through the introduction of multiple chains of command and a hiving off of some functions, resulting in severe staff depletion and loss in efficacy. Clearly, if we are serious about making India secure, the NSC system must be reinvigorated because it alone is specifically mandated to think holistically about national security and is equipped to provide across-the-board oversight in this regard.
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http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/get-serious-about-defence-manufacturing-at-home/30050.html
SECTION - TWO of PART-4
Get Serious About Defence Manufacturing
At
Home
Amitabh Kant Union Industry Secretary
Other than manufacturing is how we manage our process of urbanisation; because in the next four decades, we are going to see 70 crore people move from rural areas to urban. Every minute, 30 Indians are moving away from rural areas. How we manage this in a planned, sustainable manner will be extremely critical for India. But when we touch on the aspect of defence manufacturing, we need to know that India is the world's largest importer of defence equipment. We import 70 per cent of our defence equipment. In the next several years, we will be importing close to $140 billion worth of equipment. In addition, we will be importing about $110 billion worth of homeland security equipment. These are the key challenges.
This government, after coming to power, has taken a series of measures to encourage domestic manufacturing in defence, one of which is key in terms of deregulating almost 55 per cent of the items on the defence category list. These have been removed and one can now go and manufacture after taking approval from the RBI. The challenges of deregulation and de-licensing have been undertaken by the government. Secondly, it has allowed the FDI to go up from 26 to 49 per cent; you can go up further to 100 per cent under certain conditions. One of the most critical things was that the earlier government had restricted it and said we will not allow FII to come in at all. And, therefore, a number of projects were held up because every single manufacturer across the world always has some FII component. This government has allowed it through the automatic route; in defence, you can go up to 24 per cent. In fact, in the last three to four months, we have cleared almost close to 44 applications where no licence may be required. We have also cleared 21 applications held up for various reasons. So, there is a huge amount of buoyancy as far as manufacturing within India is concerned.
Manufacturing Constraints
A number of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) from abroad are looking at manufacturing in India, but having said that, there are several constraints in defence manufacturing for various reasons, one of which is simply the lack of preparedness within our Defence Ministry and the armed forces headquarters. The Government of India has adopted the “Make-in-India” programme, which is similar to what in the US is called the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) programme. What this programme envisages is that you will handle the private sector manufacturer, you will support him with research and development, you will do integrated planning, you will do intellectual property development within India. Over the last six-seven years, only two major programmes have been rolled out under this. One is the Future Infant Combat Vehicle, and the second is the Tactical Communication System.
In both these programmes, you need integrated project management teams to handle the private sector and both programmes have suffered high costs and gestation delays because of the constant changes in the integrated project management teams, people with inadequate knowledge, and lack of continuity. If you keep changing every two-three years, when you need six-seven years to develop the project, you will never be able to make defence equipment in India. Hence, first and foremost, you need integrated project management teams that are going to be there for the life of the projects. Short-term project management teams, ad-hoc changes, lack of knowledgeable people won’t do. You need men of the highest vision, with the highest technology skills, men of great capabilities to steer these projects through their life cycle.
Secondly, India should roll out about 30 more projects, not two, which is what it has done in the last five-six years. India needs to burst out of the long-term integrated project plans prepared by the armed forces. You need to look at what is the plan for 2012 through 2027, pick out 30 to 35 big-term ideas, put long-term perspective planning around it and see that these get manufactured in India. This requires a big vision, big perspective, big canvas, and unless that is done, defence manufacturing will be very difficult to do in India.
We need to prepare feasibility reports by the integrated defence staff headquarters; you need projects, concepts that are already identified, and you need to really push them hard. It is very important to pick up these projects and monitor them in a time-bound manner.
Resources for R&D
The third point is that defence procurement is essentially monopolistic and oligopolistic in nature and so you need to put in a lot of resources in R&D. You need to amortise that cost over a long period of time. You need a life cycle cost of technologies, you need to evaluate them over a long period of time and you need very specialised agencies to evaluate these projects.
If you want to become a great defence manufacturer, you need to give the private sector an equal footing, you need to produce not for India alone, but for global markets, and that can only be done by your private sector. You need to handle them, you need to really enhance partnership with the private sector and that the Defence Production Ministry is incapable of doing at the moment. Therefore, you need to create an agency that will strengthen and give the private sector an equal footing.
The US has a defence cost audit accountancy agency, which has 14,000 persons, all of whom sit in the offices of the OEMs. All the big military industrial complexes that you have seen emerging are all based on a cost-plus mechanism. It is not based on L1, so let us just forget L1. It is a very compact cost audit accounting system based on a plus-plus model and the Defence Ministry does not have a cost audit accounting strength. Unless you do not strengthen that, you will never be able to strengthen your private sector. If you keep going on L1, you will never be able to build it. You need to say, you need to create national champions. You need to say I want to have 25 big defence manufactures in India, private-sector driven, identify them, create them into national champions, boost cost accountants and create great national champions who would become your great defence manufacturers and drive India’s defence manufacturing. If that does not happen, it will be very difficult to do this.
Diplomacy has to play a very critical role. Defence manufacturing is technology-related and many countries do not pass on technology. It is when you do defence procurement on a long-term basis that diplomacy has to play a very critical role to enable the transfer of technology to take place. You can have the most liberal FDI regime, but you will not gain from it unless the Defence Ministry works very closely in tandem with the Ministry of External Affairs to enable the technology to be shifted.
The final point is that it is not just about manufacturing in the long run, it is also about manufacturing at very competitive rates, and to be able to make defence a very, very efficient industry. It requires a lot of work to kickstart projects and a lot of capacity-building within the armed forces headquarters and the Defence Ministry. It requires unleashing of new projects so that India can become a very credible military industrial complex. Great power status can never come till you do not become a great defence manufacturer, and defence manufacturing requires a huge amount of hard work, rather than merely allowing FDI.
For Part-1, click here
For Part -2, click here
For Part -3, click here
NEXT:
* ‘Real’ inclusion must for internal security
* Planning to tackle economic vulnerabilities
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