Force multiplier

In his interview to this newspaper, the outgoing chief of naval staff, Admiral Arun Prakash, has drawn attention to the UPA government8217;s lack of political resolve in appointing a chief of defence staff CDS. The proposal for a CDS, who would bring greater efficiency and a modern management structure to the somewhat hide-bound forces, came out of a comprehensive review of the higher defence organisation, following the Kargil war in 1999. The group of ministers constituted by the NDA government approved in principle the need to establish a CDS. The services struck back at once raising all manner of objections. If the NDA was hesitant to press forward, the UPA has developed cold feet. The sorry lack of conviction on the part of the UPA has been covered up with a pretence of consultations with other political parties.

Armed Forces everywhere are reluctant to reform. In the US it was the legislature that thrust drastic change over the armed forces in the 1980s. Since then it has become conventional wisdom around the world that the headquarters of the armed forces need to be fully integrated into the defence ministries, theatres of command must be unified under a single military leader, and a chief of defence staff at the apex must become the principal military advisor to the political leadership. Afraid of putting a fourth wheel into the Indian defence automobile, the three services have zealously guarded the status quo at the expense of a more effective system.

That the independently operating services could not produce a credible collective response to the discovery of Pakistan8217;s aggression in the Kargil sector in 1999 has been brought back into view by the recent squabbling between then army chief, General V.P. Malik, and then air chief, A.Y. Tipnis. Lack of joint military plans also resulted in India8217;s inability to respond quickly to the shocking terrorist attack on Parliament in December 2001. On the positive side, the one and only experiment over the last few years in jointness between the three services in the Andamans appears to have worked well. Admiral Prakash insists that it is up to the political leadership to replicate this experiment top-down. We could not agree more.