The NSC needs organisation

Inevitably, as Karl Inderfurth in a recent seminal study of the US NSC system since 1947 says, 8220;The office of the national security adviser created a new rival to the secretaries of state and defence 8212; the traditional chieftains of foreign and security policy.8221; In our case, security policy also comes under the home minister in relation to internal challenges, and economic security beyond financial management remains a key challenge of national security. The 1998 Task Force had set about identifying the specific needs which the NSC system was to fill within the framework of our political/ constitutional system.

Toward this, extensive consultations were held with over 75 eminent serving and retired officials at the level of cabinet secretaries, key secretaries, heads of intelligence agencies, chiefs of staff of Defence Services, besides over 120 institutions/think tanks to identify why the country needed an NSC system, where the major deficiencies in national security management were, and what should be done to improve it. Detailed records were kept of the discussions spread over six weeks. Based on these consultations four major deficiencies were identified: i absence of integrated long-term national security planning and strategy formulation, ii absence of holistic 8220;national8221; intelligence assessment system, iii lack of coordination between key ministries whose role impinges heavily on national security and weaknesses in implementation of decisions, and iv crises management.

The blueprint for the NSC organisation was drawn to fill these gaps. The basic organisation was to be meshed inside the existing governmental machinery and toward this end, strategic/security planning institutions within key ministries like defence, home affairs, external affairs, science and technology, etc were recommended to be set up so that the NSC organisation could coordinate through them. The NSC organisation was to compose of the cabinet committee headed by the prime minister, an NSA with three deputies for long-term planning and strategy formulation, national intelligence assessment, and policy coordination in terms of short/current decision making. The only element outside the government was the establishment of half a dozen government-funded autonomous think tanks to undertake policy-related studies to provide open source inputs to the government as well as to the public for broader debate and understanding of national security policy issues.

But the system that was set up ignored the central logic of the task force proposal. Some improvements in the intelligence system took place more due to the Kargil war and the subsequent reviews. The NSA in the NDA government was also the principal secretary to the PM and drew much of his authority from this position. In essence, it remained a decision maker-cum-coordinator of current policy, a role which in a way belongs much more to the principal secretary to the prime minister and the cabinet secretary. Little or no institutional changes took place to introduce long-term strategic/ security planning and no ministry still has any dedicated staff for long-term planning. Five-year Defence Plans continued to suffer from lack of timely sanctions and allocation of resources with deleterious effect on defence modernisation. Large budgeted funds remained unspent, year after year, since the NSC was set up indicating weakened inter-ministerial coordination. It is not even clear if any detailed policy studies have been undertaken on long-term prognosis of terrorism. Little coordination of energy policies is in evidence. Many more examples can be cited. In short, the NSC system has not fulfilled the direction of even the cabinet resolution of April 1999 establishing the NSC leave alone build an institution to take it forward.

The Congress came to power on the promise to make the NSC a 8220;professional and effective institution8221;. Unfortunately, J.N. Dixit did not get enough time, burdened as he was by the legacy of the past. The first thing that is needed now is to shift the focus from the NSA and its post to the need for change and establishing the NSC organisation as an institution while strengthening the parliamentary system of governance. The charter for the NSC left vague in the cabinet resolution of April 1999 needs to be the centre of focus and hence clearly defined. An outline of this exists in the 1998 Task Force report. Alternate formulations and modifications in the light of experiences since then can be worked out. Once the task, role and structure are clear, then it would be much easier to find suitable individuals to man the posts, including that of the NSA, and building an NSC institution commenced.