http://www.indiandefencereview.com/india-needs-a-national-security-doctrine-for-furthering-jointness/

India needs a national security doctrine for furthering jointness

The absence of a national security doctrine is much lamented. The necessity of a strategic doctrine being rather obvious, here an additional argument is made that India’s efforts towards jointness can potentially be stepped up in case informed by a national security doctrine.

India’s civil-military relations are such that the military is left out of the policy loop but, almost as though in compensation, is allowed doctrinal and operational space. However, the three services - like the proverbial blind men of Hindoostan examining an elephant – end up appraising war through the prism of the respective domains - land, sea and air - each is predominant in. A Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), being first among equals, is not empowered enough to adjudicate.

Some of the areas that have emerged in India’s recent fledgling steps towards jointness can be illumined by an authoritative and a suitable referent. A national security doctrine can place ideational tensions – controversies if you will - that have emerged in the jointness debates in perspective; thereby, assisting the armed forces to take the next doctrinal and structural steps towards jointness with alacrity. 

The story so far

General Bipin Rawat was tasked to further jointness, simply put as conducting military operations with an ‘All-for-one and one-for-all’ approach. There are two lines for bringing about change towards jointness: doctrinal and structural. The former approach builds on the periodic doctrinal products of the military, including that of the HQ IDS that have dealt with joint doctrine. Structural change could then follow. Hampered by non-availability of a higher-order doctrine, General Rawat privileged structural change as precursor to a meeting of minds over jointness.

Pushback on Rawat’s visualization of front-specific integrated theatre commands was quick. The Indian Air Force (IAF) has long held that the numbers of squadrons and aircraft were limited in relation to the scope of wartime operations. Their employment philosophy has been centralized control-decentralized execution, taking advantage of characteristics of air power afforded by air space: speed, flexibility and versatility. Were joint theatre commands to come up, it would add to procedural tedium, with turf battles decreasing responsiveness and heightening uncertainty that attends military operations.

As part of the debate, Rawat - perhaps inadvertently - sparked off acrimony with candid expression of his view that in a border conflict, the Air Force had a supportive role, likening the Air Force with support arms as artillery. On their part, an air power strategist argues that, “the IAF must be able to degrade and delay PLA … carry out interdiction of communication lines ranging from 150 km … fight to create and maintain a favourable air situation over a limited area … revisit all the classical roles of offensive airpower within a limited war framework.”

Alongside such support for the army’s  operations on land, the Air Force bids for continuing relevance as a strategic player, that - acting jointly - can deliver war winning advantages and outcomes. Not oblivious to developments in air power, it maintains that its roles of taking the war to the enemy through ‘parallel warfare’, comprising, inter-alia, an offensive strategic air campaign and counter air operations, must inform war strategy.  

Similar in kind was the controversy in relation to the Navy. CDS Rawat favoured a sea-denial capability predicated on submarines, while the Navy plugged for a carrier battle group based sea-control capability. Its maritime strategy places sea control as the ‘central concept around which the Indian Navy will be employed’ for ‘strategic effect’. Naval strategists argue that in a conflict provoked in the Himalayas by China, India could take recourse to pressurizing China in the maritime domain. India must take advantage of India’s strategic location in relation to the sea lines of communication and bottlenecks in the Indo-Pacific.

Matters for inclusion

A national security doctrine can not only dispel such ‘controversies’, but also preempt other doctrinal disagreements. From the debates is visible thrust towards conflict limitation. As the controversy involving the Air Force indicates, with air power pitching in, vertical escalation has to be reckoned with. Likewise, a maritime answer to a possible predicament posed by China in the Himalayas - of geographical expansion into the maritime domain - spells horizontal escalation.

Escalation implies more resources sucked in and higher political stakes. It has intrinsic dynamics that inevitably impact the bounds of a war originally intended as a limited one. However, acquiring capabilities that carry the war to the enemy enables being undaunted by the manipulation of the threat of escalation by the other side. This helps with deterrence, since an enemy would be doubly wary of taking on an adversary with human, physical and conceptual elements primed for escalation. Limitation implies having the capability for it for deterrence sake, but refraining deliberately as a policy choice.

Thus, there is a tension between war-fighting and deterrence, the capabilities and readiness for demonstrating either being much the same. The build-up of capabilities leads to an interstate contestation under a ‘security dilemma’, in which military related actions of one state are viewed as a threat and matched by the neighbour. This plays out in peace time as arms racing.

Capabilities are obtained over time and at a steep cost, in addition to a hidden opportunity cost. Weighing between the short haul preparedness and preparation over the long durée is required. Further, cultural change necessary to internalize makeovers takes longer.

Finally, the untimely departure of the protagonist of the process, General Rawat, and delay in the appointment of his successor indicates the salience of the triple-hatted CDS. Left untouched by Rawat was the command and control arrangement. India can neither revert to the British era commander-in-chief model nor can the CDS as Permanent Chair of the Chiefs of Staff Committee run a war by committee.

Though the Services have been tasked to submit studies, the bottom-up approach can do with some direction from top. These are issue areas that the Services would require political direction on. Instead of a blue-ribbon commission on defence reform, India has had a succession of committees since the Kargil War as substitute and has implemented many of the conclusions reached. A national security doctrine is an essential next step.   

The government needs stepping up

Doctrinal conundrums do not necessarily have a ‘right’ answer. This necessitates political engagement, with politics as ‘the art of the possible’. A strategic doctrine defines the place of use of force in the broader national scheme. The policy maker can use the document constructively to elaborate on vexed issues holding up jointness. Further, the political master must follow-up by lending imprimatur to a joint doctrine and structures that emerge thereafter.

A government distinct in the way it approaches defence has an additional onus to be responsive on this score to calls from the strategic community. Political dividend is a low hanging fruit. National security reform with the national security doctrine as a central agenda item should figure in the creation of New India.

There is no dearth of draft afloat on such a higher order doctrine. In run up to the last elections, the opposition had articulated a national security strategy. Lately, even Pakistan adopted a human security-centric national security policy. Press reports have it that the National Security Adviser-led Defence Planning Committee, tasked with writing up the strategy, has a draft.

Even if the main document is kept confidential, as with the nuclear doctrine put in the open domain through a press release, it can be given out in an abridged form. The impending appointment of the next CDS provides an opportunity, with the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav as appropriate backdrop. 

 

 

Cultural nationalism as a national security threat

An extended version of the KT op ed http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=108226

Former Vice President Hamid Ansari has yet again drawn attention to the Othering of Muslims ongoing in India and thereby the threat posed to Constitutional values. In discussing his newly released autobiography, By Many a Happy Accident, at various forums, he has reiterated that the drift towards a majoritarian democracy has a potentially adverse underside. It tends to marginalize India’s, and indeed the world’s, largest minority, India’s Muslims, thereby contravening two constitutional values, secularism and fraternity.

He had earlier made the same observation in lectures delivered prior to demitting office of vice president and later during his retirement. He has reverted to this theme since the situation appears to be getting worse in the second term of the Union government, marking its coming to power with an increased majority in the lower house a turning point on this score. The instances of Othering have increased, such as through legislation both at the Center and in Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) ruled states on for instance ‘love jihad’, and the street power exercised by supporters of the regime by violence against minorities.    

In national security discourse, a threat to national values is taken as a national security threat. To the extent Hamid Ansari is right, there should be a corresponding interest in the threat to national values in national security commentary. However, that is not the case. The silence over this national security issue owes to either the national security commentariat acquiescing with the phenomenon or being too overawed to start referring to it as a national security threat. 

Hamid Ansari observes a change in the complexion of the Republic and the resulting perception of insecurity in a significant section of the population, India’s Muslims. Does the threat that causes insecurity for the minority, comprising over 14 per cent of the population and with a geographical spread across the country, constitute a national security threat?

The minority figures in national security thinking only in terms of terrorism in Kashmir and in the hinterland and radical Islamism to which the terror threat is attributed. There is little reference to the threat from militant cultural nationalism vitiating the security perception of the minority. This article makes the case that militant cultural nationalism constitutes a national security threat and must be counted as such in national security thinking, discussion and strategy.

The recent invasion by hard right elements of the United States’ (US) Capitol is an example of how a threat can mutate and pose a national security challenge. A fallout was in the manner the swearing in ceremony of the new US president was conducted at the same location under conditions of heightened security. That former US president, Donald Trump, instigated the mob is now the subject of an impeachment trial. While the threat of white supremacism has been around for some decades in the US, best illustrated by the Oklahoma bombing in the mid-nineties, its security agencies have been cognizant of the threat and treat it as such.

Analogy from the threat from the extremist right wing in the US is not inapt. Whereas presently, when a right wing government is in power in India, right wing extremists may not pose a threat to the state apparatus as such, since in their mind’s eye, power is being exercised by a right wing government they support. This accounts for the symbiotic relationship between the government and right wing militant cultural nationalists. The government does not recognize them as a threat and therefore there is no action against them even in cases of violence, for example, for their role in the Bhima Koregaon violence of 2018 or the more recent role in Delhi riots of February 2020. Instead in both cases the onus for the violence fell on the communities subject to the violence, the Mahar and Muslims respectively, with the law additionally proceeding against some left wing activists in the former case. However, in case of a democratic change over, their increased power, visibility and reach under the current regime, may embolden them to pose a national security challenge, as have white supremacists in the example above in the US.

Whereas this is a potential national security threat that can manifest in future, they also pose a threat currently in their generating a threat for the minority. This is where the symbiotic relationship with the ruling party kicks in, wherein they serve as the militant foot soldiers for advancing the anti-minority agenda of the cultural nationalists. The resulting polarization furthers the political interest of the Hindutva espousing BJP.

Understandably then, in the national security thinking on internal security threats there is never a mention of the right wing as a threat. The three ‘usual suspects’ in this list are terrorism in Kashmir, Left Wing Extremism and militancy in the North East. This silence owes in part to national security being statist in orientation and dependent on the government’s input, expending much attention in rationalizing the government’s policies and actions. To an extent, the realists that populate the strategic community share the realist thinking of the government and many also subscribe to a Hindutva worldview. Consequently, this is an area of deliberate inattention rather than evidence of non-existence of a case for including militant cultural nationalism as a national security threat.

The threat is constituted along two lines. One is that potential of marginalization of the minority resulting in a militarization of its response. The terror taken as minority perpetrated is liable to go up. This has been on the crosshairs of analysts for long in their dwelling on the penetration of radical Islamists ideas in Muslim communities and deradicalization as a measure against it. Even in this commentary, missing has been a focus or reference to right wing perpetrated terrorism. Whereas it found mention early last decade in the home minister’s reference to saffron terrorism, those whose actions prompted the observation have largely been left off after the BJP came to power. This implies that the threat from militant cultural nationalists that could push a minority towards violence in rebound would not be registered among the causes. Therefore, the likelihood of persistence of the insecurity that might provoke such a response.

The second is more significant. Militant cultural nationalism is already changing the complexion of the Republic. Its pursuit of increased solidarity within the Hindu community through an attempt at homogenization overriding the diversity that constitutes the community requires an ‘Other’ to stand in contradistinction to Hindus and Hinduism. Having alighted on Muslims and Islam as the Other, it has reduced inter-community fraternity – a preamble articulated Constitutional value – within India. The ruling party has introduced laws such as the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which have imposed on the secular fabric of Republic.

They also build in inequality in citizenship to detriment of Muslims. If the sequence envisaged of a National Population Register (NPR) populating exercise is followed through with, along with perhaps the census exercise, then the CAA-NPR constitute a double whammy, with Muslims at the receiving end of the legislative stick. In light of such portents, the possibility of a Hindu Republic is not a theoretical one anymore. Since this shift in the constitutional moorings changes India as we know it, does what is behind the shift –militant cultural nationalism – constitute a national security threat that should be recognized and countered as such?

Whereas a threat causing insecurity for the minority can be proceeded with through implementation of rule of law, the shift in the Republic’s moorings is not so much from militant cultural nationalism as from cultural nationalism that is behind it. Since the ruling party is persuaded by cultural nationalism, it is unwilling to exercise its rule of law function of governance against the vehicle with which, as mentioned, it shares a symbiotic relationship. Therefore, any expectation of inclusion of militant cultural nationalism as a national security threat shall remain unmet.

Since cultural nationalism empowers militant cultural nationalism and is an ideological push against constitutional verities, can and should cultural nationalism be taken as a national security threat? Hindutva is now an entrenched ideology that energises supporters of the democratically elected ruling party. If constitutional values are substituted by Hindutva endorsed values in a democratic and procedurally legal manner, the challenge against such a shift can only be political and by a democratic counter mobilization for mounting a legitimate challenge.

However, as seen, militant cultural nationalism is a vehicle for cultural nationalism, enabling its polarizing sway over voters. This is an illegitimate practice. A state apparatus controlled by the ruling party and one rendered hollow by preceding years of political inroads and enervation cannot be expected to stand up for the law against its own misuse. Expert commentary has it that even the courts have to a large extent vacated the moral high ground. Therefore, while change may be ongoing and underfoot, to the extent militant cultural nationalism is at its vanguard, the change, albeit by procedurally legal means, is illegitimate.

To the extent militant cultural nationalism is used by cultural nationalism for its purpose of replacing a secular republic with a Hindu republic then it cultural nationalism is a national security threat. Cultural nationalism that plays by a democratic playbook is not a national security threat, even if it aims to question the constitutional schema, but turns into one in case the instrument and means it uses are illegal and illegitimate. Attempting to change the republic in its desired image democratically is expected to be countered by the checks and balances in the system such as the doctrine of basic structure. In so far as these check and balances are delegitimised by procedurally illegal and illegitimate means, such as mounting pressure on the judiciary that is custodian of the doctrine of basic structure, then cultural nationalism would turn into a national security threat.

Showing the national security card to cultural nationalism is important not only to deter its abuse of militant cultural nationalism as an instrument, but to ensure it sticks to the accepted political practices in its bid to turn India into its preferred image. Securitisation - labelling an issue as an issue in national security - serves the purpose of focusing minds, in this case on a political ideology, as invoking security, with its existential connotations, draws the attention. Whereas the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, that is the crucible of the ideology, has been banned on occasion earlier, the political fortunes of its political front, the BJP, have emboldened it and given it an impunity. The ideology has the acquired the advantage of political mainstreaming and furthering through the dubious instrumentality of the state. Therefore, it is unlikely to be called out or put back in the box by the state, that it now controls. The challenge to the cozy co-habitation of the state, that is meant to be impartial and neutral, with a political ideology has to come from outside. While the political opposition has on occasion spiritedly pointed to this, notably Rahul Gandhi who once named it while his party was in power as the principal national security threat, there has been little or no traction of this perspective.

The strategic community has been amiss in steering clear of discussing cultural nationalism and militant cultural nationalism in national security terms. Whereas cultural nationalism as a political ideology may be unexceptionable, it has long been inseparable from militant cultural nationalism. A problem area that emerges from such selective gaze is that the national security discourse then lends itself to manipulation.

An illustration is the inflation in the terror discourse of terrorism attributed to Muslim perpetrators. For instance, there are 22 pending cases of encounter deaths in Gujarat pertaining to the Modi period there as chief minister when supposedly terrorists out to kill Modi or commit terrorism were killed by the police. There are also questions over provenance of some terror bombings across the country in the first decade. These questions remain since there was little effort to uncover evidence that would point to other than a Muslim hand in such incidents. Lack of evidence was on account of lack of effort to collect such evidence rather than its absence. That most such incidents led to Muslims being incarcerated, many being left after years in jail, is suggestive not only of incompetence but also a cover up that cries out for investigation.

A captive media has dutifully magnified the police handed out versions. Polarisation resulted and has accrued in a political dividend for the ruling party. Thus, the electorate has in a sense been manipulated by fake news on black operations. While this is relevant to understand the first BJP election victory, the second one did not witness preceding terror incidents since terror incidents, other than in Kashmir, curiously ceased on the BJP attaining power. This is yet more evidence that the earlier mainstream reportage over instances amounted to fake news. The gainer being the BJP implies a complicity and casts a pall over the manner it attained power. When in power it has turned the other way as majoritarian mobs have carried out micro terror pushing Muslims to the ropes over the beef and love jihad issues.

This marginalization of Muslims is an assault on the constitutional values. Therefore, the resulting insecurity of Muslims, as pointed out by Hamid Ansari amongst others, is a national security issue on two counts: from the sway of militant cultural nationalism, to levels the state has lost monopoly over instruments of violence, and, second, but more importantly,  as it points towards the incipient make over of India from a secular republic to a Hindutva subscribing one. 

 

 

http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=108226

http://epaper.kashmirtimes.in/archives.aspx?date1=2/27/2021&page=4

Securitisation of cultural nationalism

Former Vice President Hamid Ansari has yet again drawn attention to the Othering of Muslims ongoing in India and thereby the threat posed to Constitutional values. In discussing his newly released autobiography, By Many a Happy Accident, at various forums, he has reiterated that the drift towards a majoritarian democracy has a potentially adverse underside. It tends to marginalize India’s, and indeed the world’s, largest minority, India’s Muslims, thereby contravening two constitutional values, secularism and fraternity.

He had earlier made the same observation in lectures delivered prior to demitting office of vice president and later during his retirement. He has reverted to this theme since the situation appears to be getting worse in the second term of the Union government, marking its coming to power with an increased majority in the lower house as a turning point. The instances of Othering have increased through legislation both at the Center and in Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) ruled states, such as for instance on ‘love jihad’, and so has the street power exercised by supporters of the regime in violence against minorities.    

In national security discourse, a threat to national values is taken as a national security threat. To the extent Hamid Ansari is right, there should be a corresponding interest in the threat to national values in national security commentary. However, that is not the case. The silence over this national security issue owes to either the national security commentariat acquiescing with the phenomenon or being too overawed to start referring to it as a national security threat. 

Hamid Ansari observes a change in the complexion of the Republic and the resulting perception of insecurity in a significant section of the population, India’s Muslims. Does the threat that causes insecurity for the minority, comprising over 14 per cent of the population and with a geographical spread across the country, constitute a national security threat?

The minority figures in national security thinking only in terms of terrorism in Kashmir and in the hinterland and radical Islamism to which the terror threat is attributed. There is little reference to the threat from militant cultural nationalism vitiating the security perception of the minority. This article makes the case that militant cultural nationalism constitutes a national security threat and must be counted as such in national security thinking, discussions on policy and strategy.

The recent invasion by hard right elements of the United States’ (US) Capitol is an example of how a threat can mutate and pose a national security challenge. While the threat of white supremacism has been around for some decades in the US, best illustrated by the Oklahoma bombing in the mid-nineties, its security agencies have been cognizant of the threat and treat it as such.

Analogy from the threat from the extremist right wing in the US is not inapt. Whereas presently, when a right wing government is in power in India, right wing extremists may not pose a threat to the state apparatus as such, since in their mind’s eye, power is being exercised by a right wing government they support. This accounts for the symbiotic relationship between the government and right wing militant cultural nationalists. The government, the gainer by their actions, does not recognize them as a threat and therefore there is no action against them even in cases of violence, for example, for their role in the Bhima Koregaon violence of 2018 or the more recent role in Delhi riots of February 2020. However, in case of a democratic change over, their increased power, visibility and reach under the current regime, may embolden them to pose a future national security challenge.

Whereas this is a potential national security threat, they also pose a current threat in their threat to the minority. Since their polarizing actions furthers the political interest of the Hindutva-espousing BJP, there is never a mention of the right wing as a threat. The three ‘usual suspects’ on the list of internal security threats are terrorism, Left Wing Extremism and militancy in the North East. This silence owes in part to national security being statist in orientation and dependent on the government’s perspective, with commentators expending attention and effort rationalizing the government’s policies and actions. To an extent, the realists that largely populate the strategic community subscribe to a Hindutva worldview. Consequently, this is an area of deliberate inattention rather than evidence of non-existence of a case for including militant cultural nationalism as a national security threat.

The threat is constituted along two lines. One is that potential of marginalization of the minority resulting in a militarization of its response. Terror has been on the crosshairs of analysts for long in their dwelling on the penetration of radical Islamists ideas in Muslim communities and deradicalization as a measure against it. The threat from militant cultural nationalists that could potentially push a minority towards violence in rebound is not registered among ‘causes’. Consequently, the likelihood of persistence of the minority insecurity may provoke such a response.

The second is more significant. Militant cultural nationalism is already changing the complexion of the Republic. Its pursuit of increased solidarity within the Hindu community through an attempt at homogenization overriding the diversity that constitutes the majority requires an ‘Other’ to stand in contradistinction. This has reduced inter-community fraternity – a preamble-articulated Constitutional value.

The ruling party has introduced laws such as the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which have imposed on the secular fabric of Republic. They also build-in inequality in citizenship. If the sequence envisaged of a National Population Register (NPR) populating exercise is followed through with, then the CAA-NPR constitute a double whammy. In light of such portents, the possibility of a Hindu Republic is not a theoretical one anymore. Since this shift in the constitutional moorings changes India as we know it, does what is behind the shift – cultural nationalism and its vehicle militant cultural nationalism – constitute a national security threat?

Whereas rule of law can mitigate militant cultural nationalism, the shift in the Republic’s moorings owes to cultural nationalism. Since the ruling party is persuaded by cultural nationalism, it is unwilling to exercise its rule of law function of governance. Therefore, an expectation of inclusion of militant cultural nationalism as a national security threat remains unmet. Since cultural nationalism empowers militant cultural nationalism and is an ideological push against constitutional verities, can and should cultural nationalism be taken as a national security threat?

Hindutva is now an entrenched ideology that energises supporters of the democratically elected ruling party. If constitutional values are substituted by Hindutva-endorsed values in a democratic and procedurally legal manner, the counter can only be political and by a democratic mobilization. However, to the extent militant cultural nationalism is used by cultural nationalism for a stealthy purpose of replacing a secular republic by a Hindu republic, then cultural nationalism amounts to a national security threat. Cultural nationalism that plays by a democratic playbook is not a national security threat, even if it aims to question the constitutional schema, but turns into one in case the means – militant cultural nationalism - is illegal and illegitimate.

Attempting to change the republic in its desired image is expected to be countered by the checks and balances in a democratic system such as the doctrine of basic structure of the Constitution and upholding of it by the courts. In so far as these check and balances are undercut by procedurally illegal and illegitimate means – such as by pressure on the courts - then cultural nationalism turn into a national security threat.

Showing the red card to cultural nationalism is important to deter its use of militant cultural nationalism. Securitisation - labelling an issue as the subject of critical national security scrutiny - serves the purpose of focusing minds since invoking security has existential connotations. In this case, a political ideology, Hindutva, needs to be served notice. The ideology now has the advantage of political mainstreaming through the dubious instrumentality of the state. The challenge to the cozy co-habitation of the state and a political ideology has to come from outside.

While the political opposition has on occasion spiritedly pointed to this, notably Rahul Gandhi who once named it while his party was in power as the principal national security threat, there has been little or no traction of this perspective. The strategic community has been amiss in steering clear of discussing cultural nationalism and militant cultural nationalism in national security terms. Whereas cultural nationalism as a political ideology may be unexceptionable, it has long been inseparable from militant cultural nationalism.

While the threat militant nationalism poses to Muslims is easy to qualify as a national security threat, the steady movement towards a majoritarian democracy is not easy to classify. Even so, the illegitimate use of militant nationalism needs being deterred, for which examining cultural nationalism in national security terms calls for a start.  

 

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.   

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https://countercurrents.org/2020/01/gujaratification-as-the-foremost-national-security-threat

Gujaratification as the foremost national security threat

A commentator has it that Kashmirisation of India is underway ever since methods law and order maintenance tried and tested in Kashmir found their way into the national capital with the invasion of the armed police into a university campus to rough up students. Alongside, Gujratification of India is also underway, evident from the foray of a right wing lynch mob to beat up students of another central university in the national capital as the police stood by.

Gujaratification – the hand-in-glove nature of the regime and police - is a recent phenomenon on the national stage. However, conditioning Indians by the lap-dog media to mainstreaming it is proving difficult. India’s liberal hangover appears to be bestirring itself with a rear-guard action by assorted liberals and a besieged minority hogging the headlines. 

Clearly, the regime has over-reached. Blinded by arrogance on being rewarded with another term by an electorate fed on lies related to its military showing in the Balakot episode and hoping to build on the momentum from its constitutional hocus-pocus on Kashmir followed by its judicial coup in the Ayodhya case, unfurled – prematurely as it turns out - its flagship enterprise turning India into a Hindu Rashtra.

The good part is that it has in its exuberance spilled the beans on the ways and means towards the Hindu Rashtra, Gujaratification.

The Gujarat Model commended itself into middle class consciousness based on economic growth figures of the state under Modi. The underside to the Gujarat Model – of abject socio-economic indices - was lost in the beeline of the corporates to set up shop in Gujarat and its self-interested endorsement by corporate honchos. Less visible was the Gujarat Model’s blind side of Gujaratification.

Therefore when the electorate opted twice-over for the protagonist duo – Modi-Shah – from Gujarat, they have unwarily imported from Gujarat the odious dimension of their rule. This is turning out the primary national security threat today.

Essentially, Gujaratification is the internal hollowing out of institutions, in this case security relevant institutions. The enervation of the Gujarat police is an example, with the easy illustration being its custodial killings in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case that was dressed up as preemption of a plot to ‘get Modi’. Apparently, the henchmen were in constant touch with their minister, Amit Shah, even as they implemented orders.

Shades of Gujaratification are visible in the actions of the Delhi police, run by Shah’s home ministry, in its conduct on the two university campuses. While at Jamia Millia they vandalized the university campus without any permission even to enter it, in the case of Jawarharlal Nehru University (JNU), they held back ostensibly for permission to enter the campus even as the rampage inside the campus proceeded unhindered. That they then allowed right-wing foot-soldiers to then vanish using the cover of the dark, with street lights helpfully switched off for the purpose. This has shades of Gujarat 2002, when it is alleged the police were told to lay off while right wing goon squads were given 48 hours to do their bit.

As in Gujarat, where the likes of whistle-blower Sanjiv Bhatt are in jail even as his counterpart the tainted DG Vanzara, of encounter fame, is scot-free, Delhi is witnessing a similar inversion of justice. No one has been proceeded against in the Jamia Millia episode, though social media is awash with the evidence of disproportionate use of force by the police. Supposed bus burning and stone throwing by protestors is taken as enough to let off the perpetrators. In the JNU case, a first information report has been lodged against the injured head of the JNU student union, while not a single – easily identified - perpetrator has been arrested.

Gujaratification poses a more insidious threat. The disappearance of Najeeb Ahmed, the JNU student, missing for some three years, is a case to point. The ease of access by right wing forces to the campus and impunity thereafter throws light on what might have transpired the day Najeeb went missing.

For additional clarity, Uttar Pradesh (UP) is example. The UP police’s handling of the largely peaceful protests has been captured on camera. They are shown up as supplementing their resources with right wingers. Where the crowds are shown as violent, it is arguably because of the communalized police’s high-handedness combined with the provocation from right wingers in their midst. The ensuing violence has been taken as legitimizing the excessive use of force that resulted in over a score killed. The chief minister, chosen for the job by the dynamic duo – Modi-Shah, has since justified their choice by talking of ‘badla’ (revenge).

Gujaratification, the subversion of institutions and instruments of law and order and justice, is a national security threat since there is no distinction left between state and its temporal steward. The threat is in such agencies ending up as handmaiden for the advance of the footprint of Hindutva across India. Their trampling on the political backlash in the guise of national security makes them complicit in majoritarianism, besides setting the stage for authoritarianism.     

The national security threat is amplified in case it overruns the military – the last line of defence. On being appointed Chief of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat, who has constantly over his tenure as army chief through his political interventions flirted with the ruling party, piously intoned: “We stay far away from politics, very far. We have to work according to the directions of the Government in power.”

Security agencies – police, military and intelligence - have a constitutional and official mandate, the fulfillment of which requires beng apolitical and secular. However, if – as the good general does – they follow orders without reference to their formal professional obligation to the Constitution and normative obligation to the nation, they stand compromised.

Therefore, directions received from political bosses have to be gauged in light of their mandate, with illegal and illegitimate orders ignored. Doing so alone can preserve national security from being suborned by either ideology or an incipient authoritarianism.  

http://epaper.kashmirtimes.in/index.aspx?page=6

Gratis advice for the next National Security Adviser

NOTE: ADIL AHMED DAR, THE PULWAMA BOMBER, IS MISTAKENLY REFERRED TO AS THE SURRENDERED MILITANT FROM AN ENCOUNTER IN SHOPIAN ON 11 SEP 17, BASED ON AN ERRORNEOUS REPORT IN KASHMIR TIMES THAT GOT THE NAME OF THE MILITANT WRONG. THE SURRENDEREE WAS ADIL HUSSAIN DAR.  

The right wing’s information warriors that comprise self-selected nationalists, former spooks, unwary denizens of the strategic community, ruling party inclined hacks and paid-up members of the bhakt brigade, are having their last hurrah. Having manipulated opinion polls, they have extended ‘acche din’ by a week. Even so the nation awaits the electoral verdict with bated breath, to learn if it is possible – as the information warriors believe – to fool all the people all the time.

The last bit of pulling wool over peoples’ eyes was in the information operations surrounding the Balakot-Naushera episode. The narrative was that India came out on top, delivering a mortal blow to Jaish at its labyrinth within mainland Pakistan, bringing down an F-16 with a Mig-21, and scaring the living daylights out of Imran Khan, forcing him to hand back the captured Indian Mig-21 pilot.

The unfortunate part of this was that the target was not so much Pakistan - itself a target of the Pakistani Inter-Services Public Relations’ General Asif Ghafoor – as much as the Indian electorate. The electorate needed diverting from naysayers looking for dirt in Gross Domestic Product numbers, unemployment figures, demonetization effects, suicides by farmers etc. Alongside, for good measure, some ten such contrarians were locked up for being urban Naxals out to ‘get Modi’, making others similarly-inspired more circumspect.

The nation awaits the electoral verdict if this strategy of buoying the national morale with tales from the Pakistan front worked. The opinion polls have it that it has done wonders. But this amounts to the information warrior brigade writing-up its final confidential report on its showing over the year. That it has done a creditable job of what it was put to is without question.

There is nary a word on the possibility that the Pulwama terror attack may have been a black operation. The antecedents of Pulwama bomber, Adil Ahmad Dar, who was constantly in and out of police stations as much as in and out of tanzeems, needs probing further, especially the cryptic report in this publication that he was once whisked away from the site of an encounter in which two Hizb compatriots died. That such suspicion can legitimately be entertained is clear from the immaculate timing of the episode, enabling the response to Pulwama enough time to play out and be taken advantage of electorally by the ruling party.

That the information warriors have carried the day is also clear from the absence of a round of missile exchanges even though India went down in the psychological-ascendance game after the Pakistani Naushera riposte to its over-hyped Balakot aerial strike. Strategising and war-gaming would have reckoned with following up to even the score. Instead, information war was resorted to, to paper over the loss of high ground.

This restraint makes sense only in terms of domestic politics. The uncertainty that attends escalation – such as an untimely Diwali - is something the political head could have done without in elections run up. So it made sense to wrap up early, with the pickings magnified by information war: 300 jihadis dead, one F-16 downed, Imran the Khan pleading for peace etc. The reasoning is perhaps that the score can be evened in killing some more Kashmiri armed youth – the score has long crossed 600 over the last three years of Operation All Out, with 87 killed this year of which 9 were killed last week. This spike since end of polls in Kashmir suggests a certain desperation to get even before being boarded out of power.

The desperation was in evidence as the rounds of polls progressed. Information warriors not only manage perceptions, but also keep tags on the information space. So it was within their ken to feel the electoral pulse through the rounds. The feedback perhaps explains the desperation that culminated in the nomination as the ruling party’s parliamentary candidate of the terrorist, Pragya Singh Thakur, even as the breathtaking spin put out by no less than the prime minister was that she was the epitome of a five thousand year old Hindu civilization.

That no Hindu could be a terrorist implies that all terror India has been subject to over the past fifteen years has been Muslim-perpetrated. (The violence in the north east and in central India is attributed to insurgency not counting as terrorism.) In one instance, this writer heard a former foreign secretary opine in an open forum that the Hindu terror angle needs to be mellowed down lest it impact India’s Pakistan strategy cornering it over terror. The opinion polls suggest that the nation has bought into this line. That this line has been in evidence over the past decade and half implies ownership by some amorphous entity.

Information war of the order surrounding the elections as depicted here bespeaks of an organization behind it rather than a set of non-governmental information warriors under a right wing umbrella. In an earlier column in this publication (23 March 2018), the possibility of an Indian ‘deep state’, based on its intelligence agencies subscribing to the cultural nationalist philosophy and participating in its project, had been mooted. The buck in the shadowy intelligence world stops at the door of the national security-cum-intelligence czar’s door.

It is self-evident that the reins of the governmental complex that unwarily participated in the field operations connected with the electoral information war are National Security Adviser (NSA), Ajit Doval, controlled. It can be reasonably surmised – from the hagiographies put out on Doval and breathless tracts on the Modi-Doval doctrine – that he holds the reins also of the non-governmental side, with former spooks owing him allegiance bridging the two. There is also the Amit Shah controlled apparatus comprising ruling party trolls, which more than likely defers to the larger intelligence project of returning Modi to power. Modi’s two Man-Fridays – one managing the governmental side and the other the non-governmental – have timed beautifully. That politics is outside an NSA job description indicates the extent of rollback pending.

Operation Elections - the information war project that has surrounded it - has shot its bolt. The Election Commission can yet retrieve is down-in-the-dumps credibility in case it keeps election voting machines sacrosanct over the coming days. In case the Election Commission redeems itself, what should be the national security agenda of the next NSA?

The objective in this rather-extended introduction has been to present the extent of the problem. The next NSA has his task cut out: to identify, contain and dismantle the ‘deep state’. This would not be easy since those self-selecting to the deep state are impassioned by the belief in their cause of midwife-ing religious majortarianism. If the gullible voters need perception management to this end, then manipulating democracy and subverting institutions is small price to pay. An awareness of the iceberg below the water surface is a good start point for an incoming NSA.

Obviously, this cannot be done unless the political class bottles-up Hindutva: religious majoritarianism masquerading as cultural nationalism. Merely wresting the national discourse back from the ideology’s grasp does not make India safe. The NSA can help retrieve the state from right wing formations that made instrumental use of the ideology for state capture. A state duly freed from right wing infiltration and penetration can assert its space, emboldening throwing away of ideological blinkers by society at large. A resulting virtuous cycle can over time undo the damage of the last thirty years to polity, society and institutions.

Is there a (wo)man for the job? To acknowledge that the intelligence community is outsized is passé. Two NSAs in quick succession from within its ranks have revealed its limitations and dangers. The foreign service provided three head honchos. The first was over-extended, overseeing the governmental apparatus alongside as principal secretary; the second could not withstand the demands physically; and the third, though right-minded, was light-weight. The steel frame abdicated, allowing NSA Doval to take headship of the strategic policy group. Yet another policeman cannot be risked. This leaves the military, its credentials burnished since dismantling the iceberg requires moral fiber that only a military life can impart. (There is civil society to also be vetted as site for candidates, but space prevents going into this here.)  

Some candidates with demonstrated intellectual capital, professional stature and moral strength are easy to spot, to wit, Admiral Arun Prakash and retired lieutenant generals Rustom Nanavatty, HS Panag and Prakash Menon. One needs look no further than General DS Hooda, presciently picked by the Congress to upbraid its national security credentials. He courageously put out a well-regarded blueprint that informed the fairly forward-looking security paragraphs in the manifesto of the Congress party. The agenda is spot-on in its intent to bring the NSA appointment to parliamentary heel, a constitutional-empowering of the appointment as necessary first step in the rollback of the deep state.

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http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=89493

THE DOVAL AND HOODA PRESCRIPTIONS EXAMINED

The Congress has bitten the bullet by attempting a head start on its rival, the ruling party, in the release of its manifesto. It hopes to seize the agenda-setting initiative from the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), which it had lost seemingly decisively in the wake of the Balakot aerial strikes. Initial optics indicates that it has made a dent with its championing of dole to the destitute under the 'Nyay' scheme.

Of greater consequence to readers of this paper is the vision for Kashmir that it lays out. Since this has apparently been done with the input of a former commanding general in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), DS Hooda, it makes for enhanced credibility. Hooda had earlier taken on the request of the Congress to turn in a security doctrine for use by the party as it headed into elections. The grand old party, often criticized for its showing on the security front particularly in comparison with the BJP that projects a strong-on-defence image, has apparently benefited from his insight, using it to pepper its manifesto.

Hooda is regarded as a hero after the surgical strikes. Besides a wealth of military experience in counter insurgency, he has shown himself to be empathetic to the people of the state. His major legacy is in arraigning of the perpetrators of the Machhil incident and in making the trigger-happy security detail at a road check-point to face consequences for killing two Kashmiri youth out on a joy ride.

In the event, the armed forces tribunal let off the Machhil perpetrators on trivial grounds, even as his taking the responsibility for the check point killings was criticized as a political stunt by no less than the former director of the army's think tank on land warfare studies. (The former director went on to join a right wing think tank that has connections with Ajit Doval's family, Doval being the current day national security adviser.)

The Doval imprint on Kashmir has been apparent over the past three years, ever more so over the past three months. His latest intervention has been in the bans on the Jamaat and the J&K Liberation Front. Since Doval is an old warrior in the intelligence game with Pakistan over the past four decades, the bans are akin to vendetta with the animus dating to the early nineties when the two entities were reckonable antagonists for Indian intelligence agencies in Kashmir. The charge-sheet against the JKLF includes 'genocide', a clear give away of the accumulated bile in decision makers that can only cloud strategic thinking.

In effect, the advantage is to the voter. She has two Kashmir policy prescriptions to choose from, respectively the Hooda and Doval prescriptions. Since the voter's would be a forward-looking exercise, the prospects of the two are examined here.

To begin with: the Doval prescription. The pillars of this into the fifth year of implementation are by now amply clear. 'No talks' with either Pakistan or with Kashmiris is its hallmark. Since talks figure universally as a check box to be ticked in policy repertoire in counter insurgency and inter-state relations, internally, there is a perfunctory representative of the Union who makes the rounds, while externally, every now and again India takes one step forward for talks with Pakistan followed soon thereafter with two steps back.

In its fifth year, it is easy to examine the outcome. It can plausibly be argued that the conditions created by the Doval prescription led to the Pulwama car-bomb attack. Recall, prior to the mid February car-bomb strike with which Pulwama has now eternally come to be associated with, it was known for the frequent stand-off between stone-pelters and security forces. In one incident in December last year, seven civilians were killed on the sidelines of a military operation. Also, along with the 250 militants killed last year, 28 militants were killed before the car-bomb attack. With no lee-way on offer in terms of outreach by the representative of the Union government, escalation was only waiting to happen. In short, the government's policy needs being blamed for the escalation, besides its intelligence lapse and tactical imprudence, such as basic convoy drills, that led to the success of the car-bomb attack directly.

As for the deterrence value of the surgical strikes post Uri, the car-bomb attack has shown it up as vacuous. Pakistani restraint in its proxy war is apparent in its overlooking some 400 killed in the past three years in Kashmir without infusing fresh blood and material in to the proxy war. The Balakot aerial strike and the continuing of a 'no talks' policy can only incentivize it to reverse gear over the coming summer. In case the government is right on numbers killed ('a very large number' according to its foreign secretary) and the ruling party chair is right on his figure of 300 killed, then it can easily predicted to be a pretty hot summer indeed. As to effects on the assembly elections, these will surely be postponed - in case Doval remains in the chair after elections - allowing for Operation All Out to go all out.

If the BJP is re-elected on its pitch of doing away with Article 35A to begin with and it proceeds to queer the pitch on Article 370, it has been forewarned by the two mainstream parties in the Valley that there would be consequences. While the Modi-Doval combine might rightly believe that the 'Modiji ki sena' (in the inimitable words of a candidate successor to Modi, Ajay Singh Bisht, aka. Yogi Adityanath) would deliver, it would be hard pressed. However, there is no call for its professionalism to remain on test by aggravation of the conditions it operates in. Not politically addressing the problem amounts to political abdication of its role by the central government. But to further muddy waters politically would amount to a criminally liable dereliction of responsibility, once the nuclear balloon goes up.

The Balakot-Naushera aerial exchange indicates that the Modi-Doval prescription sets up the region for a perfect storm. While Doval apologists in the strategic community have it that India has called Pakistan's nuclear bluff, the view from the other side could well be that Pakistan has called India's conventional bluff. The starving of the defence budget, even as preening was at a peak by the government, made for a conventional bluff easy to puncture. At the nuclear level, a one-time military adviser in the national security system, Prakash Menon, observed a touching belief in both sides in respective nuclear bluffs. Both sides are liable to go into their next crisis determined to call the nuclear bluff of the other side: India wanting to call Pakistan's first use nuclear bluff and Pakistan out to show up India's massive nuclear retaliation as bluff.

It is easy to see that the Hooda prescription has the antidote to the regional predicament on account of Kashmir. The military's role is considerably eased by the political content in the Congress manifesto. The Congress manifesto calls for civil society interlocutors to dialogue with the Kashmiris, even as it dilutes the militarization in Kashmir and reviews the working of the armed forces special powers legislation. Clearly, Modi's reaction that it is a Pakistani conspiracy is perhaps the best indicator that it is a contrary prescription with potential to mitigate, if not reverse, the strategic impasse in Kashmir. The criticism that it could lead to 'balkanization', voiced by Modi's chief spin doctor, Arun Jaitley, is easily refuted since it has captured the grievances of Kashmiris, thereby addressing separatism. Enticing Kashmiris by presenting an inclusive and liberal version of democracy and respecting the foundational constitutional articles as regards the merger, it creates the political framework for Kashmiris to step into the mainstream.

Admittedly, if the Congress does come to power and even if it intends to follow through with its 'Congress will deliver' slogan, it would likely be in a weak coalition and one buffeted by a strong opposition coalition led by the BJP. Therefore, the Congress would require staying the course, unlike in its previous tenure at the helm, United Progressive Alliance II years, when it was fearful of being outflanked by the BJP. The BJP having been exposed in the Modi years and the Doval prescription having been found wanting, the Congress would need to step up. It would be well advised to allow Hooda himself, as the new national security adviser, to implement the policy he wrote up.

https://www.thecitizen.in//index.php/en/newsdetail/index/4/16623/has-mission-shakti-made-india-safer

Has Mission Shakti made India safer?

The answer to the question posed in the title has potential to absolve the Modi government on the counts it is being arraigned by strategists criticizing its conduct of the anti-satellite (A-Sat) test on 27 March. If found wanting in making India safer, it can easily then be seen to be yet another election jumla,indicating a certain panic over the possible outcome of elections.

To the decision maker, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the test proved his courage in decision making and claims for being strong on national security, complementing as it did the earlier ‘surgical strikes’ on land and through the air.

On the face of it, clubbing the three takes the shine off the A-Sat test.

If the surgical strikes along the Line of Control conducted in wake of the terror attack on the Uri military facility had been of any consequence, a subsequent terror attack of the magnitude as occurred at Pulwama two years later should not have happened.

As for the aerial strike in end February at Balakot to avenge the mid-February Pulwama terror attack the jury is still out on its deterrence value and the outcome would only be known over the coming summer.

In short, the result of the surgical strikes on land did not work out as intended. The Balakot aerial strike is unlikely to prove any different. What of the third surgical strike, in space?

Former Pakistan president, General Musharraf, from his current-day perch in self-exile in Dubai, made an interesting observation during the recent India-Pakistan crisis, on the nuclear dimension to an India-Pakistan confrontation.

He said that Pakistan is liable to be finished by an Indian counter of merely a score of nuclear weapons to Pakistani nuclear first use, even if of only one weapon. To him, Pakistan would need to preempt any such Indian counter by going first with a large nuclear salvo comprising some fifty weapons.

Worried by the possibility of such Pakistani nuclear temerity, India is apparently readying to go first with a preemptive damage limitation strike of its own.

Former national security adviser, Shivshankar Menon, in his book, Choices, indicated that a ‘gray area’ attends India’s No First Use (NFU) policy. He wrote that, ‘[C]ircumstances are conceivable in which India might find it useful to strike first, for instance, against an NWS that had declared it would certainly use its weapons, and if India were certain that adversary’s launch was imminent.’

The official nuclear doctrine dating to January 2003 has it that India’s would be ‘a posture of "No First Use”: nuclear weapons will only be used in retaliation against a nuclear attack on Indian territory or on Indian forces anywhere.’

Since the official nuclear doctrine is widely taken as largely based on the preceding draft nuclear doctrine of August 1999, the interpretation of NFU in the draft is of significance. The draft has it that ‘India will not be the first to initiate a nuclear strike….’

Taking the two together, it cannot be said with any certainty any more that India would await a nuclear strike prior to launching its own ‘retaliation only’ counter.

India’s tentative movement away from NFU has been spotted by two avid watchers of nuclear India, Vipin Narang on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Christopher Clary, who teaches at the University of Albany.

In a recent edition of the prestigious journal, International Security, they write: ‘India may be developing options toward Pakistan that would permit it to engage in hard nuclear counterforce targeting, providing India a limited ability to disarm Pakistan of strategic nuclear weapons.’

The idea appears to be that a first strike equivalent retaliation, in anticipation of imminent nuclear first use by Pakistan (even if not of first strike proportions), would not be violation of the NFU since Pakistan would be the one initiating the strike; thus absolving India of violating its NFU pledge.

Catching Pakistani signatures that betray such initiation requires intimate satellite coverage of the prospective locations and hides of its strategic assets. For this, India’s military reconnaissance and surveillance satellites are critical. Ensuring that these are not taken out by the enemy is therefore necessary.

This logic provides a plausible deterrence rationale for the A-Sat test. Since a kinetic-kill test is more visible, it has a higher deterrent value, even if kinetic-kill by use of missiles is no longer the likely way to take out such satellites. The cyber route is the more likely route in the future.

However, this does not answer the question if India is made any safer by a movement towards a capability for damage limitation strikes that stands enhanced by the A-Sat tests.

The logic appears to be that taking out most Pakistani strategic weapons prior to launch would leave Pakistan with only a few it could yet lob across. These could be shot down with the ballistic missile defence (BMD) cover being put in place. The A-Sat test was itself an indirect demonstration of BMD efficacy, which also stands being enhanced by the purchase of the Russian S-400 weapon system.

India is thus supposedly safer. But this neglects the numbers that Musharraf alluded to.

If, to Musharraf, Pakistan requires roughly 50 warheads for a first strike to preserve itself from the twenty Indian warheads that would otherwise finish it off, India would require rather more than 50 to set back any Pakistani first strike.

By most accounts, Pakistan is ahead of India in numbers of warheads and in the missile race. India also has another foe, China, necessitating keeping some bombs up its sleeve. Thus, India would unlikely be able to forestall a broken-backed retaliation by Pakistan, which in the event can only be counter value city-busting.

What the exchange does to the regional environment over the long term needs imagining, besides implications of refugee flows on the social fabric and political complexion of the regional states.

As regards China, against whom the capability is advertised as more relevant, it has had a head start over India in its A-Sat capability by a dozen years. It is no wonder that the asymmetry has precluded any substantial discussion of deterrent effects of the A-Sat test in relation to China.

Given the complaints of debris, that the National Aeronautic and Space Agency head claims are endangering the international space station, it is inconceivable for a kinetic-kill A-Sat capability to figure in war with China. The collateral damage to other countries satellites would be prohibitive politically for either side. Since both sides have a NFU in place and have the conventional war-fighting resources, seeking a first strike advantage may not figure in war.

At best, a reference to China, and the other two who have demonstrated the capability, the United States and Russia, has instead been to legitimize the tests.

Clearly therefore to the extent that the A-Sat capability incentivizes the movement away from a strict NFU and towards a putative first strike capability and intent against Pakistan, the A-Sat test does not make India safer. On the contrary, it incentivizes the insensible move to rescinding the NFU under a motivated reinterpretation of it.

By this yardstick, for the ruling party to have gone to town taking credit for Mission Shakti – and the other two ‘surgical strikes’ – makes the capability even more worrying, since, contrary to its claims, the capability is not self-evidently in safe hands, in hands of minders who should know better.