https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/indias-national-security-a-feast?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf
India’s national security: A feast for Advisers
Recently, Lt Gen (Retired) Vinod G Khandare hastened to inform that he continues in his role as a Secretary-level Principal Adviser to the Ministry of Defence. He was contradicting a media report, that perhaps reasoning that now that a retired army officer – Lt Gen Anil Chauhan – was recalled on promotion, Khandare was history.
Chauhan is to serve as Chief of Defence Staff, Secretary Department of Military Affairs (DMA) and Permanent Chair Chiefs of Staff Committee. (Curiously the last was left out in the press release on his appointment, though the role figured in the one on his assumption of the rank and appointment.)
A triple-hatted CDS in the chair begs the question: Why is Khandare still around?
Rajnath Singh has three advisers – the CDS, Gen Chauhan, and Lt Gen (Retired) Khandare and the defence secretary.
Perhaps the distinction between the two military men is that the CDS is ‘Principal Military Adviser to the Raksha Mantri on all Tri-Service matters’, while Khandare, appointed at a time when the CDS post was vacant, is styled ‘Principal Adviser to the Ministry of Defence’.
It is incomprehensible how a general as CDS cannot provide ‘strategic input and advice’, which, according to the media, is the Khandare brief. It is not known if the senior defence bureaucrat remonstrated against a designation for Khandare that seemingly trespasses on his turf.
Up front, it would appear that Khandare has the cake, with the CDS – a general to boot – confined narrowly to the military sphere. It is an untenable distinction since generals are expected to inhabit the strategic sphere, with its overlap with grand strategy – a politico-military domain.
In the current case, that CDS Chauhan has also sidestepped – as had Khandare – from the position of Military Adviser in the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), it cannot be that Khandare has any wider or deeper engagement with grand strategy.
It is only reasonable that Khandare stay-on if he has a separate – elaborate - job description, such as, in preparation for the integration of the three services with the creation of integrated theatre commands (ITC), envisage and craft the relationship of the reorganized military with the ministry.
The CDS charged with ITC, would bring about ‘jointness’ at the Services level, while the adviser could perhaps suggest measures towards ‘jointedness’ (to borrow a term mistakenly used by the previous national security adviser when referring to jointness) between the new military and the ministry. But this is only speculative.
Within the defence ministry are two antagonist departments: the new DMA, with now-deceased General Rawat at helm, and the hoary Department of Defence (DoD). The upstart DMA has the CDS – who is nominally senior to the defence secretary – at its head. This made the protocol conscious military and power-sensitive bureaucrats less able to coordinate. Did that divide lead to Khandare’s induction?
The DoD is headed by a defence secretary, empowered just prior to the 1962 War vide the hallowed Allocation of Business Rules with the responsibility of ‘the defence of India.” The 60th anniversary of the rather well-known outcome of that War is currently being observed.
The regime had a chance to make a correction on that high-falutin role for the bureaucrat with the creation of the post of CDS. However, status quo persisting, the defence secretary’s take on defence of the realm is being supplemented with Khandare’s.
At a stretch, the inordinately long delay in the second CDS assuming his post, may have led to a stop gap arrangement in which Khandare being accommodated. Even this as excuse for the unprecedented appointment betrays civil-military tension.
The regime had taken care not to announce the next senior Service Chief as taking over any of the deceased CDS’ three responsibilities. While the regime approved a passing of the baton of the Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee in an acting capacity to General MM Naravane, it did not do so when it was ACM VR Chaudhury’s turn.
Was it because by then Khandare was ensconced in the ministry? Was Khandare’s unprecedented insertion into the civil-military equation to balance against military input – such as on the disruptive Agnipath that came up in the period?
Now that the triple-hatted CDS is in place, it is not that dissonance will necessarily result. The working relationship between the CDS and the adviser can be expected be smooth. The previous perch of the CDS was Military Adviser in the NSCS, taking over from Khandare. Both being the regime’s men, can be expected to get along. (As an aside, it is interesting that even in civvies – incumbents having hung up their boots - those tenanting the appointment are referred to as ‘Military’ Adviser.)
Even so, dissonance cannot be discounted. To the extent this is a possibility, it can be notched up as yet another hit-wicket of sorts of this regime that fancies itself as strong-on-defence.
Recall the major civil-military face-off in India between Viceroy Nathaniel Curzon and his Commander in Chief, General Herbert Kitchener over the Viceroy giving himself additionally a uniformed major general as military adviser. Kitchener was against his advice being second guessed by his junior, or anyone else for that matter. That he was statutorily mandated by his post legitimised his argument. The controversy saw off Curzon from India.
It's not that the moral fibre of the brass hats has so rusted that they are unable to even discern what was self-evident to Kitchener. The problem today is that the checks and balances that characterized democracy once in India have disappeared.
Individuals – howsoever morally upright – cannot take on a system commandeered by Hindutva. The Bhagwat case is illustrative of the system’s ability to isolate and take out individuals.
And what about India’s fabled ‘steel-frame’?
Leave alone the military, the bureaucrats must also be miffed since the defence secretary and the minister’s secretariat also have an advisory function. It cannot be that both the military and the bureaucrats are parochial and require an umpire in the form of an adviser.
Recall rumours of bureaucrats’ foot-dragging. For a regime in a hurry and only comfortable with ‘Yes Men’ (preferably of the Gujarat cadre), that is unaffordable. It is for this reason that the National Security Adviser (NSA) early on displaced the Cabinet Secretary from head of the Strategic Policy Group. (The self-aggrandizement, along with appropriation of the DPC chair, by NSA Ajit Doval, sees him rifling through papers sent up by himself.)
With regime flagship enterprises as Atmanirbhar Bharat at stake – the stake being crony capitalism that keeps Hindutva moneyed for propagation and self-perpetuation - departures from the normal can be expected.
If it is the case that the two spheres – civil and military – are to be bridged, it is a ministerial role, not Khandare. For sure, the minister can do with using Khandare’s services – being only a few tax payer’s rupees additional to the budget. But it does reflect on how the minister is using his resources.
Not only are there existing official channels available for advice, so are informal conduits. There was occasion when the ruling party in its previous stint at power had an ex-servicemen cell, peopled by the likes of General ‘Jake’ Jacob, for informal advice to then defence minister, Jaswant Singh (Pravin Sawhney, The Last War).
There is also the ministry’s own once-autonomous think tank. In a recent twitter-storm, it claimed that it has not been far behind in providing its input on jointness. What more does Rajnath Singh need?
That Rajnath Singh has his political as against ministerial avatar to fore is evident from his most-recent foray into policy dissemination by proclaiming that the desired end state of the regime’s Kashmir policy is the incorporation of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.
Given proximity of the border to Pakistan’s national capital region – making it within artillery distance – and that such an invasion will snip the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor - materializing a Two Front war - it can only be hoped that such a political aim is not included in the defence minister’s operational directive.
One would think Khandare’s presence could have watered down such bombast, but the tragedy is that perhaps his input keeps up the diversionary din on Kashmir.
The operational directive is the right place to gauge Rajnath Singh’s fitness, and the regime’s claims of felicity in defence matters. The last directive dates to 2009, when the much-reviled AK ‘Pope’ Antony reportedly penned one at long last, early in the second stint of his government and tenure in the chair.
Since this regime is nearing end of its second stint – but remains high on cornering credit on the overhyped defence front – it bears reminding it that the previous government was quicker at the draw on the directive. Could Khandare draft one, to justify his pay?
That the directive does not exist is explicable since the other Adviser, the NSA, has not signed off on the national security strategy he was to roll out as head of the DPC – another post that ought to have remained with the ministry with the CDS heading it – but appropriated by the NSA, with nary a pushback from Rajnath Singh.
The NSA is significant since he sits on (pun intended) three files: Pakistan, since it is his area of expertise; China, as India’s Special Representative; and, as the adviser on nuclear matters, being secretary to the Political Council and heading the Executive Council of the Nuclear Command Authority (NCA).
On the first, it is eight years into the regime, and Pakistan has not withered away. The situation in Kashmir – on which the violence indices are untrustworthy - is such that Pakistan can choose its own time and place to reinsert itself into the problem. Now theres no damocles sword of financial action over it. The offline talks, reportedly underway since a Gulf State brokered the ceasefire, have not thrown up anything worthwhile.
Assuming the secret talks are to buy India time to settle matters in Kashmir – taking Pakistani sentiment into account – the projected events in Kashmir – conducting a gerrymandered election – are unlikely to yield ‘permanent peace’, to quote Prime Minister Narendra Modi borrowing from wishful Amit Shah.
As for China, there have been no Special Representative talks lately, though they had an impressive nip when his predecessor – a China expert – was NSA. Ajit Doval inherited a draft ‘framework’ for a border deal. Not all of his prime minister’s persuasive charm could take matters forward. Even informal summits failed.
Clearly, the NSA could not orchestrate a symphony between the military – straining at the bit on the Line of Actual Control - and diplomats and the ruling party’s political shenanigans in erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir in relation to Article 370. The score instead went wildly – and lethally – off-key.
The ‘A’ in NSA does not suggest an executive role for the NSA. And yet, he is in the chain of command over crown jewels held by the Strategic Forces Command (SFC). Though the CDS is now in the loop, it is only as military adviser to the NCA.
Since CDS is an adviser, who is in the command loop? Or is it ‘command by committee’, by the NSA-headed Executive Council?
It is inconceivable that the authority over India’s most lethal three-star-led formation is not a four-star general, but a civilian with an advisory role. (Could the arrangement have led to a missile getting fired off and a nuclear submarine getting flooded?)
Space does not permit finessing the point any further than pointing to the definition of ‘command and control’ in the glossary of military terms and to see if either the NSA or CDS fulfils it. Since it cannot be the NSA, the CDS’s remit must be tweaked with him taking on a co-chair position in the Executive Council and being represented - alongside the NSA - in the Political Council.
This is easier said than done since the CDS has no command authority for now (‘will not exercise any military command, including over the three Service Chiefs, so as to be able to provide impartial advice to the political leadership’), other than perhaps the proto-domain forces for cyber, space and special operations. A consequential upping of the CDS salience might be if the CDS ends up with command authority over the ITC.
When the defence minister cannot hold his own - and requires a supervisory appendage in the form of an adviser – taking on command authority over ITC, as is the case in the United States with the combatant commands under the defence secretary, is inconceivable. The CDS thus emerges as an alternative, with a title suitable rejigged to reflect the command profile than a staff one.
In anticipation of vesting the CDS with command authority some time down the line, the SFC can indubitably be brought under him, with the headquarters Integrated Defence Staff having a nuclear supervisory accretion.
Finally, there is the mentioned Military Adviser in the NSCS (an adviser to an adviser). While it is possible to infer the military adviser keeps an eye on the Strategic Programs Staff (SPS), since the first incumbent of the post had nuclear expertise, his successors have no such a flair. Besides, the SPS has a nuclear expert at its helm, with a former SFC commander once serving as its chief on demitting uniform.
The military adviser’s role is nebulous, allowing for the NSA to use his talents suitably. A non-uniformed post facilitates dispassionate input, but needs to reckon with a rejigged title – ‘military’ being reserved for the uniformed.
Taking a benign view, Khandare’s reverting to governmental service is to help implement that controversial Agnipath and the Atmanirbhar Bharat schemes, thought up in his last stint in government. He also presumably engaged with jointness issues, since his deputy (an adviser to an adviser to an adviser) at the NSCS was an expert on jointness. Both Khandare and Chauhan – an ethnic kin and regimental mate of General Rawat – knew Rawat’s mind, so their twinned induction into the defence ministry makes for continuity and institutional memory.
However, the conclusion can only be less benign. As laid out here, the national security system appears a galore of Advisers. It bears reminding that the overarching system is of parliamentary democracy, with the principle of ministerial accountability at its core.
While ministers can do with all the advice they can get – in any case most need more of it than should be the case – it shouldn’t be that a ministerial responsibility is palmed off to advisers.
Take the case of nuclear weapons, where willy-nilly an Adviser – with no nuclear background - has executive authority. While the command authority over the SFC should vest with the military, the CDS is instead an Adviser.
It should not be that with a proliferation of Advisers, a presidential system is stealthily put in place. The parliamentary system privileges ministers for democratic accountability.
The suborning of senior minister Rajnath Singh by emplacing of a political commissar on his shoulder undercuts this. Setting this right must begin with putting Khandare - who is beyond his sell-by date - to pasture.
