Various organs of state must act in unison if our country has to find its rightful place in the comity of nations.
From the time of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement regarding the creation of the post of Chief of Defence Staff on 15 August, a virtual Twitter war has broken out between service officers, both serving and retired, and the bureaucratic corps. This reflects the ill will and the gap in perception between these two important pillars of our democracy. Nearly all military reforms have been top down and seldom by consensus. Therefore, in operationalisation of this integration the Defence Minister will have to walk a tightrope. Obtaining fresh inputs from either of the two pillars, Armed Forces HQ or the bureaucracy, will be an exercise in futility. This has been going on for seven decades. Some of the country’s respected bureaucrats with a very global perspective have headed these committees and have come to the conclusion that CDS is a necessity. Now it is a question of penning down the details.
Post the Kargil war, the Subrahmanyan Committee made several recommendations that have been repeated by all subsequent committees, the Naresh Chandra Committee being the last. Two recommendations are very pertinent, that in a war, assuming that war fighting capabilities exist, intelligence and operations form the foundation for decision making and its outcome. The committee identified several lacunae in the systems as they existed.
It identified that capacity building of each service was based entirely on the threat assessment of individual service and also the mechanism of intelligence sharing between civil and military did not exist for effective military operations. Disjointed preparation for war fighting was resulting in budgetary allocations many times, leading to duplication of assets. In a way, each service was fighting its own war and preparing accordingly. If at all there was any semblance of jointness, it was due to the bonhomie amongst the three Service Chiefs and not for institutional reasons. The formation of an Integrated Defence Headquarters, headed by a Chief of Defence Staff, was recommended. Also, the mechanism of intelligence sharing was envisaged.
Later, the recommendations were implemented, but only partially. The structure of the Integrated Defence Staff HQ was put in place, but wasn’t enabled by appointing a Chief of Defence Staff. When one reads the tweets it is obvious that the bureaucracy did generate unfounded scare in the minds of the political masters that appointing a CDS could provide opportunity for military coup in future. Also, with governments often being a coalition of many parties, decision making was an Achilles’ heel. As a result, HQ IDS was headed by a Lt General (Commander in Chief) equivalent officer, initially nomenclature Vice Chief of Defence Staff, renamed Chief of Integrated Defence Staff and then Chiefs of Staff Committee (CISC). This too was to ensure that the word CDS did not feature in the designation. CISC was Member, COSC, but a non-voting member, in that he was free to express joint solutions but it wasn’t binding on the Service Chiefs to accept. Instead of appointing a CDS, the government settled for Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee, which was really a round robin—the senior-most serving Chief would become Chairman of the committee, thereby making their tenures dependent on their date of retirement. For example, Admiral Sunil Lanba retired on 31 May 2019 and he handed over the reins of COSC Chairman to Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa, the Air Chief, who retires on 30 September (four months’ tenure). As on date it means that General Bipin Rawat will have a three-month tenure as Chairman COSC (retires 31 December) unless he is chosen by the government to be the CDS. It was obvious that on matters of jointness (procurement, operational doctrines and actual operational planning) each Chairman COSC looked at joint solutions through the prism of his own service. The only true purple (Integrated Service Hq) was CISC, who had a minority voice.
As if this was not enough to marginalise any big jointness, CDS also became an important member of the Nuclear Command Authority. In the absence of a CDS, the frequently-changed Chairman COSC was performing this task. This was neither desirable nor a good practice.
Having said that, the CISC and HQ IDS succeeded in keeping a close eye on the geopolitical dynamism of the Indian Ocean Region. A net assessment process was put in place, which factored in intelligence, diplomatic, think tankers, academician, Service Headquarters inputs etc., in formalising a threat assessment. Two-front war and RM’s Op Directive resulted. HQ IDS also succeeded, largely, in elimination of duplicity of procurement, joint bidding, joint QRs as far as possible and joint procurements. Another progress, which is worth a mention was the approval of LTIPP (Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan) approved by the Defence Acquisition Council in April 2012 (for a 15-year period, 2012-2027), subject to amendments based on geopolitical environment. Had this document been approved by the then CCS, there would have been financial commitment by the government to develop those capabilities. Since it wasn’t so, many strategists called the LTIPP a wish list. The absence of a CDS was severely felt. There was streamlining of jointness in training, intelligence, some aspects of operations, i.e., space, cyber, HADR crisis management and pursuing issues with MoD, which had Tri-Service implications. A number of joint operational doctrines were put in place. This HQ also acted as the office of the Raksha Mantri for Defence Acquisition matters. The statements of case of each procurement proposal of service headquarters were vetted by the specialists appointed to the HQ IDS. In the Services Categorisation and Procurement Committees (headed by a three-star Officer of HQ IDS), consisting of all stakeholders from service HQ and various departments of the MoD (Executive, Acquisition, Finance, DRDO, Defence Production etc), collegiate decisions were being taken after due diligence. This process is being followed scrupulously to date.
Will CDS address all issues pertinent to jointness? Success of this appointment would depend upon:
(a) Charter of the duties.
(b) Equation with the bureaucracy.
(c) Permanent inclusion in the CCS.
(d) Placement of specialist service officers in the MoD in tandem with career bureaucrats for professional vetting.
(e) Appointment of career diplomats with CDS headquarters for environment scan and defence cooperation issues, act as interface with MEA (presently provision exists but except for one there has been no diplomat appointed).
(f) Defence budget allocation to CDS based on his threat assessment (in consultation with Service Chiefs) of prioritisation of asset creation in short, medium and long term.
(g) Act as nodal agency and interface between MoD and private sector for “Make in India” to succeed and create jobs apart from developing indigenous defence industry.
(h) Activation and structures for joint planning but execution by respective services. Appointment of joint staff in Command Headquarters.
(i) Joint service operational command or planning HQ appointment be made career milestone for two and three star promotions.
(j) Cyber, Space and Special Forces Command be established under CDS to fight future wars. This be in addition to existing Tri Service Commands at Andaman Nicobar and Strategic Force Command.
In the ultimate analysis, various organs of state must act in unison if our country has to find its rightful place in the comity of nations. History is a great teacher. We were occupied by foreign powers and ruled because India was a divided house. After the Maurya and Gupta dynasties, when India saw its pinnacle, possibly we have an opportunity in the Modi era wherein the government has returned to power with massive mandate, we must not allow it to slip for petty reasons.
Vice Admiral Shekhar Sinha, is a former Chief of Integrated Defence Staff, and Commander in Chief, Western Naval Command, Chairman, Board of Trustees, India Foundation and Member, Sunday Guardian Foundation.