A security architecture without the mortar (Problems of India's national security vision)

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A security architecture without the mortar (Problems of India's national security vision)

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• Recent developments: Two major developments in 2018 show the Modi govt's focus on national security. 

1. Setting up of the Defence Planning Committee (DPC) to build a national defence strategy (and push defence manufacturing, exports, etc.), and 
2. Reviving the Strategic Policy Group (SPG) within the overall National Security Council (NSC) system.

• Why now, when 5 years are over? That the govt. has woken up now shows it realises its national security performance has been very poor. And now it thinks that more centralisation in the PMO and NSA will improve the situation.
• What went wrong? Since 2014, the security situation has deteriorated steadily. 

1. J&K violence is at an all-time high, and LoC ceasefire violations are at a 14-year high. These trends of 2017 have continued in 2018. Surgical Strikes 2016 made no real impact (clear now). 
2. Militant recruitments in J&K are rising. 
3. Chinese pressure is rising. They are back in Doklam plateau in full force. These are observations from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs. Things are overall in a very bad shape, and firefighting is on, by a govt. in its last lap.

• Defence Budget not being utilised best: We spend $ 50 billion annually on defence, but are not really prepared for a two-and-a-half-fronts war. Rhetoric is high, reality is not.
• Fundamental reason for poor performance: Higher defence organisation is on auto-pilot mode, and top political class is unable to provide oversight. There is little meaningful conversation between either top political class and Miliatry, or between various arms of the defence forces.Is this sustainable for a rising great power? No.
• Absence of jointness in armed forces: Everything is in silos - doctrines, commands, force deployment, defence acquisitions, etc. Even statements are in silos (General Rawat saying that INDIAN ARMY is ready for a two-and-a-half-fronts-war).
• What about China and Pak? China has moved ahead on military jointmanship. Pak is doing better than India. We have now no talk of the CDS position at all. By raising the stature of the NSA, the Govt. is wrongly believing that SPG and DPC will solve our problems. (NSA is not a legally-mandated post - such a powerful post in a parliamentary democracy has gone to an unelected, retired official)
• Top-heavy system versus Institutional mechanisms: So we now have an NSA chairing almost everything on defence, and also mandated to tackle the day-to-day issues in national security. Outcomes are bound to be sub-optimal. Where is the decentralised institutional mechanism? Nowhere visible now.
• 65 : 35 revenue to capital expenses: This being the state of expenditure, what modernisation can we expect!  (not matter what the SPG may try)
• What should be the ideal case? India needs a national defence vision document, guiding all forces to build their own / joint doctrines. What we have instead is personal preferences and ad hocism.
• The big mistake of BJP: It is a hypernationalist party.  But it has used all the national security issues to further just its domestic political agenda, not a real Indian footprint in defence regionally or globally. We are in a far worse shape in 2018, than in 2014.
• Summary : The over-centralisation of Indian national security architecture through the SPG and DPC indicates an ad-hoc last-minute effort to improve the situation.

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