INDIA AT SIXTY: STRATEGIC REFLECTIONS

INDIA AT SIXTY: STRATEGIC REFLECTIONS

by Dr Subhash Kapila

Introductory Observations

India completed sixty years of independence on August 15, 2007. India at sixty is in a buoyant mood today and more self-assured, fortified by its noticeable economic progress and sustained rates of high growth. This has prompted the global powers to take notice of India as an emerging power and accord more strategic attention as at some stage soon India’s emergent power could start affecting the Asian Power balance and so also the global power balance.

In this process, a significant factor that would come into play is India’s ability to assume ‘great power’ responsibilities and to exploit its power potential and military power to add muscle to its foreign policy objectives. Economic power by itself is only a ‘soft power’ and does not bring recognition as a ‘great power’ or a “Key Global Power”.

India may have arrived at the gates of being a Key Global Power or a great power but its entry into the “elite power club” necessarily depends on the ability and capabilities of India’s political elite to exhibit without any ambiguity that not only India has the attributes of power in abundance but more significantly India’s political elite will now have to have the “WILL TO USE INDIA’S NATIONAL and MILITARY POWER” in a pro-active and forceful manner to achieve India’s national security and foreign policy objectives.

Going by the historical record of the last sixty years, the above is the most worrisome factor that may impede India’s rise to global power status, namely, strategically inept political leadership apologetic about using power.

A pertinent point that requires mention at the introductory stage itself is that the present strategic attention being given to India is in recognition of its emerging power potential. It stands limited to India’s emergence as a “Key Global Player” and not a “Key Global Power”. The US President too has carefully made this distinction.

Also “strategic attention” is distinct from “strategic respect”. The global powers will accord India “strategic respect” only when India’s political leadership demonstrates that India has developed the “WILL THE USE POWER” and would do so unreservedly in the pursuit of its national interests and objectives.

In the last sixty years, India has been subjected to wars in every decade of its post-Independence existence and now witnesses a significant proliferation of proxy wars and terrorism of the Islamist Jihadi variety in all the nooks and corners of India besides other externally aided insurgencies. India’s flanking countries provide the wherewithal for this proxy war against India. India has been and now too being subjected to aggression because in the last sixty years., India’s political dispensations in power have exhibited the propensity to be pacifist or defensive in nature. India’s political leaders have shied away from the use of power despite its size and resources. The resultant effect was that India’s adversaries (despite their strategic asymmetry with India) perceived India as a “Soft State” incapable of strong military responses even when its national security interests were threatened and trampled upon both externally and internally.

India’s political leadership has failed to ignite a strategic mindset both within India’s polity and the nation as a whole. Strategic mindsets can be ignited only on the shoulders of Indian nationalism and patriotism. But then in the last sixty years the disparate Indian polity for narrow political gains from captive minority vote banks has de-valued the exalted concept of Indian nationalism. They seemed to forget that “National Cohesiveness” which is one of the attributes of a ‘great power’ can only come from inclusive policies rather than minority appeasement policies, politically excluding them form mainstream India.

With the aim of “Igniting a Strategic Mindset” in Indians this author wrote a book in 2003 “India’s Defence Policies and Strategic Thought: A Comparative Analysis”. India’s defense policies or lack of polices and strategic shortcomings were critically examined:

Later, in the context of contemporary political and regional developments affecting India’s national security it was considered appropriate to reproduce in abridged form the Concluding Chapter of the above book as it offered “Prescriptions” on issues relating to national security. Please refer to SAAG Paper No. 1118 dated 16-09-2004 “India’s National Security and Defence: Prescriptions”.

Many readers keep sending e-mails asking for further references to this author’s strategic writings. In response to such requests these are listed in Annexure.

In terms of “Strategic Reflections” on “ India at Sixty” this Author would like to offer the following reflections.

India’s Emergence as a Key Global Power: No Global Power Will Assist It.
India as a Key Global Power: The Imperatives of Strategic Autonomy
India’s Future Strategic Choice: “Economic Superpower” or “Key Global Power”
Global and Regional Power Comes With a “National Will to Use Power” and “Use it Hard”
Indian Prime Ministers “Strategic Culture” Deficit, Strategic Naivety and Vulnerability to External Pressures
India’s Strategic Vision: No official “National Strategy Document” Exists
India Needs a Legislated “National Security Act”
India’s Foreign Policy and National Security Issues Need to be Ratified by Parliament.
India’s Nuclear Doctrine Yet to be Finalized.
India’s Emergence as a Key Global Power: No Global Power Will Assist It

In the ongoing debate within the country, India’s more prominent and noted strategic analysts are pro-active in selling the line that India’s emergence as a Key Global Power can only be made possible by assistance from the United States and hence a more intense strategic partnership or commitment to United States global strategic policies is required.

This is factually incorrect as in contemporary world history no global power has ever assisted in the emergence of another global power to share the very limited global powers strategic space. The most instant example being the reluctance of the existing nuclear weapons powers led by the United States and Russia to admit India as a recognized Nuclear Weapons Power.

However, this author would concede one point on this score and that is India cannot emerge as a Key Global Power in confrontation or opposition to the United States. It can but the road will be very stretched out and ardous.

The United States has assisted Germany and Japan to emerge as global economic superpowers but stopped short of assisting them to emerge as key global military powers, which would permit them to emerge as contenders for global supremacy. Even Britain with strategic nuclear assets is a B-League player in the United States led global Western alliance along with Germany and Japan.

The above mentioned countries do not enjoy the national attributes of power in abundance as India does and therefore are content to be B-League global powers. Is India and especially “India Unbound” now willing to be a B-League global player?

India’s public aspirations today as popularly reflected are focused on India’s emergence as a Key Global Power in its own right with its strategic directions not subordinated to global strategies of other Key Global Powers whether it be the United States or Russia.

It is imperative that India’s policy establishment and its strategic community recognize this dictum because then only India’s future strategic directions and options would emerge clearly.

More addedly, the other truth that should dawn on India’s policy establishment is that India should not be content with just being a “Key Global Player” with a B-League status. India’s strategic ambitions should be to emerge as a “Key Global Power” in the “Top Quartet of Powers” and its national energies so harnessed.

If these two realities are not recognized then India stands the chance of being by-passed by the greatness attendant on a “Key Global Power”.

India as a Key Global Power: The Imperatives of Strategic Autonomy

“Strategic Autonomy” of India should not be mis-construed as “Non-alignment” in the pursuance of strategic and foreign policy choices. Autonomy here connotes that (1) India’s strategic and foreign policy directions are solely determined by India’s own national security interests (2) India’s policy establishment is not strait-jacketed in taking its cues in terms of responses to crisis situations from foreign capitals (3) India’s strategic decisions are so taken as those which enhance and reinforce her standing as a regional power and a Key Global Power (4) India’s strategic decisions are such that they reflect the dignity and majesty of a truly great power.

The above may sound as a tall order or flowery rhetoric. But it is not so when one studies the history of the emergence of great powers.

To illustrate from the current context as to what “strategic autonomy” entails, one needs to point out the on going controversy of the US-India Nuclear Deal or the 123 Agreement. By itself the US-India Nuclear Deal was strategically beneficial to both countries, but it has run into turbulent rough weather in India, because of a widespread perception in India that the Congress Government has allowed India’s “strategy autonomy” to be subjugated to US domestic laws through the US imposition of the Hyde Act straitjacket.

Similarly, the Congress Government overdrive for peace with Pakistan at any cost and that too with a military dictator intent on trampling the restoration of democracy in Pakistan is widely perceived in India as dancing to the tunes of an externally scripted agenda from Washington.

Further amplifying the above, India in the context of “strategic autonomous” nation would have entailed the Congress Government to maintain in July 2005 when the Nuclear Deal was signed that it would not accept at any stage the imposition of US domestic laws on the Deal.

Similarly, on relations with Pakistan and the peace process, the Congress Government should not have allowed the pace, nature and content of the process to be dictated by external actors. The Congress Government should have summarily dismissed those who have been maintaining that “India cannot emerge as a great power unless the Kashmir issue is settled and relations with Pakistan normalized”.

India has emerged as a global economic power despite Kashmir and despite Pakistan’s military regime’s peace-disruptive policies. It can emerge as Key Global Power also despite Kashmir and military rulers of Pakistan.

The above were only the major illustrations on how India’s “strategic autonomy” stood compromised.

Since it already stands maintained that neither the United States, nor Russia nor China can actively assist India’s emergence as a Key Global Power, there is no justification for India to lose its strategic autonomy to anyone of them.

Rising to the summits as mountaineers know means trudging a lonely furrow where the mountaineers own grit and determination comes into autonomous play. The same applies to nations aspiring to reach to the pinnacles of power.

India’s Future Strategic Choice: “Economic Superpower” or Key Global Power”

The keys to emerge as a “Key Global Power” lie in India’s strong economy, growing foreign exchange reserves and sustained rates of high economic growth well into the future. This is undeniable. But what also is undeniable is that India could end up as an “economic superpower” like Germany and Japan and yet miss the bus to emerge as a “Key Global Power” if it does not make the correct strategic choices.

China provides a good example of how both objectives of being an “economic superpower” and attaining a “Key Global Power” status have been pursued in parallel to China’s strategic advantage. India should do like wise.

Economic power, however colossal, is only a “soft power” strength. It lacks the coercive strength of “hard power” which is the sum total of a states military hard power and so also soft power. Economic power is persuasive power and lacks the dissuasion or compellance coercive power that hard power provides.

India in its ascendant trajectory towards “Key Global Power” status requires hard power to be respected if not feared.

Global Power Comes With a “National Will to Use Power” and “Use it Hard”

It stands pointed in this Author’s book referred above that historically India’s majority population was not devoid of martial traits or the will to use power. The disconnect with this reality and India’s present soft approaches to power arose from its independence struggle when pacifism and non-violence were given over-riding preference and priority. India’s post- Independence political leadership nurtured in this pacifism fought shy of using power even to protect India’s national security interests when trampled upon by nations severely asymmetric in size and strength.

The most recent example of India’s reluctance and the “Will to Use Power” is reflected in its counter-terrorism policies.

It is further reflected in India’s pathetic approaches to ensure political stability and order in South Asia where her national interests should reign supreme as a regional power.

A “National Will to Use Power” and “Use it Hard” has to emerge and be demonstrated by India’s political leadership from whichever political dispensation is in power, All of them have failed India on this count as the examples given below would illustrate.

India’s Prime Ministers’ “Strategic Culture” Deficit, Strategic Naivety and Vulnerability to External Pressures

The focus on strategic culture in India or lack of it emerged in the 1990’s when George Tanham in a study commissioned by the US Administration came up with conclusions as to how India and particularly its political leadership were deficit of strategic culture.

Thereafter academics in USA and UK especially have pored extensively on the geographical, historical and societal factors that impeded India in forging a distinctive strategic culture.

Many definitions of strategic culture exist as academics have sought to understand what shapes the political elites in Asian countries in their approaches to matters strategic. This paper is not intended to be a research paper and hence would attempt to highlight the various aspects in more layman terms.

In the Indian context, this Author would like to put understanding of India’s strategic culture in the following framework: (1) Indian political elites, its policy establishment and its strategic community’s comprehension of issues strategic and their intellect and capability to formulate effective national security strategies and defense policies (2) The capability of such elites to perceptively comprehend and respond to threats to India, anticipating emerging threats and even discerning “threats in the making” (3) The perceptive capabilities of such elites to read the minds of India’s adversaries, the strategic cultures of their opposing adversaries and providing an accurate or near accurate political component of India’s threat assessments to the Indian Armed Forces.

When the above parameters are applied to judge India’s Prime Ministers, they fail miserably both in reading their adversaries minds and their strategic cultures and as to how and what drives their moves against India at a given moment in time.

A recent illustration of this is the flawed approaches of India’s Congress Prime Minister are his dealings with Pakistan’s military dictator General Musharraf. The Indian Prime Minister went to the extent of publicly stating that he “could trust Musharraf” and that “he could do business with him.” This is a regrettable display of “strategic culture deficit”.

The strategic naivety of Indian Prime Ministers over the last 60 years can be discerned from the strategic blunders that they committed, namely (1) Nehru gifted away Tibet to China and stopped the Indian Army’s in its tracks near Uri when within a week or more, they would have captured the whole of Jammu & Kashmir (2) Nehru’s implicit trust of China over the Boundary Dispute leading to the 1962 debacle (3) Shastri’s agreeing at Tashkent to return the Haji Pir Bulge and Kargil Heights captured from Pakistan in 1965 (4) Indira Gandhi’s return of 90,000 Pakistani officers and Other Ranks of the Pakistani Army captured in Bangladesh without extracting a written pledge from Bhutto in the Simla Agreement on conversion of the LOC into an international boundary (5) Narasimha Rao’s scaling down of the Indian Army’s forward military presence in Arunachal Pradesh on economic grounds (6) Rajiv Gandhi’s ambiguous postures on India’s military intervention in Sri Lanka (7) Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s ordering a three-day lull at the height of Kargil operations when Indian Army was on a roll towards the Pakistani territory (8) Dr. Manmohan Singh’s virtual sell-out of the Siachen Region to Pakistan in 2006. He was stopped in the tracks by widespread public outrage.

In terms of Indian Prime Ministers vulnerabilities to external pressure the demonstrated record is equally poor. Brief illustrations of this can be mentioned as follows (1) Nehru’s Cease Fire in Kashmir in 1948 and referring the Kashmir issue to the United Nations under British pressure (2) Shastri’s caving in to Soviet pressures at Tashkent in 1965 to return captured territory to Pakistan after India’s military victories (3) Indira Gandhi’s halting the planned offensive against West Pakistan in December 1971 (after liberation of Bangladesh) under United States pressures (4) Vajpayee’s stopping Indian Army from crossing the LAC during the Kargil War and not carrying through to its logical end OP PRAKARM under US pressures. (5) Dr. Manmohan Singh's flawed peace approaches to Pakistan under US pressure which wanted to perpetuate the military dictator’s regime in Pakistan.

All of the foregoing presents a pitiable picture of Indian Prime Ministers. Their strategic failings arise from their not being equipped strategically to deal with matters of strategic importance for India’s national security. The same applies to their policy advisers.

A recent trend is the proliferation of armchair strategists who believe that their exposures to international relations and political science in universities or sponsored short stints in US think-tanks equip them to pontificate on matters strategic.

If India is ever held back from its destined run to emerge as a “Key Global Power”, the blame can squarely be laid on its Prime Ministers, the Indian policy establishment and the bureaucracy for their lack of strategic vision and grasp of international power politics.

India’s Strategic Vision: No Official “National Security Strategy” Document Exists

In the United States the strategic vision of the United States is encapsulated in an official White House Document known as the “National Security Strategy” Document. It is personally signed by the US President and lays down the “National Objectives” and the “National Security Strategy” to achieve the defined objectives.

This document is an important document for it provides the directives, the parameters and the national security priorities of the objectives in a declaratory and un-ambiguous manner. It provides the blueprint from where the entire United States defense planning takes off and gets further amplified through a number of other supporting defense planning documents. The whole process stands illustrated in this Author’s book referred above.

In India no such “National Security Strategy” Document exists even till today. The only conclusions that emerge can be surmised for this are as follows (1) India’s political leadership has yet to conceptualize a blueprint of India’s strategic future (2) India’s political leadership shirks from articulating a national security strategy for fear of being held accountable for wrong directions (the 1962 debacle) (3) India’s political leadership has no time for India’s strategic affairs busy as they are with political chicanery (4) Strategy articulation for counter-terrorism for example may entail hard decisions which could jeopardize political parties’ vote banks.

The end result is that in the absence of such political directives, the Indian Armed Forces have to prepare their operational plans, force-structures and strategic perspectives in the absence of the political component of the national threat assessment which should have been provided by the political leadership of the day.

India Needs a Legislated “National Security Act”

As early as 2000, this author had reviewed this imperative in SAAG Paper No. 123 dated 17.05.2000 entitled “India’s National Security Council – A Critical Review” and further reproduced as Appendix A in the Book referred.

A few excerpts from the “Concluding Observations” of this paper need repetition to add context to what is being advocated and these are:

India’s National Security Council (NSC) as currently structured and constituted reflects all the traditional shortcomings of the last 50 years (now 60 years) which have been repeated both in this paper and elsewhere ad-nauseum.”
“…highlight that ‘ad-holism’ and centralization of all security decision-making in the hands of civil bureaucrats and more specifically in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) ill-serve India’s national security decision making processes.”
“India’s NSC needs to be constituted and structured in a manner which facilitates serious deliberations of strategic threats and problems in an independent and objective manner on a whole time basis.”
“Lastly, the historical background of our national security processes in the last 50 years mandate that NSC should be legislatively institutionalized as a constitutional body so that there is a continuum in national security decisions.”
“National Security Directives should bear the signature of the incumbent Prime Minister so that accountability is assured.”
Regrettably, the National Security Council which was brought into existence by the BJP Government after half a century of opposition by vested interests stands withered and politically devalued under the present Congress Government. It exists in name and notional form only staffed by those who are close to the Government in power.

Nothing highlights the above more than the present Prime Minister constituting a number of Strategic Task Forces within the PMO to address subjects which should rightly have been addressed by the NSC.

The Indian Armed Forces hierarchy constitutionally tasked to defend India against external and internal security threats and maintain her sovereignty and integrity are singularly absent from the loop of India’s strategic decision making.

The net result in the last 60 years that not only India’s foreign policy stands personalized in the person of the Prime Minister (a Nehruvian legacy) but in the last few years India’s strategic decision making also stands personalized in the person of the Prime Minister and the bureaucrats of the Prime Minister’s Office.

India’s Foreign Policy and National Security Issues Need to be Ratified by Parliament

This author over the years has been advocating that major issues and agreements with foreign countries on foreign policy and national security issues should be reviewed and ratified by India’s Parliament.

This advocacy arises not only from the shortcomings pointed out in the preceding discussion but also India’s political history of the last 60 years. It has now come to a head and more focus in 2007 on the issue of the US-India Nuclear Deal.

The Congress Prime Minister and his policy establishment deliberately wrapped the negotiating process in a veil of secrecy and froze the text of the finalized Agreement for a week or two. It added more fuel to the fire when it started maintaining that as per the Constitution, the Government was not obliged to go back to the Parliament for ratification of external agreements arrived at by the Executive.

This is only correct in a narrow technical context. Recently three retired Supreme Court judges, and being constitutional experts, have highlighted certain clauses of India’s Constitution which oblige the Government of the day to get ratification from the Parliament.

Even if it were not so, the other argument that comes to the fore is in an era of coalition Governments cobbled together by pooling in numbers of disparate so called secularist parties with no foreign policy moorings or strategic perspectives, foreign policy and national security formulations or issues having a bearing on them, should be ratified by the Parliament.

India’s national security cannot be allowed to become the unguarded preserve of any particular political party which may be enjoying a single digit lead over the other leading political party minus the opportunistic components of the coalitions.

In the pursuit of India’s ambitions to achieve a “Key Global Power” status “National Cohesion” is an important attribute. This attributes’ reflection would come into focus when India’s foreign policy and national security and strategic formulations are arrived through a process of bi-partisan political support and consensus.

India’s Nuclear Security Doctrine Yet to Be Finalized

This has deliberately been listed as the last strategic reflection as it exemplifies the sum total of all the strategic failings of India’s political leadership examined above.

The ‘Draft Nuclear Doctrine’ was unveiled by the then BJP Government’s National Security Adviser, Brajesh Mishra on August 17, 1999, and was released for public debate. The aim of releasing it to public domain seemed to have been to generate more opinion on India’s Nuclear Doctrine before finalizing it.

The BJP Government was in power till April 2004 and thereafter the Congress Government has been in power. In a span of eight years, neither Government of different political dispensations has sought fit to finalize this document due to a strange mix of circumstances which can be said to reflect the shortcomings being repeated, namely (1) Finalization of India’s Nuclear Doctrine would need some hard strategic decisions (2) Vulnerability to external pressures on the Government of the day on crucial aspects of India’s nuclear deterrence policies (3) Finalization of Doctrine conveniently tucked away in favor of more politically attractive domestic issues (4) Strategic issues not on the priority lists of political parties agenda.

India’s ascendancy towards “Key Global Power” status cannot progress if India’s political leadership continues to demonstrate the above shortcomings on strategic issues.

India as a “Key Global Power” has to have a “Credible Nuclear Deterrence Doctrine”. A finalized Nuclear Doctrine should reflect India’s firm resolve in the strategizing of her Nuclear Warfare strategy. India’s Nuclear Deterrence becomes “Credible” only when its adversaries primarily, and others too recognize in the Nuclear Doctrine formulations that India is firm in the use of its strategic nuclear assets when others cross the ‘red lines’ de-lineated by it in terms of her vital national security interests. India’s Nuclear Doctrine should be devoid of ambiguities and any apologetic formulations or statements.

It is rather strange that India’s community of noted strategic experts have not been vociferous in demanding the finalization of the Draft Nuclear Doctrine document which continues as a “Draft” for the last eight years. It seems that the ‘Draft’ has become a ‘Drift’.

The Nuclear Doctrine in a finalized form would be the blueprint on which India’s Armed Forces have to operationalize India’s responses to or for nuclear warfare, if an eventuality so arises. Based on it the entire “Command, Control and Communications” and Nuclear Targeting has to be planned. Can successive Indian Governments be allowed to get away with such political lethargy?

Concluding Observations

India’s political leadership should not be misled into the belief that the international fawning that is being bestowed on India is a recognition of India having acquired a “Key Global Power” status. The present international fawning on India strategically is only in recognition of its emerging power potential. It is limited only and limits India emergence to a “Key Global Player”. President Bush’s assertion some time back of US assistance was only to assist India to become a “Key Global Player”. That is a far cry from “Key Global Power”.

The above arises from two factors: (1) As mentioned earlier on in the paper, no global power will assist the emergence of another global power for strategic reasons, and (2) India’s political leadership in the last 60 years has not demonstrated the essential and vital ingredient of a Great Power or a Regional Power and that is the “WILL TO USE POWER” to secure its national security interests and to ensure that its strategic sensitivities are respected at least in its neighborhood.

The most striking strategic reflection that this Author wishes to make while reflecting on the strategic record of “India at Sixty” is that a complete structural transformation of India’s strategic set-up, its institutional mechanisms and strategy formulation processes is called for.

India’s political leadership in the last sixty years was content with grudging add-ons to the strategic set-up left behind by the British. It is ill-equipped and ill-structured to meet head on the challenging strategic environment of today.

Lastly, a more somber reflection needs to be added. Who will liberate the mindsets of India’s political leaders from their various inconsequential political “ISMS” namely secularism, minorityism, socialism and casteism and equip themselves with the strategic fibre, the strategic vision and the strategic “WILL TO USE POWER” to lead India to “KEY GLOBAL POWER” status?