Internal security

KEY POINTS

Inadequacies

·         Neighbourhood policy – India’s neighbourhood policy holds a clear absence of vision on how to balance, engage and work with the many great powers in the regional and the broader international scene.

·         For example, surgical strikes in Pakistan and doklam standoff in China, hardly made any significant gains in reality.

·         Defence preparedness – India spends close to $50 billion annually on defence and yet might still be ill-equipped to fight the wars of the modern age, especially in the neighbourhood.

·         India also suffers from almost non-functional higher defence organization and the defence policy doesn’t hold any political oversight or vision.

·         Defence management – There is little conversation between the armed forces and the political class, and even lesser conversation among the various arms of the forces.

·         Institutional lacuna – In India, talk of appointing a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) has died down and the key post of military adviser in the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) remains vacant.

·         The NSC almost never meets and the National Security Advisory Board, initially set up to seek ‘outside expertise’ on strategic matters, has become a space for retired officials.

Road to future

·         Many of India’s national security inadequacies stem from the absence of a wholesome national security/defence vision.

·         To address such a problem, India should have an overall national security document from which the various agencies and the arms of the armed forces draw their mandate.

·         It should also enable them to create their own respective and joint doctrines which would then translate into operational doctrines for tactical engagement.

·         In the absence of this, national strategy is broadly a function of ad hocism and personal preferences.

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