04 March 2014
If a BJP-led NDA Government takes over after the Lok Sabha election, one of the first real challenges it will face is the growing disarray in the country’s military preparedness and policy. Innovative ideas are the need of the hour
This fortnight saw the BJP induct around a 100 ex-servicemen into the party, including notably former Army chief VK Singh. One issue that has been raised is of propriety. Does this mean an increasing politicisation of the Armed Forces? This issue has been discussed far too often to dwell upon. Perhaps the more germane issue to ask is how will India’s national security benefit from ex-servicemen joining India’s only right-wing party. Then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee did not need retired servicemen to validate his sacking of Navy chief Vishnu Bhagwat, and had the requisite strong security credentials to go further down the path of peace than any Congress leader ever could.
In India, we somehow tend to confuse and conflate the terms ‘right wing’ on security and ‘hawk’ with a pointlessly bellicose and economically unsustainable defence posture. Being right- wing on security involves being smart, not necessarily reducing the defence budget but rather extracting the maximum bang for buck from it — making every single rupee count. Being a hawk does not involve pointless obstinacy on negotiations or suicidal spending on defence. Rather it involves being fleet-footed and pragmatic, with a willingness to take action when necessary. However the willingness to take action is based fundamentally on a sound economic structure — a structure that creates accountability, thinks outside the box, and forces large, inflexible, lethargic Armies to turn fleet-footed and responsive.
The much-trumpeted ‘revolution in military affairs’ is largely described in India as being about smart weapons. It is not; what it is based on is a revolution in mindset and a revolution in accounting affairs. Gen VK Singh’s tenure should be remembered for his one great legacy to the Indian Army — the new Mountain Strike Corps being created to take on China. Sadly, for those of us on the economic right, the creation of this corps flouts every single principle of good economics and good defence. Its creation could have been taken out of the worst economic blunders of the Soviet Admiralty under Admiral Gorshkov (the man who gave his name to the INS Vikramaditya in its previous avatar).
For starters, even the most generous estimates show it will end up gutting our defence budget for decades to come. Given that every major Army has been downsizing and getting ‘leaner and meaner’, the Indian Army is the only one that seems to be getting ‘fatter and slower’ morphing from a leopard to a labrador. The closest parallel to this comes from the Soviet Union in its dying days; spending non-existent money on luxuries like seven different classes of nuclear submarine and three types of aircraft carriers. As it turned out these submarines killed more of their sailors than any Americans, and ended up directly contributing to the collapse of the USSR than they did the US.
The second issue here is as to how the creation of this corps violates a cardinal principle of good defence — Never throw good after bad. This corps actively subverts money from our strengths and throws it at our weaknesses, effectively throwing good money at bad decisions. More seriously, it involves a grave violation of the duty of care we have towards our jawans; of minimising their risk and learning from our mistakes and we fail on both counts. What India enjoys in the Tibet plateau is a significant local air advantage and a significant ground force disadvantage. In effect our soldiers would have to attack uphill with the accompanying heavy loss of life like in Kargil. Yet, rather than learn from Kargil, it would seem that the Army wants to repeat the same slaughter on a different front. The `64,000 crore that this white elephant will take up means that much less to reinforce our air advantage, less fighters, less air cover, less air surveillance.
All of this brings us back to the question: How exactly does the BJP intend to reinvigorate national defence if it keeps inducting retired officers responsible for these decisions? What exactly is economically responsible or militarily responsible about these decisions?
Today, a rationalisation of procurement and chasing/absorbing the right technologies can bring force levels down to one-third their currents strength and still be far more effective than they are. This would mean better pay for the jawans, better living conditions, and a much happier force. It would effectively be a force that offers far more and better calibrated options to the political leadership than the ill-conceived, still-born and suicidal ‘cold start’ doctrine.
This, however, fundamentally revolves around a complete change in the mindset of the army, where effects not numbers determine what they do. Yet the Army’s real power within the Union Ministry of Defence lies in it overwhelming numbers. The addition of the Mountain Strikes is not so much about protecting India from China, but rather about protecting the Indian Army from the Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force. Be it China or Pakistan, the fundamental reality is that the Air Force and Navy are the only ones that can offer calibrated and controllable retaliation responses to our political leadership, not the Army. Far from it, using the Army takes away escalation control from the political leadership and hands it over to Generals — something that is unacceptable in any democracy.
Where then does this leave the Army? Will they be willing to downsize, even if downsizing meant a loss of power in South Block?
Taking in retired Generals, Admirals and Air Marshals is fine, just so long as the BJP doesn’t import retired ideas well past their ‘use-by’ date. To get a muscular defence and foreign policy, fiscal responsibility is a must. Its success will depend on taking decisions that will be unpopular with the leadership of the Armed Forces, rather than pandering to their paranoia. While we know the BJP is willing to take in retired servicemen, the real test of Mr Narendra Modi’s leadership will be whether he is willing to take them on.
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