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Our review of the current state of the coastal defence scheme would appear to project a disjointed image of a contrivance that depends more on a massed approach to security through the induction of numbers (in terms of human resources as well as surveillance means). While it is true that there is logic in numbers, yet the adversary is one who has perfected the art of visualising the cracks in the system. Obviously with more disparate elements involved, more cracks are there to slip in between. On 26/11, ten men with small arms came in two inflatable boats and held our financial capital to ransom for sixty hours.  The mayhem in terms of loss of lives apart, the Bombay Stock Exchange closed down for the same period resulting in trading disruption of close to USD 9 billion per day. And this is the essence of the disproportionality that has been conferred. ‘Mass’ pitted against ‘Knowledge’ invariably results in victory to the latter.

The covenant between religion and the terrorist is a volatile one. It is neither appeased by bargains nor is it broken by modernity. Indeed it has fused the ideology that drives them with the source of their being (this may explain the suicide bomber). Under these conditions the only route that can succeed is the promise of failure for which, the answer lies in adopting a unified strategy both in form and content. The Footprint Matrix provides an instrument to channelize national effort. We concentrate on any one Zone at the peril of missing out on the others. Persistence is the key not only to the assailant but also to the defender, the adoption of large scale electronic means for profiling, surveilling, collating and analyses is a necessity.

The nuclear dimension is the clear and potentially, the most destructive present danger. While a nuclear strike may present a very complex planning task, our adversaries have shown themselves to be up to the most challenging, the most improbable and yes, the most diabolic. The establishments’ facility to deter, defend and respond will test its will to coalesce to the extreme.

There appears to be an absence of a guiding national strategy which seeks to marshal all resources towards one aim. If our primary strategic goal is to protect against dangerous people and the ingress of illicit hazardous material then this goal must serve to transform the existing organizational and material structures. The litmus test to ascertain progress lies in the extent to which we have a unified strategy in place and develop a joint surveillance and pre-emption capability; clearly the waters on both these counts remain murky.

Download full article here: Shankar, Those Tiny Footprints