Threat perception be viewed in totality

Winston Churchill must have had countries like India in mind when he made his by now famous statement, To create great armies is one thing...

Winston Churchill must have had countries like India in mind when he made his by now famous statement, 8220;To create great armies is one thing; to lead them and handle them is another.8221; Fortunately, in the prevailing scenario, a consensus is being build up amongst all political parties, intellectuals and defence exports that we have no defence policy; the defence apparatus is fractured and there is a definite need of a National Security Council.

Perhaps the most important agenda of the task force is to ensure that the proposed NSC is able to function without the shackles of bureaucracy. It is a well known fact that the bureaucratic supremacy in a system like ours has ensured keeping the armed forces away from having any say in national military matters for too long. The recommendations of the task force must not go to the committee of the secretaries but to the PMO which should consider establishing a special secretariat to study and finalise these recommendations. The secretariat should have a suitable mix of politicians Defence minister, Finance minister, Home minister economists of repute and defence experts. The designs of the bureaucracy to somehow dilute the authority of NSC in decision-making, in matters of national security must be defeated. We have suffered enough due to this approach.

Most of the political parties accept the need of an integrated macro-defence planning, however, what the politician and the bureaucrats do not understand is that planning for defence is an extremely complex process in a developing country, face to face with all types of scarcities, a large variety of borders and socialistic pattern of governance.

An integrated approach to national security should include external and internal threat perception as well as our economic, social, technological and political developments. Viewed in the overall economic dimension, the scope of defence planning essentially embraces allocation and utilisation of national resources for defence. To perform the important function of national security, NSC, the apex body, should view all aspects of threat perception, organisational structures and human resources management, decision-making apparatus and so on. Let us not make it too unwieldy and staff it with defeated politicians, frustrated economists and disgruntled top brass of Armed Forces. The composition, organisational structure, its role and function must be unambiguous and its authority undisputed. the situation has changed, post-nuclear tests scenario demands a pragmatic approach to the national security. Politicians may possess the world vision in ample measure but practical statecraft is another matter. Let us learnfrom the past mistakes. Let the NSC become a potent tool functioning only in the interest of the nation.