http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/defence-reform-jointness-and-command-and-control/

Defence reform: Jointness and command and control

The story of General Rawat’s efforts as the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) to infuse critical velocity into the military’s jointness process is well known. Empowered by the amendment to the Allocation of Business rules that called for the CDS to facilitate ‘restructuring of Military Commands for optimal utilisation of resources by bringing about jointness in operations, including through establishment of joint/theatre commands,’ General Rawat proposed a prototype model of jointness.

In the main, the prototype had front-specific theatres, with the landward theatres facing Pakistan and China respectively and a maritime theatre. These theatres would be the provenance of joint Integrated Theatre Commands (ITC). There are also to be joint functional commands, such as for logistics and training.

The genesis of the front-specific ITC is in the ‘two-and-half-front’ dilemma. The prototype copes with the two-front challenge by delegating operational responsibility on each front to respective ITC, while the ‘half-front’ – short hand for Pakistan’s proxy war in Kashmir - has the Army’s Northern Command continuing its counter insurgency role, besides coping any collusive, China-Pakistan, threat.

The command and control conundrum

The command and control issue over front-specific ITCs poses a conundrum as to how the chain of command will be configured. Though this has received attention, with two options finding mention, there has been no authoritative conclusion to the debate so far.

The first is modeled on the US system in which the Joint Chiefs of Staff body is in an advisory role to the defence secretary, who has command authority over the ITC equivalent formations, their Combatant Commands. In the case of China, that also has theatre commands - with its Western Theatre Command facing India - the command authority vests with the Central Military Commission (CMC).

However, the suitability of both models for the Indian system is suspect. Here, the CDS is the principal military adviser to the defence minister and the government. Even with the advice of the CDS, a defence minister with limited domain knowledge and assisted by a bureaucracy with a known deficit in strategic expertise would not be able to exercise command authority adequately, while there is no equivalent of the Chinese CMC.  

The second option is that the Chief of Defence Staff system (CDS) could be suitably modified with the CDS in his capacity as Permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (PC COSC) taking on command responsibility. This too would not fit in with India’s civil-military relations since the CDS would be inordinately powerful, as was the commander-in-chief during the pre-Independence era. India’s civil-military relations have moved on considerably since, subordinating the military to the civilian political sphere.

Instead, conceptualizing and structural change towards geographic ITCs is a way forward. This would enable respective Service HQs to retain operational authority - as hitherto - over operations in the medium of respective responsibility: land, sea and air. This continuity on two counts - geographic commands and command authority with the Service Chiefs – makes for acceptability of this way forward.  

Tackling the conundrum

Geographic theatres of operations have figured among the lessons of past wars. For instance, instead of one front-specific ITC against Pakistan, there could be more number of geographic ITCs along the front. In the 1965 War, one field army, the Western Command, looked after the western theatre. The 1971 War witnessed two field armies on the western front, with the Southern Command looking after the southern stretch of the front. After the 1971 War, the Northern Command was added, making for three field armies deployed. The Operation Parakram experience led to addition of another field army, headquartered at Jaipur. Likewise, the China front saw the creation of the Central Command after the 1962 War and the Northern Command taking over the Ladakh sector on its raising after the 1971 War.  

Likewise is the case with the maritime domain, where three theatres are possible to envisage: one each astride the two seaboards and the Andaman and Nicobar Command. A configuration with more number of ITCs relegates the front-specific ITCs favoured in the prototype. To the extent the Chinese move to a front-specific command facing India has been inspiration for the prototype, it needs adapting to the Indian genius.  

Even so, the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) reservation on ITCs needs being factored in. The IAF finds it inadvisable to parcel out its limited numbers of multi-role aircraft to ITCs. The higher the number of geographic ITCs, the keener rings the IAF’s critique.

This can be reconciled by having the IAF delegate its counter surface operations role to the ITCs, with the inescapable minimum number of platforms under respective ITC, with the caveat that the Air HQs could allocate assets out of the ITC jurisdiction when necessary. The military jargon spelling out the distinction in the arrangement is ‘under command’ and ‘under operational control’. The ITCs would have only the latter authority over air assets seconded to them. Currently, the IAF’s regional commands locate an Advanced HQ with the field army HQs for liaison, joint planning and coordination. An ITC HQ would have this appendage merged into.

The IAF would retain its counter air campaign and strategic air campaign roles that it could exercise through dedicated functional air commands. Thus, the Air HQs would also have three functional commands, including the air defence command, reporting to it.

The CDS would additionally have authority over capabilities in the other domains significant in grey zone war, visualized as the future of war: space, cyber and Special Forces. HQ IDS could have its operations directorate enhanced to service the COSC.

The Strategic Forces Command (SFC), also a joint command, has a reporting line to the PC COSC. Since the CDS is the principal military adviser also to the government, the 2003 nuclear doctrine could be suitably updated to include him in an advisory capacity in the Political Council of the Nuclear Command Authority in tandem with its secretary, the National Security Adviser (NSA). Alongside, the mandate of the CDS must include a mention of his nuclear advisory and, if added, command responsibilities. The latter will remove the current anomaly in which the commander SFC receives his operational orders from an unelected civilian, the NSA, an arrangement without parallel elsewhere. If the PC COSC figures in the Political Council, he can receive the orders directly from the civilian political leadership and be responsible for its execution.

The government needs to step up

This variation to the prototype is in keeping with India’s civil-military relations. The jointness process is currently paused, with the Services having been asked to provide studies on how each contemplates next steps in and outcome of the jointness process. These could do with suitable political guidance through authoritative means as an updated Raksha Mantri directive or release of a national security policy. The fortuitous changeover of the CDS provides an opportunity for the government to step up on defence reforms.

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Note: The CDS' nuclear advisory responsibility has been explicated in the press release on appointment of the CDS. He, as Permanent Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee, is the Military Adviser to the Nuclear Command Authority. Here the argument is that he must also have command authority over the SFC. 

 https://usiofindia.org/events/un-peace-operations-protection-of-civilians-1-30-3-30-pm-ist-22-oct-2021/

UN Peace Operations Part IV Protection of Civilians

Edited by A K Bardalai and Pradeep Goswami Vij Books India Pvt Ltd New Delhi (India) A Joint USI - ICWA Publication, Published by Vij Books India Pvt Ltd, 2022

pp.  19-29

UN Peace Operations: Protection of Civilians

Protection of Civilians: Concept and the Core Obligation of the UN

The obligation of protection of civilians has been implicit in post Cold War UN peacekeeping mandates. The Cold War stability withdrew from many regions at its end, leading to a rash of conflicts. The post Cold War consensus in the Security Council allowed the body to innovate with its instrument already available since the Cold War days – traditional peacekeeping. Traditional peacekeeping expanded into Wider Peacekeeping over the succeeding decade, being applied in many settings in what later came to be termed as multidimensional mandates. Since civilians were victims of violence in most conflicts then, UN peacekeeping operations had to grapple with how to contain and rollback such violence. Peacekeeping operations met with a considerable set back by the mid nineties, when they were found wanting in coping with the violence against civilians even in areas of their presence as in Somalia, Bosnia and Rwanda. The early promise of peacekeeping operations for addressing such areas of conflict suffered a momentary setback. The hiatus in the late nineties was put to good use and by the turn of the century the UN was able to conceptualise POC and deploy the concept to inform peacekeeping mandates.

The paper discusses POC by first situating POC in a theoretical paradigm and thereafter appraising the concept itself as it has evolved over the past two decades since formal inception in 1999. Finally, it seeks to locate POC in the UN scheme of addressing conflict. The finding is that POC is a significant aspect of the UN’s activity in delivering international peace and security, the organisation’s primary purpose. To the extent States remain the foremost actors on the international stage, POC remains the core obligation of States, with the UN in a supportive role. POC by the UN can come to fore temporally and locally in case the state is unable or unwilling to fulfill its obligation as first-order responder on POC or itself poses the POC threat to its people.

Theoretical prelude

The UN’s peace approaches borrow from peace studies theory. A useful start point is the famous conflict triangle in which the three angles (A, B, C) of a triangle are depicted as representing Attitude, Behaviour and Contradiction respectively. The Contradiction is the issue in dispute; Behavior is the incidence of violence the dispute occasions; and Attitudes of distrust are formed by the onset of violence. The model depicts conflict as originating in a dispute, with the ensuing violence giving rise to hostility. Consequently, the threat is not only direct – from violence – but indirect – from the structures (structural violence) and resulting culture (cultural violence). Containing direct violence brings about ‘negative peace’, but does not go far enough in addressing the root causes of violence, which alone can bring about ‘positive peace’.

The UN’s approach to peace is cognizant of the conflict model. The UN ‘agenda for peace’ involves peacekeeping addressing direct violence and bringing about negative peace. Alongside, it addresses root causes for ushering in positive peace by setting back cultural violence in terms of hostile attitudes through peacebuilding, including reconciliation initiatives, and the structural violence that gave rise to the Contradiction in first place through peacemaking. Thus, it is evident that preserving civilians from violence is not merely protecting them from physical or direct violence, but ensuring that the impetus to violence in terms of persisting problem areas and the divides these generate are removed in a holistic manner. 

POC concept

Risks and threats to civilians and the materialization of threats in horrendous violence against civilians has been a facet of conflict through the ages. However, it has gained prominence as over the past three decades intrastate armed conflict. Threats to civilians are in both the short- and long-term, and include political, security and economic factors. Consequently, the UNSC took on board the POC as a significant part of its mandate to further international peace and security. Starting from 1999, it has actively engaged with the POC concept, making it over the subsequent 20 years amount to one of the core issues on the UNSC agenda. The UNSC has passed resolutions and presidential statements on POC, that are not only country specific, related to peace operations, but also on POC in general and on POC themes as sexual violence and children in armed conflict. The UN Secretary General has also been furnishing the UNSC with periodic reports at its request since the first report in September 1999. These have initially been on an 18 month basis and lately have been annually. The UNSC has convened in open sessions to discuss POC biannually and in open Arria formula session on related themes. There is an informal expert group on POC that informs UNSC deliberations on POC relevant resolutions. The UNGA Special Committee on Peace and Security also maintains its support for POC. The UN’s latest reform initiative, the Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) includes Protection as one of eight thrust areas. Peace operations have reflected the growing centrality of POC with the Secretariat developing an operational concept, a Policy, a Handbook, a framework and its POC-mandated missions have developed mission-wide integrated strategies.

 

The UN family comprises agencies, funds and programs specifically mandated for programmatic delivery on niche aspects of protection. They concentrate on a rights-based protection approach, including observance of international humanitarian and human rights law, humanitarian access and attending to displaced populations. For its part, a multidimensional peace operation is mandated to support peace processes, promotion and protection of human rights, building the rule of law and security sector and has specialized mandates on child protection and conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), besides being tasked with facilitating the delivery of humanitarian assistance. These are also some of the areas of programmatic delivery by the wider UN family comprising the UN Country Teams (UNCT) and the humanitarian country teams (HCT). Multidimensional peace operations have the expertise to engage with protection issues, in conjunction with UNCT and HCT. Structurally, integrated peacekeeping operations ensure unity through the triple-hatted deputy to the Secretary General’s special representative, thereby making full use of comparative advantages.

 

The POC concept as relevant to peace operations is different from the wider concept of ‘protection’. Peace operations therefore have to have an integrated approach within for the combined effort of all mission components: civilian, police and military, and a cooperative and coordinative approach without with other UN actors. While there is no agreed definition of POC between the actors, there is a shared objective by these actors to protect civilians from risks and threats to their physical integrity, including those arising from armed conflict.

 

Peace operations with POC mandates are specifically required to protect civilians under threat of physical violence. The definition adopted by the Secretariat of POC explicated in its Policy on POC reads:

 

without prejudice to the primary responsibility of the host state, integrated and coordinated activities by all civilian and uniformed mission components to prevent, deter or respond to threats of physical violence against civilians within the mission’s capabilities and areas of deployment through the use of all necessary means, up to and including deadly force.[1]

 

Clearly, the primary responsibility for POC is of the host state. Missions are authorised under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to use all necessary means, including the use of force, and if necessary, deadly force. This applies within the limits of the capabilities of the mission and is applicable within its areas of deployment, since operations have limitations in terms of resources and locations to which they can deploy. Notable alongside is the primacy of political resolutions to conflicts and the use of force is a last resort and in accordance with the mandate and rules of engagement.

 

Since multidimensional peace operations by definition have multiple capabilities, each has a separate and interdependent role to play. Reverting to the conflict triangle, it can be said that POC has to be tackled on all three angles of the triangle: Attitude, Behaviour and Contradiction. Corresponding to these angles are the three tiers of POC action: Tier I: Protection through dialogue and engagement that corresponds to the peacemaking; Tier II: Provision of physical protection corresponding to peacekeeping; and, Tier III: Establishment of a protective environment evocative of peacebuilding.

 

The all-of-mission activity in the three tiers is mutually reinforcing. Tier I reflects the high level panel report’s phrase, ‘the primacy of politics’, and helps fulfill the role for peacekeeping as pursuit of sustainable political solutions. The security dimension being predominant, the military and police components are at the forefront in Tier II. Tier III activities are generally planned and undertaken jointly with other partners and in coordination with the UNCT in support of host state authorities and may include security sector reform, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, rule of law support and capacity building and anti-mine action.

 

The activities are implemented along four phases: (i) prevention: where anticipated long term threats are latent and need nipping in the bud, (ii) pre-emption: where threats are tangible and likely to eventuate in the short term, (iii) response: when threats materialize in the short term, and (iv) consolidation: where violence has been contained and relapse needs to be avoided. The last phase serves as revert to the first phase for future threats, thereby completing a cycle.

 

POC as a core obligation

 

The host state having the responsibility for POC, the UN peace operation acts in support to the state, other than where the state is itself at the origin of the POC threat, in which case the peace operation is empowered by its mandate to judiciously manage the threat. In doing so, it must keep in mind a principle of peacekeeping: consent of the host state. That it can use force in furthering POC is in keeping with the other principle of peacekeeping that has it that force can only be used in self-defence and defence of the mandate. Since the mandate enjoins use of force for POC, employing force for the purpose is justified. The third principle of peacekeeping – impartiality - is maintained by implementing the Policy explicated guiding principles that inform such use of force: inter-alia, last resort, proportionate, mindful of consequences, grounded in international law, under effective command and control and alert to the ‘do no harm’ dictum.    

 

That POC is a central priority is amply clear, since elevating suffering and saving lives are consequential objectives in themselves. The Secretary General in his 2017 report to the UNSC on POC puts across the idea in the following words:

 

Peacekeepers must always fulfil their core obligation to protect when civilian lives are at stake, but protecting civilians requires far more than physical protection by peacekeepers. It is a whole-of-mission endeavour encompassing civilian, military and police functions such as engaging with local communities, mediating disputes, monitoring human rights violations and gathering information to prevent future violence. This must be complemented by robust political engagement at the international level, including by the Council.[2]

 

To the extent it is a core obligation, it is when peacekeepers are in a position to stall atrocities, mindful of the caveats attending the definition and the guiding principles. Under such circumstance even the principles of peacekeeping are not to preclude action on part of peacekeepers. Proaction on peacekeepers’ part ensures the other three candidate principles of peacekeeping: legitimacy, credibility and local ownership by people. The last is cognizant of the conceptual challenge state centricity of the international order faces from people-centric concepts as human security.

 

Limits of POC

 

Whereas POC has acquired priority mandate status among the veritable ‘christmas tree’ tasking of peace operations, proactivism on POC is not without brakes. At Tier I, the political process does not always have the momentum and inclusiveness necessary to preclude POC threats developing as a consequence. Sometimes the UN is not in a driver’s seat when deferring to regional organizations on this count and is left facing consequences. Where peace processes are slovenly, the ‘primacy of politics’ suffers. Peacemaking taking a backseat thus increases the premium on Tier II.

 

At Tier II, there is an impetus to robust peacekeeping that is not whole heartedly shared by troop and police contributing countries. There is continuing subscription to traditional peacekeeping thinking on the use of force. The impetus to robust peacekeeping is also viewed as a spillover from the peace enforcement operations elsewhere in the global war on terror (GWOT), which are incongruent in peacekeeping settings. Whereas the UN peacekeepers do not participate in or conduct anti-terror operations, there are other forces so authorized. This could lead to blue helmets being targeted by armed groups designated as terrorist groups and implicated as adversaries by proximity with forces engaging in peace enforcement and counter terrorism. This leads to a militarization of peacekeeping, with earlier taboo terms as ‘intelligence’ now being normalised even in a peacekeeping setting.

 

Further, the political economy of conflict advantages certain forces, states and their strategic partners. The direction of a political process thereby generates its own winners and losers. If Tier I peacemaking concerns position the UN against a ‘spoiler’ on ground, who then has to be tempered at Tier II by robust peacekeeping, buttressed by counter insurgency doctrinal imports from the GWOT arena, this potentially places UN forces at odds with armed groups backed by oppositional political forces. If identity issues lie at root of such conflicts, then no amount of ministration at Tier III through reconciliation can compensate. All three UN peacekeeping principles are imposed on – impartiality, consent and non-use of force - when tactical level consent is given short shrift in robust operations and separately mandated selective peace enforcement by partner forces. Resultant tension between Tiers I and II leads to a receding horizon for an exit strategy.

 

Conclusion

 

The turn of century ascendance of neoliberalism led to growth in the POC concept. There has been a pushback since and the world has become multipolar with Russia reemerging and China being the new superpower. This has ended the unipolar moment and the temporal consensus in the UNSC. Troop contributing countries are also chary of having troops placed in harm’s way in case of robust peacekeeping. With robust peacekeeping available as a tool, there is more likelihood of leaning on it, rather than using the political process optimally.

 

POC proactivism is liable to be mistaken as an external imposition in a conflict environment. Since most conflicts are in post colonial settings, with former colonial powers usually also serving as pen holders for missions with POC mandates, POC messianism may amount to a colonial holdover. Troop contributors cannot serve as mercenaries in enterprises where UN peacekeeping serves as instrument for parochial interest. Host states also resent and pushback through a cultural relativist lens against western liberal values taken for granted as universal. Such foreseeable road bumps temper the notion of POC being a core obligation for UN peacekeeping. An all-aboard POC concept and strategy must therefore make haste slowly, taking onboard divergent foci. Next steps must be in league with wider reformative aspects of the UN such as increased representativeness of the UNSC.

 

References

 

·         DPO, ‘Policy – The protection of civilians in peacekeeping operations’, 2019

·         DPO, ‘The protection of civilians in UN peacekeeping: Handbook’, 2020

·         DPKO/DFS, ‘Framework for Drafting Comprehensive Protection of Civilians (POC) Strategies in UN Peacekeeping Operations’, 2011

·         OCHA, ‘Building a Culture of Protection: 20 Years of the Security Council Engagement on the Protection of Civilians’, 2020

·         José Ramos-Horta, ‘Report of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations on uniting our strengths for peace: politics, partnership and people’, UN document A/70/95, S/2015/446, 2015

·         UNSC, ‘Statement by the President of the Security Council’, UN document S/PRST/2015/23, 2015

·         UNSC, ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the protection of civilians in armed conflict’, UN document S/2017/414, 2017

·         Boutros-Ghali, Boutros. An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Deployment, Peacemaking and Peacekeeping. New York: United Nations, 1992

·         John Karlsrud, ‘From Liberal Peacebuilding to Stabilization and Counterterrorism’, International Peacekeeping, Volume 26, Issue 1, 2019, pp. 1-21

·         Johan Galtung, ‘Violence, Peace, and Peace Research Journal of Peace Research’,

Vol. 6, No. 3, 1969, pp. 167-191 

 

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[1] DPO, ‘Policy – The protection of civilians in peacekeeping operations’, 2019, p. 6

 

[2] UNSC, ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the protection of civilians in armed conflict’, UN document S/2017/414, 2017, p. 17

 

http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=112843#

General Rawat’s legacy in civil-military relations

General Bipin Rawat has etched a place in military history, not so much by way of martial feats as much for his contribution to civil-military relations of New India. He was first recipient of governmental favour in its resort to ‘deep selection’ as a policy for selection to higher rank. His showing in the successive appointments – army chief and chief of defence staff – places the policy under a pall, showing it up as a ploy for the regime’s attempt at institutional capture of the military, quite in the same vein as it has truncated other national institutions.

Deep selection

Rawat came into limelight as corps commander when two cross-border raids into Myanmar were undertaken simultaneously. These caught the eye of the national security adviser (NSA), who was curiously on hand to oversee a tactical level action, with the army chief in tow. It is not known how many hangers-on and camp-followers - and therefore in the reckoning of international humanitarian law, noncombatants – were among the 60 killed in the camps struck.

It cannot be said with any certainty which of the two influences on NSA Ajit Doval – Rawat’s operational skills or his being an ethnic kin - resulted in Rawat’s elevation for field army command in Pune, outpointing one of his seniors, PM Hariz heading the training command at Shimla. Hariz was doubly-handicapped, being a mechanised warfare expert, but - more pertinently - a Muslim, anathema in New India then emerging.

Later, called to Delhi as vice chief, he outflanked yet another senior, his earlier boss in the North East, General Praveen Bakshi. A journalist recounted how Rawat, as vice chief, was heard hailing the surgical strikes launched by the government after the terror attack on Uri garrison. Did Rawat anticipate a shift to ‘deep selection’ to substitute for the seniority principle in selection of the apex military leaders or was he tipped off by his new found mentor within the new regime?

Such questioning is pertinent when contrasted with General Bakshi, for his part, by underplaying another surgical strike into Myanmar, did precisely the opposite. As it turned out in the run up to change over of army chief, men in shadows whispered against the front runner, General Praveen Bakshi. The deep selection policy had a positive start in the precedence set by the two officers superseded soldiering on.

Whether Rawat played with a straight bat at this juncture comes into question. He did not live up to the precedence in which two officers offered the chair of the army chief stepped aside for their senior being superseded: Generals Nathu Singh and Rajendrasinhji in favour of the senior most Indian officer, General Cariappa.

Operational showing

It soon became evident Rawat was selected for implementing the regime’s soon-to-unfold policy in Kashmir. Operation All Out was just that: a take-no-prisoners approach between 2016 and 2019. Rawat as its principal agent brought about a cultural makeover in the military’s approach, best exemplified by infamous ‘human shield’ episode.

The operations set the stage for the voiding of Article 370 by preemptively de-fanging any potential armed backlash. It is lost to history what Rawat’s input on this was, since the action has resulted not only in present-day aggravation of the situation but also in a long term threat lingering in Kashmir.

To keep Pakistan on a tight leash, Rawat touted surgical strikes. The second surgical strike did not involve the army directly, but the riposte of the Pakistani air force almost got its northern army commander, then visiting the forward defended localities, leaving the army rather red-faced.

But the more significant military event on Rawat’s watch was the Ladakh intrusion. Whereas early in Rawat’s tenure, the army had mobilized and held its own at Doklam, the outcome turned out vacuous. The Chinese reckoning that a similar outcome was possible in Ladakh, launched a massive intrusion in early 2020.

Rawat, by then chief of defence staff (CDS), did not exhibit any dexterity in a timely, equivalent grab action elsewhere. The army always has such contingency plans up its sleeve and its operational formations have intrinsic capability. It had exercised this capability only the previous autumn. Covid outbreak is not a plausible excuse for settling for ‘mirror deployment’, on over the last two winters, only redesignated as ‘proactive localized deployment’. This year, the army even stepped back from the Kailash range, which it had taken over amidst some auto-backslapping last year.

Apparently, CDS Rawat was persuaded that Chinese comprehensive national power was improbably of the order that a regional power, India, could not indulge itself in a perfectly legitimate and militarily plausible, localized, border war. Arguably, Rawat can be faulted for taking the counsel of his fears in his advice as the principal military adviser to the defence minister.

For its part, the government got the advice it bargained for, having chosen a counter-insurgency expert as top military adviser. So enamoured was Rawat with ‘grey zone’ war theory - on which the army doctrine put out under his tutelage is based – that the military appears to have concluded conventional war is passé. Since this emphasizes the ‘half front’ of the ‘two and half front war’ formulation put out by Rawat, it inserts the army into an essentially civilian domain, leading up to the logic articulated by the NSA that civil society is the new threat to national security. 

Elusive Jointness

Rawat’s approach to war-fighting played out in his controversial public face-off with the Air Force. To universal surprise, he admitted to a view that the air force was but an extension of the artillery. This appears a hangover of 1962, when the air was kept out of the conflict. The air force, with a self-belief as a service with a strategic purpose, was quick to publicly contradict Rawat.

A similar run in was with the Navy. While the silent service wishes for sea control capabilities, based on carriers, Rawat instead plugged for a sea-denial capability built on submarines. The argument reached such proportions that Rawat skipped the last Navy Day ceremonies, instead scheduling a lecture at Ajay Singh Bisht’s pocket borough, Gorakhpur.

With turf wars as this, Rawat’s legacy, being associated with the inception of the joint theatre command concept, is dead at birth. Rawat over-interpreted the press note on the appointment of the CDS. The mandate given therein does not state require front-specific joint theatre commands, pressed for by Rawat.

Rawat was unable to see through the politician’s ploy of shooting from his shoulders by not providing him with political direction. Rather than calling out this bit of political abdication on the part of his political masters, he instead went for a bottom-up solution, ordering the services to come up with studies on theatre commands. Though Rawat ran out of time wrapping up jointness, his successor must convince political masters that their investing political capital is necessary.

Inroads of ideology

It is for historians to unravel if Rawat’s forays into the headlines from time to time – the latest being his defence of lynchings – were because he sat on a difficult chair in the worst of times or because he was a regime acolyte. In favour of Rawat, it can be argued that seeing institutions fall like nine-pins around him, perhaps his foremost worry was to preserve the military from a similar fate. A choice to sway with the political ill-wind in such a case could arguably be taken as a pragmatic one. Unfortunately, in Rawat’s case there is no evidence yet that he ever had it mind to defer to the right wing political line only for pragmatic reasons: to ward off worse to come if he were to embark on confrontation. Clearly, the lessons of Admiral Bhagwat’s sacking reverberate through the decades, as perhaps they were meant to.  

However, the foot-in-mouth syndrome that persisted all through his tenure prevents unambiguously ruling out that he was not purveyor of an ideological line, impardonable in a uniformed office holder. Till biographers tell us otherwise, Rawat will have to be held partially accountable for the departures from traditional civil-military relations in his time at the helm. 

 

 https://m.thewire.in/article/security/what-will-be-general-bipin-rawats-place-in-indias-military-history

What Will Be General Bipin Rawat’s Place in India's Military History?

Now that the dust from the helicopter accident has settled, it is worth examining General Rawat’s contribution at the apex of the military. He occupied space at the highest levels for some five years, more than anyone in independent India, having been army chief for some three years and chief of defence staff (CDS) for close to two years.

During this period, significant and unprecedented military developments took place in respect of Pakistan and China and, equally importantly, in regard to Kashmir and the North East. Consequential military reforms were also undertaken, including his elevation as the first CDS, first permanent chairperson of the chiefs of staff committee and secretary of the newly created department of military affairs (DMA) within the defence ministry. The greatest shift has been in terms of cultural transformation under the mostly-indirect influence of the foundational philosophy of New India, hindutva. These form the backdrop for determining the General’s place in history.

Pakistan figured large in the early part of the General’s tenure. Right off the blocks, he cleared up  India’s best kept puzzle: its conventional doctrine. India had not owned up over some fifteen years of its existence to the Cold Start doctrine. Not only did the General take ownership of the doctrine, but initiated steps for its operationalisation in the creation of integrated battle groups (IBG), the work horses of limited offensives into Pakistan in case compelled by Pakistani proxy war provocations.

Even so, it is a retrogressive step since it more or less accepts a lack of adeptness in maneuver warfare. There is no compelling need for preconfigured, objective-specific IBGs, when mechanized formations can flow into battle reconfiguring on the march. If they do not have this felicity at the outset, then it is incomprehensible how these battle groups can outlast the first bullet fired, which as military history teaches puts a spanner in the works of the best laid plans.

This betrays a military incapacity, brought about, in part by the counter insurgency fixation over past three decades. Incidentally this focus led to General Rawat, bolstered by supposed counter insurgency expertise, pipping at the post two of his seniors, from the mechanized forces, to the rank of general. Arguably this professional preoccupation led to India being blind-sided by China’s intrusions into Ladakh.

Though the army under General Rawat had taken a firm stand at Doklam, it proved a meager deterrent. The Chinese apparently rightly reading India’s reluctance to up the military ante walked into Ladakh, clubbing a score Indian soldiers to death as they did so. This unwillingness to chance escalation suggests a deficiency in the exercise of operational art in terms of manipulation of the escalation threat in order to make the other side blink. As CDS, Rawat was overly impressed by the gap in comprehensive military power between the two sides, resting on his oars with mirror deployment, jargoned as ‘proactive localized deployment’, rather than going for a quick counter-grab in riposte. 

It is in relation to Kashmir that the General’s military reputation stands to suffer most, since it’s the site of his expertise. Not only did the General oversee a human rights-insensitive counter insurgency campaign, Operation All Out, but did not alert the government to the adverse long term effects of its Kashmir policy twist, the voiding of Article 370. As the lead agency in the Valley, the army should have asked for voicing its input and done so by thumping the table against the initiative. That it did not do so bespeaks of either being persuaded by the action or not having the gumption to take a stand. Either way is unedifying.

The post-Uri terror attack surgical strikes were prior to the General’s tenure at the helm, but were based on his stewardship of similar high-publicity strikes into Myanmar as corps commander in the North East. These led to his catching the eye of National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval, an ethnic fellow. Similar strikes the following year were downplayed by the then eastern army commander, General Praveen Bakshi, resulting in part in his being sidelined from the army Chief’s chair, since it deprived the political masters of an opportunity to grandstand over a military feat.

Surgical strikes have thus had more of a domestic political fallout than an external strategic one. Pakistan, the intended target of deterrence, has gone one-up over India in its aerial riposte to Balakot. That Pakistan has been relatively restrained over the General’s tenure in Kashmir owes to its privileging the Afghanistan denouement over the past few years, rather than being impressed by India’s strategic shift advertised by surgical strikes. 

The recent botched military operation in Nagaland shows up vulnerability, accentuated in the ongoing long-duration crisis with China. Whether and to what levels General Rawat input the government’s policy is not known. For instance, the Nagaland imbroglio continues since the Framework Agreement cannot be operationalised as the Nagas insist on a separate flag and Constitution. India, having only recently deprived Kashmiris of the same federal privileges has in effect shot itself in the foot twice over. Strategic level input from the army, the lead counter insurgency force in both locations, should have been to influence policy away from such counter-productive initiatives. It is lost to history if General Rawat exercised his known social capital with the regime to put some strategic sense into its moves.

It would be tragic if later biographers were to alight on evidence that his input on such decisions was instead to acquiesce. It brings into question his elevation, raising the question was it because he would likely play along - either being docile or a believer himself - that led to his selection as first CDS? Recall the announcement of the position was delayed till after his contender, the then air chief, retired. Even the CDS position was not without a spoke-in-the-wheel in that with the creation of the DMA – a bureaucratic silo without precedent in any democracy - the first CDS was reduced to being just another secretary, from a protocol equivalence to cabinet secretary.

Here, General Rawat busied himself with structural transformation without the benefit of a political directive, resulting in separate public and embarrassing jousts with the air and naval chiefs. It is also unclear if the trajectory of jointness to culminate in front-specific integrated theatre commands has political imprimatur, given that the mandate does not explicitly figure in the remit of the CDS in the press release on the appointment. The process therefore appears to be somewhat of a wild goose chase that shall prove a bugbear if his successor does not take the opportunity of a change over to course correct.  

Finally, and most importantly, was General Rawat’s perhaps historic role of ushering the Indian army into the New India of the Second Republic. To be fair to the General, he was at the helm at the most difficult of times for the military. When all institutions succumbed to the hindutva juggernaut and bent to the will of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it would have been quite a feat had the military leadership cauterised the military from being influenced by political forces.

The military’s political masters decided to go in for ‘deep selection’ as the new policy for selection of higher appointments, Rawat being a prominent beneficiary. It remains to be known whether he swayed with the wind pragmatically and, as lead gatekeeper, assented to open up the military only partially and selectively. This might have been a plausible strategy, lest in taking a stand the military were to keel over altogether. However, from his utterances from time to time, it cannot unambiguously be said that Rawat was not a bhakt himself. That might with time turn out his unfortunate legacy.

 UN, international community and India's engagement in Afghanistan over the years

(not chronological)

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2021/08/blog-post.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2012/05/httpwww_8845.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2012/05/coming-escalation-in-obamas-war-by-ali.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2018/09/httpswww_25.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2012/06/tensions-between-security-and.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2012/05/idsa-comment-afghanistan-idea.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2012/05/afghanistan-lets-try-peacekeeping.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2019/09/httpwww_13.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2012/05/pinion-plan-for-bonn-domestic.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2021/07/httpepaper.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2021/05/httpwww.html?spref=tw

https://ali-writings.blogspot.com/2021/07/httpepaper.html?spref=tw

 https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/21095/Incipient-Shift-in-Civil-Military-Relations-

Incipient Shift in Civil-Military Relations ?

UNEDITED VERSION

A problem from hell in India’s civil-military relations

A recently-released monograph, collectively authored by a set of liberal intellectuals, India’s Path to Power: Strategy in a World Adrift, carries a section on ‘Politicisation of the military’. The paper has it that there is an incipient shift in the apolitical characteristic of the Indian military. The military brass needs to fight a rearguard action, lest the military too fall along with other institutional ninepins.

The paper apprehends that, “the traditional apolitical stance of the military is under pressure at two levels: the first, of the senior military leadership, and the second, comprising the junior leadership of officers and persons below officer rank.” Whereas the rank and file is susceptible to the change in wider society towards majoritarianism, the senior leadership is under pressure from the rightward thrust of polity.

With regard to the former, it observes a conflation in the mind’s eye of senior military leadership, between the government and the State. This disrupts the traditional distinction between loyalty to the Constitution and the ruling party. As for the latter, according to it, there is an “assault on the secular outlook of the armed forces by wider social and ideological currents.”

It prognosticates that the political masters are likely to continue to ride military horses to electoral victory, in light of precedence of partisan dividend. The government has also taken to ‘deep selection’ of senior military appointments. Even though it is a legitimate process, pliability or like-mindedness could overshadow competence.

Though spot-on in diagnosing a looming problem, the paper – perhaps for reasons of space – is light on the remedy: “This issue is a matter for the military leadership to introspect and rectify.” It believes that the onus for keeping at an apolitical distance from pernicious politics devolves on a military leadership seized of the motto, “Service Before Self”.

It is unlikely that the paper’s recommendation that the military brass stand up and be counted on this score will find traction. There is a pattern of intimidation followed by the government, such as of the liberal media and personages taking a skeptical stance.

This will likely to deter any such thoughts on part of the military brass. It does not have to go as far back as the instance of sacking of an admiral by a previous right wing government, but the nasty information campaign of petty corruption against the general who led the pack when this government made its first deep selection, picking the third in line for army chief.

Curiously, on the continuing necessity of an apolitical military, the paper says, “This responsibility on the military leadership is huge because India is a nuclear power.” It does not elaborate on how India’s nuclear weapon state (NWS) status attenuates the apolitical military characteristic that predates the NWS status.

Even so, it is worth reiterating the questions that animate the section and to try answering them: Is an apolitical military needed, and, if so, how can this be ensured?

India, though continuing as a procedural democracy, has been recently termed an ‘electoral autocracy’. A putatively authoritarian polity can do without an apolitical military. An apolitical military is required when there is alternation in government of different political parties. The political project of this government requires it ensconced in power till the majoritarian turn to polity it not complete.

In such an endeavour, the ruling formation, termed the ‘Parivar’, requires the military as a subordinate ally. Compliance is facilitated by the military being enthused by the ethno-democracy in-the-works or swayed by a populist political leadership. Both thrust-lines for a docile military are at play.

The former is a work-in-progress, with no dearth of trying. Soon, the military curriculum is to be injected with a dash of inspiration from ancient India. The concept of an apolitical military is a throwback to the fifties, when the military sociology theory in the West dwelt on how to subordinate the military in a democracy. Today, how Indian tradition has it on issues as the relationship of the chakravartin with the senapati and place of the military in state craft - perhaps elucidated in tracts as the Arthashastra - matters more.

As for the latter, the prime minister has long sought occasions to vibe directly with troops, with his Diwali visits to frontlines being a prominent vehicle for such insertion into their consciousness. In his latest interaction with troops on the Line of Control, while thanking them for the execution by the army of surgical strikes, he brought out his abiding concern with their safety when the strikes were being conducted. The brass has evidently taken cue. A general recently approved an obsequious tweet on his formation’s twitter handle greeting the prime minister on his birthday, only to later withdraw it.

Taken together, the two thrust-lines imply that nurturing an apolitical military is not necessary in New India. The problem that arises, as pointed out in the paper, is, “a danger of a pliable military leadership being used for narrow party-political purposes at the cost of national interests.”

Illustrations of such a principal-agent (government-military) relationship are in the cover-up, with the military complicit, over Balakot and the Ladakh intrusion. The military’s sub-par performance is overlooked by political masters in return for the military keeping the reality – embarrassing for political masters - under wraps. The price of such mutual back-scratching is in national security.

Another illustration is Kashmir, where, in not calling out the obvious aggravation of the problem in Kashmir that accrues from the political high-handedness - specifically evacuation of Article 370 of all meaning - and security force heavy handedness, the military furthers an inaccurate picture of success. While there is no call that this be done in the open domain, there are no reports of the military thumping the table in dissent even at the discussion stage.

The military’s lending of its credibility to preferred narratives of the government helps absolve the government of democratic accountability, thus compromising a vital national interest: democracy. The military ends up playing a political role to the partisan advantage of the ruling party, unwarily ending up party to the slow-motion dismantling of liberal, Constitutional democracy.   

This is easy for the military to miss when, as the paper points out, “(C)ontemporary political and popular discourse routinely conflates the government with the state.” The military is victim of such conflation too. This reveals a blind side to its professional military education.

If and since the lacuna advantages the ruling party, the political masters are unlikely to be concerned. The military is also unlikely to righting the tilt, since it might put it at odds with the political masters. Besides, who will bell the cat? The opposition cannot be too vocal on this score, lest it drag the military into the political bull-pit. Strategic commentators can at best caution the national security establishment to advise political masters on a course correct.

The danger is in the problem culminating in the next national security crisis if in the interim till next elections. That these have a nuclear overhang explains the otherwise curious underlining in the paper of the nuclear factor as compelling civil-military relations remain on even keel.