Abstract
To
fully absorb the benefits of being a
great power, India must act as a great power. The country must locate
and seize
the opportunities offered by circumstances rather than be guided by the
needs
of other powers that they camouflage as ours. India, China and the US
are
destined to increasingly interact with each other. This dynamic has to
be channelled in ways that speed up growth and stability in what will be
the
world's third superpower, after the US and China.
Introduction
India is a patchwork of multiple centuries,
and comprises of human and territorial segments. A few of which are still
existing and reacting as they would have in the 15th century, while others in
their mind space, range from that period to the present. Too few of the 1.26
billion citizens of the Union of India as yet, are being fully acculturated to
the needs and capabilities of the 21st century. In contrast, those from the
same ethnic mix who are living and working in countries such as the UK,
Singapore, the US and even South Africa have much higher per cent that are
current with the 21st century, with the rest being almost entirely in the 20th,
with only a negligible number still anchored to the 19th century in their mores
and beliefs. As a consequence of the inadequate attention paid by post-1947
policymakers to empowering the country's human capital through an adequate
education, there is leakage in India in the case of food grains, capital
expenditure and in items as important for the future, as the nurturing of
talent in the fields of science, technology, culture and the social sciences.
The state organisation that has best nurtured human capital is the military,
and this has been achieved despite shortages in equipment and in other
essentials.
Empowering Military
The men and women of
the three services ensure through both, "jugaad", as well as
extraordinary human efforts that the overall war machine of the country remains
in a state of preparedness to deal with threats. This, despite India being
perhaps the only major power to have (since the 1950s) excluded those in
uniform from direct participation in the processes and platforms, which
collectively comprise the Ministry of Defence. Not to mention the sole major
power that is dependent on external sources for more than 80 per cent of its
higher-end stock of weaponry. Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to integrate
the military into the defence policy matrix, as is already the case in the two
largest global powers, the United States and China. Integration is called for
not only into the presently exclusively civilian Defence Ministry bureaucracy,
but among the three services as well. An integrated Chiefs of Defence Staff
Command needs to be formed, while officers in the higher echelons of each of
the three services must be acculturated to viewing the conduct of operations in a holistic
rather than three services - segmented manner. As for India, it is testimony to
the professionalism and dedication to democratic values of the Army, Navy and
Air Force, that there was never any move to replicate in India the sorry
history of military coups in Pakistan and Bangladesh, not to mention nearby
countries such as Indonesia and Thailand. This flawless record of loyalty (like
fealty) to democratic values and professionalism merits a swift end to the
post-1947 practice of the uniformed services remaining outside the personnel
matrix of the Union Ministry of Defence.
Empowering the Youth
Why is empowering each
citizen through proper education important? Why is integrating the uniformed
services into the formal echelons of the Defence Ministry crucial for the
future? It is because, the superstructure that the military relies for its
substance and salience in a nationwide foundation of productive citizens, and
the economic growth that such human power would generate. Just as China grew
substantially above double digits from the 1980s, to grow to a size second only
to the US (and soon to overtake it), so too must India he provided with the
policy matrix needed for sustaining such growth. As for the 7% annual rate that
politicians are complimenting themselves on, even 9% is insufficient to ensure
that demography work to our advantage rather than otherwise. Lack of genuine
employment is affecting tens of millions of youths, thereby making it
relatively easy to collect large groups together for creating mayhem.
Large-scale confidence in PM Narendra Moth as a 21"century change agent,
by the close of 2012, led to a steady decline in the civil unrest that was
being witnessed in the country from the close of 2010 to end-2012. The period
when it became obvious that Modi would emerge as the leader of choice for the
rising number of Indians. Today, because of the particular growth path that the
Prime Minister has chosen and its short-term travails, once again a sullen mood
seems to be settling within large sections of the youth, sending them into the
streets agitating for a variety of issues that are either irrelevant or
peripheral to the nation's future. Now is the time to substantially expand
programmes such as the National Cadet Corps (NCC), that instil in the young,
some of the discipline and values that have remained the tradition of the armed
forces of the Republic of India for a considerable period of time, as also to
create a National Service Corps (NSC) that could be trained and motivated to
improve standards in literacy, health and habitation. Both the NCC as well as
the proposed NSC would have as its "steel frame" men and women who have
served (or still continue in the service of) the armed forces as well as
civilians' active in the chosen fields of endeavour. Diverting millions of
youth (who are each awaiting but not securing regular employment) from
agitation to nationally productive channels needs to have priority within the
national security plan. At present, millions of youth are permitted to drift on
their own, with the result that many are fuelling the caste, communal, regional
and other agitations launched by politicians inside as well as (in some cases)
external actors. Both the NCC as well as the proposed NSC needs to reach a
level of enrolment such that these millions will imbibe values and habits that
promote national regeneration rather than degeneration.
Just as China grew substantially above
double digits from the 1980s to grow to a size second only to the US (and soon
to overtake it), so too must India be provided with the policy matrix needed
for sustaining such growth.
Pakistan-China Factor
India is on course to be the third largest
economy in the world in 20 years provided governments continue to design and
implement suboptimal policies and within 10 years if these policies designed
for growth are framed and implemented effectively. Geopolitically, therefore,
countries across the world are seeing and reacting to India in this light, with
two exceptions, Pakistan and China. In both, it is their respective militaries
that have the decisive (and in the case of Pakistan, the sole) influence over
policies relating to India, and the PLA has bought into the Pakistan army
narrative that India's ascent to the global Top Three is not pre-ordained but
can be blocked and even reversed by asymmetric methods. India is the only
country that has the potential to leap ahead of China in the overall growth
stakes within the next thirty years, and for this reason, the PLA has
ensured that their card against the growth and significance of India, the
Pakistan military, be pampered at the cost of the Chinese exchequer. Rather
than deal with India as an inevitable great power, both China and Pakistan look
at the world's most populous democracy through lens that constantly search for
ways designed to slow down economic growth and multiply strains within society
and the polity.
In the case of China, the Chinese Communist Party has
especially since the advent of Deng Xiaoping, followed a policy of using
opportunities available, to ensure the steady rise of the Peoples Republic of
China into the First Power, within the international order, displacing the US,
which has had that rank since 1945. While the Peoples Liberation Army has
substantially outsourced its policy on India to Rawalpindi General Head
Quarters (GHQ), State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in China see India, as an
opportunity too big, to continue to remain secondary to Pakistan's interests.
This segment of the PRC power structure has begun to look at India not as an
inevitable threat to a Sinic (Chinese) version of the unipolar world, but as an
opportunity for Chinese industries to expand into, a phenomenon already taking
place in infrastructure, telecom and energy. Trade in the three could grow
substantially, were the obstacles to such cooperation created by the Rawalpindi
GHQ-centered policy of Beijing towards Delhi, were diluted and subsequently
reversed. The Chinese Communist Party under General Secretary Xi Jinping should
move away from a PLA-sourced policy towards the more respectful and
conciliatory line sought by the SOEs. During the 73-day Doklam standoff, what
kept the PLA from ramping up the confrontation, the way the Pakistan army
wanted was the realisation that doing so would end any hopes of India becoming
one of the top markets for Chinese products, even while Pakistan is becoming a
growing drain on PRC resources. Given the fact that Rawalpindi GHQ has failed
to contain and constrict India, the remaining value of the Pakistan armed
forces as a primary source for information about US weapons and tactics, is
also decreasing. Now that Washington is becoming warier of the duplicity of the
Pakistan military towards itself, military to military cooperation between the
two sides is getting reduced to a level that will soon make Pakistan of
negligible value, as far as source of secret input into the US military is
concerned. In contrast, economic and commercial cooperation between China and
India has the potential of reaching $300 billion annually in 2-way business,
but only provided there is a change in the Chinese Communist Party policy
towards India, from containment to cooperation. Significant Rawalpindi GHQ-inspired
"bad behaviour" towards India should be promptly punished through
immediate curbs on Chinese business entities. As a start, any company from any
part of the world operating in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir should be blocked from
the Indian market. Such a move would reduce considerably the attraction of
investments in PoK, even for Chinese entities.
Significant Rawalpindi
GHQ-inspired "bad behaviour" towards India should be promptly
punished through immediate curbs on Chinese business entities. As a start, any
company from any part of the world operating in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir
should be blocked from the Indian market. Such a move would reduce considerably
the attraction of investments in PoK, even for Chinese entities.
Coming now to
Pakistan, the interests and rights of the people of that artificially
constructed country would be best served by a further breakup of the country,
following on from the 1971 secession of what was then East Pakistan. It was
unfortunate that the Government of India failed to take advantage of the desire
of the Baloch and Pashtun territories to attach themselves with India. Even a
task as geopolitically essential as liberating the whole of Jammu & Kashmir
was shunned by the leadership which took charge on 15 August 1947. India is a
great power whose governance mechanism still seems to suffer from an
inferiority complex, and has often balked from full scope measures to protect
vital national interests. However, its roots in a tradition and history going
back five and more millennia have made (even the truncated version of) India, a
distinct and cohesive geographic and cultural entity In 1965, the statesmanlike
decision of Prime Minister LB Shastri to decline to impose Hindi on states that
were not welcoming of the primary role being given to that language, helped
preserve the Union of India. On the other hand, the Sinhala fanaticism of the
ruling elite of Sri Lanka in the 1950s ignited a civil war that had grievous
effects on the country. Although, the largest language group, the
Hindi-speaking people of the country have never sought to impose their will on
the rest of India, the way the Punjabi population of Pakistan has done
through their control over the Pakistan military. Pakistan has pulled away from
the traditions of the Indian subcontinent, thereby rendering it fragile society
kept together only by force. Even religion is not a unifying factor, given the
manner in which Wahabbism (with its supremacist and exclusivist doctrine) has
sought to monopolise the religious space in a country, whose people are overall
still moderate. It may be recalled that it was the Central Provinces and Bihar
from where most of the supporters of Partition came from, and not West Punjab,
Sindh, Baluchistan or the Pashtun territories. Devoid of a uniting factor, the
provinces of Pakistan have little in common with each other, and those who
argue that India must expend effort in keeping Pakistan, united the way first
the US and China have sought to do, are in effect arguing that India must help
the Punjabi-dominated Pakistan army to continue to oppress Christians, Hindus,
Sindhis, Balochand Pashtuns in the name of a "united" Pakistan.
India
must instead give moral and diplomatic support to the oppressed in Pakistan,
including the many who are Muslims. The people resident in that territory will
do the rest within 10-12 years, or around the time India emerges as the globe's
third biggest economy. China is welcome to spend tens of billions of dollars
each year trying to preserve the control of the Pakistan army over that
unfortunate state and its people. India ought not to waste even a paisa in such
an exercise, which in its own way, would be as futile in inducing a change in
behaviour by Rawalpindi GHQ as the periodic candlelit vigils held at Wagah.
Nourishing the Pakistan military through heavy expenditure of treasure may be a
priority of Beijing, but any form of assistance to a state that is the endemic
focus of terror in India ought not to be a priority for India, which for too
long has accepted what ought to be the burdens of other powers as its own, when
limited resources and multiple needs necessitate an exclusive focus on
solutions that are of direct benefit to India. Care should be taken to ensure,
however, that moral and diplomatic support for self-determination be extended
only to the Pashtun and Baloch areas within Pakistan, and not to those regions
forming part of Iran and Afghanistan, both of which countries need to be
brought by Delhi into a regional alliance system that would focus on rolling
back extremism and promoting modernity and growth, including in Central Asia.
China is the second most important priority of Indian strategic policy, with
the US the top. Because of policy imperfections that were allowed to be
continued since 1947, India's economy is as yet only $2 trillion, or less than
half what is needed to ensure self-sufficiency in defence capabilities. A new
security paradigm has to be implemented that reflects 21st century needs,
rather than 20th/19th century approaches to practical geopolitics. India is not
the polity or society that it was in the 1950s nor the US. The 1950s were the
period when Washington and Delhi began to separate from each other
geopolitically, even as Pakistan and the US grew close. It was clear from the
start that the only target of the Pakistan military was India and not China,
yet the fiction was maintained in Washington that the former had joined the
US-led anti-communist affiance. It most be admitted that India's record in
identifying and making use of alliance opportunities has been dismal, an
example being turning away from the informal offer of ASEAN to include India as
a member, a situation that appears to be on the way towards rectification, as
shown by the Heads of Government of the 10 ASEAN states, joining hands with the
Prime Minister of India, during the 2018 Republic Day celebrations. For most of
the 21st century, China will be the largest economy within the international
order, followed by the US, India and ultimately Brazil, the country which is on
course to overtake an ageing Japan.
China has begun muscle flexing in a manner
that brings back memories of the Middle Kingdom era, when the Imperial Court at
Beijing, saw every other country as vassals needing to give it tribute. Given
such a propensity, what is needed is for the US and India to work seamlessly
together to ensure stability within the Indo-Pacific rim.
Engagement with the US
Whenever the world's
primary power changes, instability gets created around its periphery, as a
consequence of the natural assertiveness such a situation engenders in the new
primary power. Even before climbing to the top position, China has begun muscle
flexing in a manner that brings back memories of the Middle Kingdom era, when
the Imperial Court at Beijing saw every other country as vassals
needing to give it tribute. Given such a propensity, what is needed is for the
US and India to work seamlessly together to ensure stability within the
Indo-Pacific rim. This calls for them to concert their actions in the military
sphere, and this is possible once both countries sign appropriate protocols
that would facilitate the seamless collaboration that is needed by the
imperatives of national interest of both the US as well as India. Ensuring freedom
of navigation and ensuring the absence of the appearance of hegemony within the
Indian Ocean segment of the Indo-Pacific has to be the primary responsibility
of the Indian armed forces, especially the Navy. The Indian contingent would of
course join with others in this task, but as the lead component. Similarly,
ensuring a similar equilibrium in the Pacific Ocean is a task that the US armed
forces need to undertake, of course with other militaries including that of
India participating. In such a context, there is need to expand the
India-japan-Australia-US Quadrilateral Affiance to include Indonesia, Vietnam
and the Philippines as well.
Ensuring freedom of navigation and ensuring
the absence of the appearance of hegemony within the Indian Ocean segment of
the Indo-Pacific has to be the primary responsibility of the Indian armed
forces, especially the Navy. The Indian contingent would of course join with
others in this task, but as the lead component.
Prepare for Out of Area Missions
In
ensuring that militaries retain their superiority over potential foes, there is
no substitute for experience on the actual field of different types of war. In
such a context, this writer had in end-2014 suggested that two squadrons of
top-quality military aircraft and around 4000 Special Forces be deployed in
extremist-infested locations in Iraq and Syria so as to bring kinetic force to
bear on the Islamic State of Syria and Levant (ISIS)threat. Although the advice
was not taken, this line of action is precisely what Russia subsequently did in
2015, despite the many forecasts of doom from the same sources that worked to
discourage Delhi from adopting such an "adventurist" line. In the way
Sri Lanka's Mahinda Rajapaksa did in 2009 when he brushed aside calls and commands
from several countries to save the Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from
annihilation by ordering a cease-fire the way every one of his predecessors
had, Vladimir Putin showed that he had enough faith in the capabilities of the
Russian armed forces to go ahead with such involvement. The consequence has
been the defeat of both ISIS as well as NATO-backed groups that are often
indistinguishable in their ideology and objectives from the first. The two
squadrons of aircraft and around 4000 Special Forces in Syria ensured the
centrality of Moscow as a global Great Power. This was established for the
first time since the 1980s, that too despite having a much weaker economy than
was the case at that time. Had India moved in the same way, Delhi's
indispensability as a participant in global negotiations on matters of security
would have been ensured, as also the re-emergence of Delhi as a key voice in
matters dealing with West Asia, as indeed was the case until the close of the
1940s, during which period the Indian rupee was the dominant currency in much
of that region. Prime Minister Modi has called for the world to unite against
terror, and indeed such unity is essential. As of now, however, the Indian
contribution to the war against ISIS has largely been restricted to statements
of official intent. These needs to be supplemented with military force, and in
such a way that India's strategic independence is visible, which would be by
allying with Russia in Syria and with the US in Iraq, as well as of course the
governments in both Damascus and Baghdad. Certainly, there needs to be close
defence cooperation with the US, but this must rest on the fact that the
methods pursued by each may differ even while the objectives may be similar. In
the past, France under Charles de Gaulle was an ally of the US with a mind of
its own in certain matters, and this would be the case with India as well, even
after entering into a much closer military and defence relationship with the
US, including by ensuring that key items of military hardware get sourced from
locations within the country. Another means of cooperation would be to set up
joint surveillance facilities in the Indian Ocean that would assist in securing
real time information to both Delhi as well as Washington of the moves (on
land, air, space and sea) of countries that are of security concern to both.
Broadening the geographical ambit of military intervention against global
threats such as ISIS is essential in a context where the boundaries of
asymmetric conflict have moved far beyond the SAARC zone. Both interests as
well as deployment must reflect such a change in circumstances.
Conclusion
To fully absorb the benefits of being a
great power, India must act as a great power. The country must locate and seize
the opportunities offered by circumstances rather than be guided by the needs
of other powers that they camouflage as ours. India, China and the US are
destined to increasingly interact with each other. This dynamic has to be
channelized in ways that speed up growth and stability in what will be the
world's third superpower, after the US and China.
To fully absorb the benefits of being a
great power, India must act as a great power. The country must locate and seize
the opportunities offered by circumstances rather than be guided by the needs
of other powers that they camouflage as ours. India, China and the US are
destined to increasingly interact with each other. This dynamic has to be
channelized in ways that speed up growth and stability in what will be the
world's third superpower, after the US and China.
Strategic Yearbook 2018 (edited by Lt Gen P K Singh, Maj Gen B K Sharma and Dr Roshan Khanijo)