In 2000, following the conflict in Kargil, the NDA government appointed a Kargil Review Committee (KRC) to comprehensively review every aspect of India's national security. A Group of Ministers was then constituted to follow up the KRC's recommendations. This GoM, in turn, appointed four high-powered task forces to report separately on issues relating to higher defence management, intelligence, internal security and border management. The far-reaching recommendations made by these four groups were considered by the GoM and proposals were submitted to the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) chaired by the prime minister. Not surprisingly, since all five members of the GoM were also members of the CCS, all of these were approved - save one. The PM felt that the proposal to create a four-star Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) be kept in abeyance; he was aware of the objections raised by several retired air force chiefs, some quite influential politically. There the matter rested; other recommendations were implemented progressively.
In 2010, the government constituted a committee chaired by an eminent bureaucrat with unmatched experience in national security affairs, Naresh Chandra, to review all aspects of national security including higher defence management. This group included persons of vast knowledge of their own fields but they were all retired officials and could not match the stature of the earlier GoM. Their recommendations were, consequently but not unexpectedly, processed commensurate with this inferior position. After dithering for months, mainly by the defence ministry's civilian bureaucracy, some minor changes have been accepted and might be approved. In short, we have a molehill instead of the anticipated mountain. Why this is so requires some analysis.
The British left our armed forces with three Commanders-in-Chief - of the army, the navy and the air force. In 1952, these were re-designated as Chiefs of Staff, viz., advisers to the government. However, this change was only cosmetic, as they did not shed their roles as operational commanders of their respective services; in short, they were both command as well as staff officers, an inherently contradictory combination shed by all militaries of consequence. In all of them, the operational role was either taken up by unified theatre commanders with a Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff (USA) or by joint forces commander with a Chief of Defence Staff (UK) or by dedicated Chairman Chiefs of Staff (France) and equivalent structures in China and Russia. The service chiefs in all these countries were effectively divested of their operational face but enhanced in their advisory role in government. Consequently, greater cohesion and integration with the civil bureaucracy and political leadership was achieved. This did not happen immediately and took many years, even decades.
Why, then, is our system incapable of such change? Military men are loud in protesting that this is all due to a loathsome civil bureaucracy - but the truth lies in the uniformed fraternity itself. Not a single service chief wants to shed his operational command profile - and the reason for that is obvious. That role alone gives to him the all-pervasive 'top gun' position that the staff role never can and never will.
This inconsistency leads to the next inevitable result - a lack of integration among the three branches of the armed forces. The chiefs consider themselves as sole proprietors of their respective services and anything which even remotely impinges on that ethos is forcefully rejected; yet, integration requires unified planning and operations and, therefore, unity in command which means jettisoning some turf. Since joint operations depend on that unified concept, anything that can promote it is immediately taboo, cosmetic protestations of 'jointness' regardless.
It is for this reason that the CDS concept was so stoutly resisted by several former Chiefs, mainly from the air force, in 2000 and again in 2010. Ultimately, self-defeating compromises had to be made on each occasion. The first time round, the CDS was proposed with only policy and planning functions, leaving operational command with the Chiefs; this time, the term CDS was eschewed and a four-star Chairman suggested instead, once again leaving the operational profiles of the individual Service Chiefs undisturbed. There has been no talk of unified commands.
The issue of positioning military officers in the MoD is relevant, but it flows from the logic that Service Headquarters and the MoD are one and the same. And this they cannot be if one of the two has operational functions which the other does not have. So, these two things go hand-in-hand - unified command and integrated MoD. The second is not possible without the first. Wherever higher defence management has seen transformation, and it has in many countries as stated earlier, this has been the fundamental premise behind restructuring. To wish for the second without accepting the first is to live in a world of make-believe.
As for higher FDI in defence production, this is a perfectly logical proposal but seems unlikely to find acceptance given the present political dispensation. Yet, this mindset must change because without it any serious enhancement in technology or self-reliance is simply not possible. It is pointless putting blame on our defence research or production capabilities; these only reflect the expertise that is available in the country and neither can be gained by constantly castigating both.
Finally, the Allocation of Business Rules which determines how government functions places responsibility for the defence of the country on the defence secretary. This is plain rubbish and needs to be put in the trash can because that poor gentleman can only wield the pen, not the sword. The first major review of the national security apparatus since Independence was initiated by the NDA government in 2000. Should such a regime come about once again, it should commission a fresh look at the entire security infrastructure, not just higher defence management, on priority, recognising that any major changes can only be introduced 'top down' and driven ruthlessly through resisting bureaucracies, military as much as civil. This has been the case in every country - the US, the UK, France, et al. The issues are all known. What is missing is direction.
The writer was a member of the Task Force on Higher Defence Management in 2000. He has also served in the National Security Advisory Board