Securing India and resetting the national security strategy

Anil Chait

Aug 25, 2014

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to Army and Air Force personnel at Ladakh on 12 August, when read closely, reveals multi-fold implications for India and gives a peek into India's approach towards its belligerent western neighbour. By emphasizing that Pakistan had no strength to fight an open conventional war with India and hence is taking recourse to indulging in a proxy war by exploiting the Stability-Instability paradigm in our Sub Continent, Prime Minister Modi was highlighting the preferred strategy of the weak for generating asymmetric tools. Highlighting the sacrifices of our soldiers and that of the Armed Forces, which has suffered more from terrorism rather than from war, he gave a clarion call to all humanitarian forces to unite and combat the global scourge of terrorism. He also added that India is committed to strengthening and uniting with these humanitarian forces. 

How does this translate into policy examination and consideration there-of? It seems to suggest that Pakistan has lost its strength to fight a conventional war. It needs to be evaluated if this lack of appetite is derived out of Pakistan's inability to bear the costs of garnering up adequate conventional forces and equipment to meet the rising capabilities on the Indian side, or whether after its many past misadventures, the futility of the conventional war option has been realized and accepted or whether, it expects the involvement of its forces in resolving other situations both within and on its own western borders to be for a long or very long duration. Whatever be the reasons, in theory Pakistan is truly left with no other option but perception-ally, to ratchet up the level of conflict to the nuclear sphere to maintain stability under conditions of tactical instability, and not much imagination is required to understand this since it is a self-destruct button. Carrying forward its intended purpose of bleeding India through the unconventional but yet more effective, 'terror' route is the deduction and the assessment that the statement reinforces. 

Prime Minister Modi in linking this terror to all terror across the globe and terming the war as a 'humanitarian' battle, is probably seeking to build a new consensus and this needs to be seen in what is happening not only in Af-Pak region but also in Middle East or for that matter in Ukraine. It needs recalling, that post 9/11, India had sought to stress to all those nations which joined up in the 'GWOT that it too was a victim of the same cardinal sin. Yet they did not come on board, either due their own reluctance or the deft manoeuvring by Pakistan which managed to place itself as a more forceful and dependable ally or a victim which was suffering even more since it shared a direct border with Afghanistan, the then terror epicentre. 

Over the past decade, a tectonic shift has brought this epicentre within the territory of Pakistan itself. Indirectly PM Modi's remark emphasizes this and when read along with the plea that all 'humanitarian forces' should join, it is obvious that he is willy-nilly suggesting that India should be ready to play a greater role in the GWOT. If this be an issue on the table at Washington, it would give him opportunity to twist the umbilical cord than binds the US to the Pakistan Army. This hence is a far reaching remark beyond the realms of rhetoric and Indo Pakistan relations which he just chose to nurture. 

How should our forces adapt to face their acknowledged challenger — terror, now acknowledged as the preferred weapon of attack which as the PM stated, has caused more casualties than wars? Is there a need to build up capabilities including Special Forces cantered on this premise or carry on with incrementing their fighting prowess on traditional lines, as hitherto? 

What should be the 'revised' response strategy to the changing character of war a war, the nation has been facing? As long as overall war fighting capability remains favourable over Pakistan, there is unlikely to be a conventional war. The battle against terror, so far an 'also ran' for the Forces should gain higher priority and focus. Capabilities which were taking time to built be accelerated specifically to envisage, prepare preempt and combat unconventional threats. The start point for this would overwhelmingly be in the sphere of intelligence and the NSA Ajit Doval being on stage as the Prime Minister Modi made those remarks, should not be missed. 

The battle against terror is a different war that calls for much greater fluidity of thought and coordination between all concerned, within and outside the Armed forces besides, real time decision making on responses. Being a war that the Nation will have to fight together to be effective, a large scale resetting of extant decision structures mechanisms and strategy is inevitable. If indeed we are to take our own two steps towards playing a part in the global 'humanitarian' effort, a further dimension gets added to this change. While examining these, the Chinese threat still remains real and will have to be prepared for. These two being the 'given' preconditions, there is still so much more for the Armed Forces and in the Defence and Strategic decision making chain to think and act upon.