Hyderabad: Politicians are largely uninterested in national security issues in India, where armed forces remain detached from the Ministry of Defence leading to a half-empty arsenal and an outdated higher defence organisation, former Navy Chief Admiral Arun Prakash rued today.
"Intense political activity seems to leave the contemporary Indian politician with little time or inclination to deal with national security issues. A manifestation of this neglect is the total absence of Parliamentary debate on security matters and the short shrift given to most recommendations of its Standing Committee on Defence," he said.
"This disinterest has led to the de facto delegation of decision-making responsibility to civilian bureaucrats, not all of whom are adequately conversant with complex security matters," the Admiral said delivering the inaugural address at the two-day annual national seminar on 'Geostrategic Shift of Global Centre of Gravity: Security Imperatives of India in 21st Century' at College of Defence Management here.
Under current rules, he said, the same civilian bureaucracy has also been assigned comprehensive control of the armed forces and responsibility for national defence.
A damaging fallout of this arrangement is that the Indian armed forces remain detached from the MoD and are not integrated with each other, he said, adding more deleterious consequences include a half-empty arsenal, a military- industrial complex that has failed to deliver and an outdated higher defence organisation.
He said China this year issued a National Military Strategy, Australia put out a Defence White Paper and the US delivered a Military Strategy, a Maritime Strategy and a National Security Strategy but "a profound but inexplicable reticence prevails in South Block, which has prevented India's national security establishment from articulating any policy, strategy or doctrine in the past 68 years".
Admiral Prakash pointed out that Chinese strategic culture has encouraged initiation of actions to defeat an enemy prior to the onset of hostilities. China, therefore, applies elements of its national power, in peacetime, to advance its strategic interests in case of conflict.
Admiral Prakash further said US forces, too, have formally instituted the concept of 'Phase Zero' in their operational planning wherein action is initiated, in peacetime, to focus on preparation and capacity-building aimed at influencing adversaries.
This preparation includes a study of the environment, including capabilities and intentions of all players, he said.
"In our case, unfortunately, 'surprise' is a theme that runs, unbroken, through independent India's national security discourse; and has forced us to be reactive in wars, insurgencies and crisis situations.
"Who is to blame, is not important. What matters is acknowledgement of the fact that our strategic culture has prevented us from applying ourselves with diligence and rigour to the analysis and assessment of India's security environment and concerns," Admiral Prakash said.
However, he said, things are changing. Alternative futures are being envisaged through Net Assessment and scenario-building exercises; and advocacy groups are offering foreign and strategic policy recommendations to the government.
He also said for China, which has grown for decades on the back of cheap manufacturing, there is bad news ahead, noting that the growth of manufacturing has been stalled by a combination of rising labour costs and increasing use of technology in the form of robots and automation.
"As far as China is concerned, instead of worrying about its rise, we (India) may have to worry about its decline; and the resultant impact on the global economics and balance of power. Of course, this is pure speculation, but the impact of such eventualities on India and how we will cope with them, are issues for you (participants of the seminar) to mull over," Admiral Prakash said.
The dramatic elimination of Osama bin Laden in his Pakistani "sanctuary" roused a vain hope that Al-Qaeda was finished and this may be the beginning of the end of global terrorism.
However, Al-Qaeda has merely altered its profile and created new affiliates in the Arabian Peninsula, the Maghreb and in the Indian Subcontinent, he said.
A new and far more savage mutation of Al-Qaeda, the ISIS, is now on the rampage in the Middle East, he said.
Each terrorist strike in a western city evokes expressions of outrage and horror. While these are fully justified, it must be borne in mind that state-sponsored terrorism was first employed as a strategy to defeat the (erstwhile) Soviet Union in Afghanistan, by the US and its allies, including Pakistan, Admiral Prakash added.
Still seen as a useful proxy-tool and morce-multiplier, terrorism finds sustenance from the power-play between Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia as well as the grand-strategic game being played between the US and Russia, he added.
