Security demands strategy before action

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/security-demands-strategy-before-action/185506.html

Accounts of the National Security Adviser (NSA), Ajit Doval, as a man of action have only been reinforced by his response to the terrorist attack at the Pathankot airfield early this month. While a laudable quality in an operational-level commander, however, when this trait (to take action) is present in abundance in a person required to function at the strategic level, it may be problematic. 

 

Perhaps, the most onerous responsibility of the NSA is his duty as Secretary to the Political Council of India's Nuclear Command Authority (NCA) and as Chair of its executive council. The appointment requires a cool, reflective, person to tenant it. The Pathankot episode throws up the question: Whether Doval is the best man for this sensitive job.

 

On this score, the criticism attending the response to the Pathankot terror attack should not be spin-doctored into oblivion. The Prime Minister on a visit to the site, and the Army Chief in his Army Day press conference, have tried to restore confidence in the system. Acknowledging a few home truths would better serve the system. 

 

A key point was brought forth by the previous NSA, Shivshankar Menon. He observed the cancellation of the NSA’s trip to China for strategic-level talks, implying this was an instance of misplaced priorities. Second, an NSA getting involved in essentially a tactical-level operation is liable to miss the wood for the trees. Third, the NSA's bypassing of institutions such as the Home and Defence Ministries and the military serves to sap traditional chains of command and constitutionally ordained authority. 

 

Since the NSA is at the fulcrum of India's nuclear command and control, these observations have implications for India's nuclear command and control. 

 

India's NCA already has glaring lacunae. As revealed in the commentary in the aftermath of the Pathankot episode, India's National Security Council (NSC) system has been created through an executive order in 1998. It has not been institutionalised and sanctified by an Act of Parliament ever since. As a result, the NSA is an oddity in the parliamentary system, only owing accountability to his appointing authority, the Prime Minister. This further empowers the Prime Minister's Office, detracting from India's parliamentary democracy by making it resemble a presidential system. 

 

The NSA serves as link between the Political Council of the NCA that comprises the Prime Minister and principal ministers, and the Executive Council, comprising of the significant officials, military chiefs and scientific heads. Even this responsibility of the NSA has no legislative authority underwriting it. The press release of January 3, 2003, from the Cabinet Committee on Security that met to operationalise India's nuclear deterrence policy at best serves to inform. It cannot be taken as sanctioning this role of the NSA. The responsibility needs being invested with legal content. 

 

The insertion of the NSA in the nuclear command loop is such as to act as a buffer between the political head and the military chiefs. To fulfil this function, the NSA has the support of the NSC Secretariat (NSCS), which is under the Deputy NSA and part of the PMO. The strategy programme staff that informs decision-making and implements nuclear deterrence and employment strategy is, however, not under him directly, but is in the NSCS.

 

The Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) commands the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) that is in charge of India's crown jewels, its nuclear arsenal. The staff support of the Chairman COSC is the Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff. Further, the Chairman COSC receives his marching orders not from the Prime Minister or Defence Minister, but the NSA. Since the Chairman COSC is himself double-hatted, also serving as head of his service, the NSA’s role assumes a greater significance. In effect, the general commanding the SFC is willy-nilly reporting to two heads: the bona fide military chain of command and the more significant, but civilian, NSA. 

 

This reveals a structural problem in India's nuclear command and control in which accountability is with the military, but the authority is with the NSA. Governments in this century, including the current one, have promised to create the appointment of a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) or permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. A CDS, with executive teeth in the nuclear realm, would ensure convergence of accountability and authority. That the reconstitution of the dysfunctional National Security Advisory Board has been held up for close to a year now does not lend confidence on this score. 

 

The deficiencies of this system are such as to preclude buffeting from the angularities of personalities. As demonstrated on other occasions such as the Special Forces operation in Myanmar in the middle of last year, the NSA has a tendency to join the action. Conflict will serve up temptations aplenty for him to roll up his sleeves. The NSA would be better advised to exercise considerable self-restraint and allow the national security institutions to work their mandate, to enable him to take a wide-angled view of crises and conflict. Servicing the NSC in a sober manner would enable him to give relevant inputs as the fulcrum of the NCA.

Do we need a Chief Warlord?


EDITORIAL
& OPINION
THE FINANCIAL WORLD—DELHI
10 Sep 12

IN A recent article, former Chief of Army Staff,
General Deepak Kapoor, has weighed in against
the idea of a permanent chairman of the Chiefs of
Staff Committee. One among a series of selective
leaks of the Naresh Chandra Task Force report
suggests that the task force has recommended making the
appointment of the head of the cosc a permanent one.
The leaks are themselves trial balloons sent up by a
government unable to arrive at decisions on the merits.
Aware of lacking the political heft to implement these
even if it could do so, the leaks create a storm that it can
then point to for lack of consensus and consequently a
decision. It does not see its role as exerting to create the
consensus. In this case, Deepak Kapoor’s article, taken
as reflecting the position of his former service, will help
forestall decisions, since he would be seen as voicing the
army’s position. That would be a pity, since holding out
for a cds as Deepak Kapoor’s ‘all or nothing’ position has
it, is the worse option.
This owes to the nuclear context and the ever-present
possibility of war, brought home most recently in the foreign
minister’s remark on the eve of his meeting with his
Pakistani counterpart, ‘The consequences for Pakistan
would be disastrous.’ This was to reinforce India’s deterrence
of terror provocation. However, the problem is in
India being hoist by its own petard, which in theory is the
‘commitment trap’. To ensure that such disaster for Pakistan
does not also turn into a disaster for India, there is
a need to have a military bridge between India’s conventional
and nuclear capabilities.
Currently, none exists. The Strategic Forces Command
manages India’s nuclear deterrent. However, its C-in-C
has two masters. In theory, he reports to the Chairman
Chiefs of Staff Committee. It is hard to see how the Chairman
cosc, a rotating appointment that Naresh Chandra
seeks to make permanent, can possibly oversee the sfc.
While challenging enough in peacetime with the chairman,
double-hatted as boss of his service alongside, it
would be quite a tall order in war.
He would require conducting the operations of his
service, integrating those of the three services for a joint
campaign, and also overseeing the nuclear-conventional
interface. It is for this reason that Naresh Chandra perhaps
wants a permanent incumbent. At least he would not
be straddled with overseeing any particular service and
would, hopefully, be beyond its parochialism in order to
serve as a single point source of advice to the civilian master.
While the discussion could benefit by reflection, such
as General Kapoor’s, on the demerits of the organisational
reform, it would need to take on board the advantage. The
primary one is in monitoring impact on the nuclear level of
what is going on militarily on the conventional level in war.
Currently, it is possible that in practice the National Security
Adviser oversees the sfc in his capacity as head of
the Executive Council of the Nuclear Command Authority.
This is, to say the least, a strange arrangement. Nuclear
watcher Bharat Karnad, in a recent expose of the arrangement
suggests that the NSA relies on a retired head of sfc
for fulfilling his nuclear-related role. This arrangement
clearly calls for further institutionalisation. Naresh Chandra
possibly has an answer.
SM Krishna’s terse observation, if not threat, recounted
above suggests that India is preparing a military counter
to any major terror attack by Pakistan. In such a case, escalation
could occur depending on the Pakistani counter.
If this results in a conventional tryst, then limitation
needs being foregrounded. Advice on this, alongside
linked nuclear related reactions, would be required. This
has to be done at a mechanism one step removed from the
action, such as by a permanent chairman of the cosc.
He would be on the Executive Council to both advise
the Political Council alongside the nsa and work the nuclear-
relevant reaction as ordered by the Political Council
through the nsa. This way there is a military link between
the Nuclear Command Authority and the sfc. Secondly,
the headless hqs Integrated Defence Staff would gain a
leader and an agenda. It could provide the control staff for
the sfc since a line headquarter as is the sfc cannot also
be its own judge.
LASTLY, KAPOOR’S cds, imagined as a warlord
over all three services, has an underside. He would
not be in a position to advise the government since
it would amount to judging his own case. Such an appointment
has potential for a folly of Hindenberg-Ludendorf
proportions, praetorian figures from Germany’s
World War I past.
Therefore, to write off the task force report may not do
for the government. It will have to demonstrate it exists.
If it fears that push comes to shove as its foreign minister
thinks, then it had better emerge from somnolence.
Better still would be if it gives up threats and settles
with Pakistan through getting SM Krishna to talk meaningfully.
Then it would not manufacture a threat where
none need exist.
Ali Ahmed is Assistant Professor, Nelson Mandela
Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia