For a strategic overhaul

The issue really is how staff work to support the Cabinet’s designated committee is to be carried out. This is where problems of organisation, turf, government’s rules of business, and its day to day functioning start to interact. Thecentral issue in improving upon the existing system and working is to strengthen coordination and integrated decision making among various government departments whose actions (or inaction) impinge on national security. There is no doubt that an appropriate staff structure for this purpose at the apex level is necessary. Unfortunately this is where all debate and proposed action ends. In reality, whatever the format of the staff structure for national-security decision making, the level below the apex deserves serious attention since the efficient functioning of this level is what will make the apex level, both in political as well as bureaucratic terms, really effective. If this is not addressed, an over-arching structure may well turn out to be a castle in the air.

National security revolves around defence, internal security, finance and external affairs, with other departments playing an important role. In defence, many contradictions and organisational weaknesses in meeting future challenges can beidentified. From the perspective of support to national-security decision making, the most marked deficiency is the absence of an appropriate system and structure for strategic planning and long-term identification of needs, tasks and resources for defence. Many will say that the present system has worked well for a long time, why change it? But if national-security decision making is to be strengthened, serious re-examination of higher defence decision making will be necessary.

At the apex level a Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) had been established after independence. It worked well for 15 years (except toward the end) till the Sino-Indian war of 1962. It was a small, composite body which functioned on the basis of formal Cabinet papers processed through the military wing of the Cabinet Secretariat. But once the emergency was over in 1967, a Cabinet Committee for Political Affairs started to deal with defence. It was inevitable that this would diffuse the higher direction of defence since politicalaffairs cover an area well beyond defence. Defence is but one sub-set of national security. Many Prime Ministers holding the defence portfolio further obscured the process. Even the Cabinet Committee for Security, or a future NSC (of the Cabinet) would not be able to devote the attention that defence, which has become a far more complex show, requires at the apex level. Instead of experimenting, it would be advisable to re-establish the institution of the DCC at the earliest. The logic is obvious: there is a Cabinet Committee for Economic Affairs and even one for accommodation, but not for the defence of the country!

At the same time the higher direction of defence at the level of Defence Minister needs attention. The institution of the Defence Minister’s Committee (DMC) which had been established along with the DCC was also swept away by the Sino-Indian war. The Defence Minister’s morning meetings are useful but only for crisis management and emergency action, not for formulating defence strategy andstructured decision making. Defence was always a costly business, but it has also become far more complex. In a democracy, decisions about military affairs cannot be left entirely to the military (or civil) bureaucracy. The principle of civilian control of military power requires that an institution composed of the most senior civilian and military professionals and headed by the Defence Minister formally processes defence decisions. Re-establishment of the DMC would go a long way towards meeting this requirement.

Significantly increased costs and complexities of military power require adequate staff structures for strategic defence planning. Combined military and civilian senior staff under the Defence Minister could meet this need. Such a strategic-planning division should be tasked to work essentially on defence doctrine, strategy, and overall policy including long-term assessments and planning, while the departments of defence continue to manage current tasks and needs. A strategic-planning divisionwould be a logical node in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for inter-ministerial co-ordination for national-security staff, when established.

The Defence Planning Staff (DPS) of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, set up in 1986, can play its assigned role only if it forms the link with an appropriate institutional structure at a level higher than the Chiefs of Staff while coordinating with service headquarters on the other side. The establishment of a strategic-planning division of the MoD would optimise the role of the DPS. It would also provide the basis for an upward link with national-security staff, providing it with inputs from the defence side. The defence services should be willing to place a civil servant (at the secretary level) as the head of this organisation if rotational manning is not acceptable, and also place officers in the ministry, something resisted by the military for five decades.

In fact, the new government has promised to carry out a comprehensive strategic defence review on a prioritybasis. A strategic-planning division in the MoD would be the appropriate agency to prepare such a review. This review and other tasks would logically come up for decisions by the Defence Minister’s Committee, and proposals put to the DCC for approval. This would be an appropriate time to establish such an institution.

The writer is the Director of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi