https://www.newsclick.in/Many-Chink-India-Nuclear-Chain-Command
Many a Chink in India’s Nuclear Chain of Command
UNEDITED
CDS done with, now
for the NSA please
The government has made its
choice of first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). It has been a no-brainer for a
while now as to who it would be. Frontrunner General Bipin Rawat has bagged the
race. He aced any rivals there might have been by a last minute surge, in
belittling the leadership of the country-wide, largely-leaderless and
spontaneous protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). With an
extension in uniform till 65 years of age, he would be around for most of the
balance tenure of this regime. This indicates why he nabbed the post.
Even as the last lap was underway
in the CDS race, the mandate of the CDS was put out by the government. The
process had been set off by the prime minister’s announcement at Red Fort. From
the timing of the release of the mandate, immediately prior to Rawat’s
retirement, it was clear that the job was going to him. Else, there would have
been no hurry to do so.
More than another three years of
Rawat in the headlines, it is this hurry to get a regime loyalist into the CDS
sinecure – anyone with illusions on the CDS efficacy in the Indian bureaucratic
system may now lay them to rest – that can potentially cost the country dearly.
This article spells out a deficit in the charter, that did not find mention in
the preceding debate on the CDS.
The charter of responsibilities
of the CDS post include being permanent chair of the chiefs of staff committee,
heading the soon-to-be-created department of military affairs within the
ministry of defence and acting as a single point military advisor to the
defence minister. Alongside, he would be sitting in on the national security
adviser headed defence planning committee and the defence minister chaired
defence acquisition council. Along with the three chiefs, he would also be part
of the now NSA-led strategic policy group, a pillar of the national security
council system. He is also to be military advisor to the nuclear command
authority (NCA).
Of interest for the purposes here
is his location in the decision making tree on nuclear matters. As are the
other three chiefs, he would also be in the NCA’s executive council that is
headed by the NSA. The NSA by virtue of being secretary to the nuclear command
authority’s ministerial-level political council is charged with implementing
its decisions as head of the executive council. As military advisor to NCA, the
CDS presumably will be an invitee to its meetings.
However, the operational control
of the strategic forces command (SFC) rests with the NSA, while the CDS has
administrative control over the nuclear forces and as part of the executive
council under the NSA. This makes his say a nebulous one in the implementation
of the political council decisions. There is no nuclear staff in the
headquarters integrated defence staff that he would head as part of his
permanent chairman of the chiefs of staff duties. There is no question of a
nuclear component in the department of military affairs that will be set up for
him to head.
In the current system, the
nuclear think tanks of the government report to the NSA. The SFC is merely an
organization to implement nuclear decisions, as it should be. There is a
strategic planning staff, reportedly in the NCA, presumably reporting to the
NSA. There is also a strategic programs staff in the NSC Secretariat, again
outside of the CDS ambit. There is also a military advisor already under the
NSA, traditionally held by a retired military man.
This is an anomaly of sorts. The
vesting of executive authority over the most significant portion of India’s war
making machinery is with neither an elected official nor an official. Instead
it is with a prime ministerial appointee, the NSA, who is “the principal
advisor on national security matters to the prime minister”. This clarification
was done last August, as an afterthought nearly two decades into its existence,
in the allocation of business rules of the government that also make clear that
the NSCS will be the secretariat for the PM-led National Security Council (NSC).
No such clarity obtains in relation to the NCA.
There are two approaches to a
critique of the current system: theoretical and practical.
It does not
require theory to discern that the most significant issue in nuclear decision
making is accountability. In a democratic set up this would be responsibility
and accountability of a democratic authority. While the system is clearly
predicated on the final say being with the prime minister assisted by his
ministerial colleagues, the insertion of the NSA as the next tier is
unfathomable. The arrangement of dubious legality undercuts the Indian
democratic system of parliamentary accountability of the cabinet.
There is no
Constitution-compliant parliament-adopted charter for the NSA. This appointment
is at the behest of the prime minister and relevant press releases have it that
it is ‘coterminous with the prime minister’s tenure or till further orders,
whichever is earlier’. Sister democracies - the United States and United
Kingdom - have the NSA position, with the US system having the due legislation,
but both do not vest their respective NSA with executive authority.
In the nuclear decision and
implementing loop, it cannot be that a commander-in-chief of strategic forces
reports to a civilian having no clear and sanctioned position. Yet in India,
this is indeed the case. The uniformed superior of the commander strategic
forces command instead has only administrative lien and no staff to undertake
the military-relevant nuclear advisory function. How the CDS will fulfill his
defence advisor function in the NCA is left to imagination.
Whereas much ado has been
witnessed over the writing up of the mandate of the CDS, there has been little
let on in the open domain of the NSA’s remit. All that is known is that he has
a finger in every pie – intelligence, information domain, defence planning etc.
It is not known if the business rules of government have been reframed to
account for his consequential presence in the system. The NSA is inordinately
empowered and – worse - remains outside of the legislated lines of authority,
responsibility and accountability.
A way to remove
the anomaly would have been to have the CDS have operational control over the
strategic forces command by removing the NSA from the chain. For this he would
need to have the requisite staff support under him. The NSA could continue in a
strategic-political advisory capacity to the political council, with the CDS in
attendance for military advice, receiving of orders and implementing these. Both
NSA and CDS should figure in the political council of the NCA, but with the CDS
not merely in an advisory, but an executive, role; the advisory role being
inherent in his tasking as first among equals in the military top hierarchy.
The second
direction of critique is whether the NSA-centered system remains efficacious
for nuclear decision making, with the insertion of a CDS into it. This is
easier to establish since into this regime’s sixth year the decision making
system is clearly dysfunctional. Its choice of first CDS, based on parochial
considerations of political like-mindedness, best illustrates the strategic
vacuity at its core.
This decision alerts
to the problems that can accrue in an NSA-CDS system with the two personages
occupy respective chairs. The NSA, with security forces as a hammer in hand,
sees every political and security issue as a nail. Thus, political matters
become securitized – such as the counter CAA protests and security forces
unleashed. The army chief and now CDS has consistently played along, not only
acting as his master’s voice, but chiming in with his bit. Thus, in the current
system, the NSA is likely to remain hardline and any advice he receives will
only be music to his ears.
A system
over-reliant on the NSA is faulty to begin with. Personality oriented, it can
but have little institutional strength. As seen, in the nuclear dimension, it
is structurally flawed. It is with this system in place, India is liable to
approach any forthcoming crises. Given that the hardline is set to persist,
with no checks and balances left even from a traditionally and
characteristically cautious and conservative military, the nuclear dimension of
crises cannot be neglected hereon.
This implies
that the NSA-CDS relationship in the nuclear decision making and implementation
loop needs rethinking. The regime would do well to cap its reputation for
national security dynamism by getting on with the long-pending restructuring of
the NSA position, making it an advisory rather than a trouble shooting one. Now
that it has a CDS of its choice in place, it must divest the NSA of nuclear
decision implementation in favour placing the responsibility with its CDS.
