The thesis proposal in 2008 and its outcome in 2012: 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/p3qe0obnat22iac/full%20text.pdf?dl=0

THESIS PROPOSAL FOR DIRECT PHD AT CIPOD, SIS, JNU : ALI AHMED - Jul 2008

Title : Strategic doctrines of India and Pakistan: 1998-2006.

Thesis Statement : Realist inspired strategic doctrines in India and Pakistan have adversely impacted state security and regional stability.

Period of the Study: 1998-2006

The period 1998-2006 covers the considerable developments in both states post overt nuclearisation and the accelerated changes in the aftermath of Operation Parakram.

Doctrinal development in India has been prompted by India’s regional aspirations and as a response to its military predicament brought on by Pakistan exercising its prerogative as a weak and revisionist power. These doctrines at the sub-conventional plane range from a strategy of exhaustion to one of ‘velvet glove – iron fist’. On the conventional level there has been the pincer offensives of the Surdarji era through Limited War to today’s ‘cold start’. On the nuclear level, the move has been from recessed and existential deterrence through ‘massive retaliation’ of the Draft Nuclear Doctrine to one probably more nuanced in light of developments in the nuclear field of command and control, survivability, delivery and miniaturisation.

Pakistan for its part has not explicitly stated its doctrine, but the reliance on irregulars to supplement its conventional capabilities has been hinted at. To constrain the conventional space that India perceives as existing below the nuclear threshold, Pakistan has not outlined its nuclear doctrine, but it is believed to be a ‘high’ nuclear threshold. However, its strategic doctrine is one of war avoidance, forced on it due to India’s changed doctrine to a pro-active strategic posture, as also the preoccupation with the GWOT and the blowback in its own backyard.  There is a greater intermeshing of doctrines in the three planes, posing a considerable challenge to its regional foe and making for a rewarding theoretical study.   

Scope of Study

The central questions required to be addressed are as under:

What constitutes regional stability? What are implications for state security?

What are core aims and objectives of national security policies? How and in what measure are these provisioned by strategic doctrines?

How are strategic and military doctrines formulated in democratic and dictatorial regimes and what are the influences?

How does a realist paradigm render askew strategic and military doctrines in relation to rational national security policy aims and objectives?

What are the alternative paradigms and how would their adoption mitigate the doctrinal competition?

The study would require theoretical anchoring in a discussion of realism and its dominance in South Asia. It would require to be proven that realism inspires competitive doctrine formulation and these impact regional stability and national security adversely. The outcome would be a critique of realism and an assessment of the alternative paradigms thereby expanding the scope for peace in the region and providing a national security perspective that lends itself better to national security in the South Asian context.

 The manner of development of doctrine in terms of mechanisms, internal and external influences, impact of adversary’s doctrine and behavior can be charted through this study with fruitful academic fallout. The inter-linkages with the overarching national security doctrine and relationship with sister doctrines such as in the economic, diplomatic and internal security fields would find brief mention. It would look at actors, interrelations among these, external influence of foreign powers and doctrines originating elsewhere, higher defence organizations, military organizational developments such as creation of additional commands in both states, and democratic control.

Methodology

The need for the two states to appear responsible nuclear powers, prodded by the international community led by the US, has resulted in their being relatively more effusive in terms of their nuclear thinking.

India in taking its democratic traditions seriously has indulged in not only a wider media debate within its strategic community but has also published some of its doctrines, such as the Draft Nuclear doctrine, the services doctrines, MOD reports, parliamentary debates etc. Therefore there is not only the basic material available but also secondary material in terms of commentary. Interviews would be required to bring to fore aspects requiring closer scrutiny.  

Pakistan’s think tank and university based strategic community is very visible and vocal. Its retired fraternity is active and accessible, especially in championing the Pakistani perspective. With fresh democratic winds blowing access may be an easier proposition. Commentary in strategic journals, interaction with think tanks, interviews with decision makers and strategists and  commentaries of western and Indian observers would be the manner of accessing the Pakistani viewpoint. Thus balance in the dissertation can be maintained and sustainable conclusions for the study can be drawn.

Necessity

The periodically strained relations between protagonist states in South Asia make it a region prone to crisis. It is therefore necessary to probe for underlying propensity towards crisis and conflict. While most have been studied in greater detail, the role of competitive doctrine formulation has escaped adequate scrutiny, inexcusable on account of doctrine driving organizational changes, equipping policies and training that consume a high percentage of the defence budget – itself a major proportion of government expenditure. Therefore, if stability in regional security, and, thereby enhanced state security, is to be brought about, a start point is in examining the role of doctrinal development. An illustration is that the space India seeks below the nuclear threshold is curbed by Pakistan through its ‘first use’ philosophy, and resulting Indian uncertainty is exploited by Pakistan to further its sub-conventional proxy war.

Conclusion

Doctrinal development has been taken as the domain of the military owing to its expertise. True to its mandate for providing security to the state, the military in both states has adapted its doctrinal response to its national security ends. This accounts for the rich doctrinal evolution witnessed in South Asia in the nuclear and conventional fields. That this evolution has been furthered by a series of crisis, testifies in part to the failure of the preceding doctrines in providing the necessary security. The resulting evolution has set the stage for the next crisis, virtually leading to a notional cycle. This indicates that regional instability has origin, inter alia, in the doctrines adopted by both states to defend and further national security. Academic scrutiny can bring to fore the nature of impact of dysfunctional doctrines on state security and regional stability.

(Words – 1038)

REPRESENTATIVE READINGS

Abraham, I., The Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb: Science, Secrecy and the Postcolonial State; London, Zed Press, 1998

Bajpai, K., Cohen, S., Cheema, P., and Ganguly, S., Brasstacks and Beyond: Perception and Management of Crisis in South Asia; New Delhi, Manohar, 1995

Bajpai, K., Karim, A. and Mattoo, A. (eds) Kargil and After: Challenges for Indian Policy; New Delhi, Har Anand, 2001

Chari, P., Cheema, P., and Cohen, S., Perception, Politics and Security in South Asia: The compound crisis of 1990; London, RoutledgeCurzon, 2003

Chengappa, R., Weapons of peace: The Secret Story of India’s Quest to be Nuclear Power; New Delhi, Harper Collins, 2000

Cohen, S., The Pakistan Army; Berkeley, University of California Press, 1998

Dixit, JN., India and Pakistan in War and Peace; New York, Routledge, 2002

Ganguly, S., Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Tensions Since 1947; New York, Columbia Unversity Press, 2001

Ganguly, S., and Hagerty, D., Fearful Symmetry: India-Pakistan Crisis in the Shadow of Nuclear Weapons; New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2004

Hagerty, D., The Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation: The Lessons from South Asia; Cambridge, MIT Press, 1998

Joeck, N., Strategic Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia; London, Frank Cass, 1996

Jones, O., Pakistan: Eye of the Storm; New Haven, Yale University Press, 2002

Krepon, M., The Stability-Instability Paradox, Misperception and Escalation Control in South Asia; Washington DC, Henry L Stimson Center, 2003

Krishna, A., and Chari., P., (eds), Kargil: The Tables Turned; New Delhi, Manohar, 2001

Malik, VP., Kargil: From Surprise to Victory, New Delhi, Harper Collins, 2006

Perkovich, G., India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact of Global Proliferation; Berkeley, University of California Press, 1999

Rajagopalan, R., Second Strike: Arguments of Nuclear War in South Asia, New Delhi, Penguin Books, 2005

Rajagopalan, R., Fighting Like a Guerilla: Indian Army and Counterinsurgency; New Delhi, Routeledge, 2007

Subrahmanyam, K., From Surprise to Reckoning: The Kargil Review Committee Report, New Delhi, Sage Publications, 1999

Swahney, P., and Sood, VK., Operation Parakram: The War Unfinished; New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2003

Tellis, A., India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture: Between Deterrence and Ready Arsenal; Santa Monica, California, RAND Corpn., 2001

Wirsing, R., Kashmir in the Shadow of Nuclear War: Regional Rivalries in the Nuclear Age; Armonk, New York, 2003

Wirsing, R., Pakistani Security Under Zia, 1977-88: The Policy Imperatives of a Peripheral Asian State; New York, St Martin’s Press, 1991

Indian Army Doctrine; HQ ARTRAC, 2004

 

 

The project proposal at IDSA and outcome 2008-2010: 

https://www.idsa.in/monograph/ReconcilingDoctrinesPrerequisiteforPeaceinSouthAsia_aahmed_2010

PROJECT SYNOPSIS:

APPLICANTION FOR ASSOCIATE FELLOWSHIP AT IDSA 2008

 

RECONCILING MILITARY STRATEGIES AS PREREQUISITE TO PEACE IN SOUTH ASIA

 

Thesis Statement

 

A reconciliation of military strategies of India and Pakistan is a necessary prerequisite for peace in South Asia.

 

Aim

 

The aim of the study is to arrive at a policy recommendation on defence policy through a study of the competing military strategies of India and Pakistan on the three levels – subconventional, conventional and nuclear.

 

Conceptual Approach

 

It is assumed that peace begets prosperity and prosperity is the national aim. The proposed study privileges ‘security through peace’ over ‘peace through security’. Present defense policy is predicated on exertions towards security so as to beget peace. Since these exertions contribute to the relative insecurity of neighbours, their actions and reactions constitute ‘threats’ to security. Further efforts at security along the same general direction serve to heighten neighbours threat constituting behaviour. Thus ‘peace through security’ is a receding horizon. Instead, a ‘security through peace’ model cognizant of the underside mentioned, attempts to undercut the rationale of the neighbour by reconciling the efforts towards security of both. The emphasis is thus reversed with peace begetting security, and in turn prosperity.

 

Background

 

In the popular narrative regional instability over the past two decades is attributed to a military-dominated revisionist Pakistan posing a strategic challenge to status-quoist India’s natural growth to regional power status. At the subconventional level Pakistan has waged a proxy war in Kashmir and fostered the growth of minority based terrorism elsewhere in India. It has sought to limit India’s advantages at the conventional level through a ‘first use’ nuclear strategy. India for its part has attempted to acquire an escalation dominance capability at all three levels by waging Low Intensity Conflict operations, refurbishing conventional doctrine and posture and adopting massive retaliation as mainstay of its nuclear deterrence.

 

The ongoing Global War on Terror has had a benign impact for the present, with a putative détente prevailing. The current hiatus in tensions between the two neighbours is being taken advantage of by India for stabilizing Kashmir and a deepening of democracy in Pakistan.

 

Assumptions

 

An assumption in respect of India is that the national aim is sustenance of its economic trajectory, thereby enhancing its great power credentials and bringing prosperity to the nation. With respect to Pakistan the assumption is that a democratic Pakistan would be to its best interest, a prerequisite for which is a drawdown in military’s control of the state.

 

Central Argument

 

Pakistan’s military has used the bogey of Indian hegemonism to retain praetorian control over its state and perpetrate a provocative subconventional strategy. India’s actions, both in exercise of its power in keeping with its self image as a regional power and in reaction to Pakistani proxy war, have contributed to a convergence between Pakistani perception and reality. The nuclear overhang has had the dual influence of both enabling this strategic competition on the lowest, subconventional, level, even while ensuring restraint at the middle, conventional, level. The self-serving argument of the military in Pakistan can be dispelled through a mutual retraction of respective offensive strategies at various levels. This would deepen democracy in Pakistan, reduce Pakistani propensity to heighten internal problems in India and enable a rethink in its nuclear use philosophy. 

 

Since India has no extra-territorial designs on Pakistan and the proposed balancing would not undercut Indian conventional deterrence, there is a case for it to countenance engaging its neighbour in reconciling military strategies. The fallout would be on better internal security at the subconventional level and a reduced salience of the nuclear level.

 

Progress in the peace process is predicated not so much on the improved conditions in Kashmir, but on arriving at an inter-state balance of power. An interpretation of Pakistani interest in Kashmir is that it is less on account of identity issues but more to redress the military balance with India by tying its conventional superiority down in a subconventional engagement in Kashmir. In which case unless this disparity is addressed to Pakistan’s satisfaction peace will be elusive. The current hiatus in strained relations owes to Pakistan’s preoccupation with its western borders. Once its straitened circumstances are navigated past, instability will return. Intervention with any meaning for peace entails discussing Pakistan’s take on the Indian conventional edge. Thus the tradeoff would be a draw down by Pakistan in its offensive posture at the subconventional plane in return for India’s reciprocation on the conventional plane.

 

 

 

Arguing the case

 

The study would have to pose and answer the following questions:

 

• What are the wellsprings of India’s defence policy?
• How does India’s strategic posture impose on Pakistan?
• What are the implications of reconciliation of offensive postures on India’s conventional deterrent? Would such engagement result in its dilution?
• Would Pakistan view the idea/initiative as in its interests?
• What are the counter-arguments against the idea and how can these be dispelled?
• Under what conditions would India and Pakistan be receptive to engaging in reconciliation of military strategies at the three levels?
• What are the contours of such balancing?
• How would the idea be required to be packaged both internally and externally?
• What are the anticipatory problem areas in implementation and what measures need be taken to overcome these?

 

Methodology

 

Since adversarial military postures are a symptom of the health of political relations, political aims of both states would require first to be discerned. This would ascertain the strength of the assumptions on which the study is based. There is adequate commentary existing on this issue and primary sources in terms of MOD and MEA reports in the public domain are available. Declaratory policy would require to be contrasted against policy in action. Ultimately, sustainability of the proposal would be determined by its internal political acceptability and institutional resistance encountered. This would be a function of the future vision for India – an active participant as a global player in great power strategic balancing or as an introspective power in the model of post war Germany and Japan. 

 

Next recent operational histories and operational thinking in both armies would require to be studied. There is ample secondary reading on this issue, particularly on the internet, with interviews with retired military protagonists enabling further insight. Advantage would be taken of the effusion in doctrinal thinking in India since the Kargil War.

 

A review of force structures would need to be done through input from open sources and interviews. Making sense of these would require input from operations experts. Limits and implications of options can be formulated based on this.

 

Existing CAMs and CBMs and ideas on next generation steps would require vetting. The envelop would have to be pushed since the idea here has a broader dimension than can be subsumed among other CBM.    

 

The Pakistani perspective of India is crucial to read accurately so as to eventually turn out a practicable study. This would require interfacing with the Pakistani strategic community and understanding the Track II contribution so far.

 

Conclusion

 

Adversarial military strategic engagement between India and Pakistan is on all the three planes: subconventional, conventional and nuclear. It can be anticipated that balancing would not be restricted to conventional forces but would impose on forces conducting and configured for Low Intensity Operations in so far Pakistan’s demand on India is concerned; and on nuclear ‘first use’ postures in so far as India’s claim on Pakistan can be anticipated. Thus there would be mutuality in ‘give and take’ with Pakistan requiring to agree to forego its offensive posture on the subconventional level while India dilutes its offensive conventional posture. At the nuclear level, Indian amenability at the conventional level would make for a better case for No First Use adoption by Pakistan and lead to a configuration of its nuclear deterrent posture accordingly. On the nuclear level for India the implication would be a stay on any likely move towards ‘flexible response’ and the nuclear warfighting posture this entails.

 

It would be naïve to believe peace is necessarily the condition desired by political forces in society. Power for its own sake and for projecting in keeping with a self image are also contending visions. Leveraging of power as a candidate route to peace can be a preferred alternative for political forces of certain persuasion, those with alternative strategic  perspectives and institutions protective of their interests. Thus the political element would bear scrutiny in greater measure than ‘bean counting’, as the term ‘balancing’ may superficially suggest.  The policy import of the study on this account extends beyond the parameters of defence policy into the ideational realm of the state.

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/indias-national-security-a-feast?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf

India’s national security: A feast for Advisers

Nov 2

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.