Staring Down an Abyss(*): Prospects of Nuclear Deterrent Stability in the Sino-South Asian Region

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Vice Admiral (Retd.) Vijay Shankar 

Keywords: Nuclear deterrent stability, China, “How Much is Enough?” India’s Nuclear Doctrine

Download full article here: Shankar, Staring Down an Abyss

Excerpts:

The Nuclear Motive

Nuclearisation of the South Asian region was driven by forces that were vastly different from that which resulted in the apocalyptical human tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The first four nuclear weapon states built their arsenal with a war-fighting logic which led to strategies that not only propagated the first use but also conventionalized the weapon, with the perverse belief that control of escalation was within their means. The uninhibited intrusion of technologies gave to them the power to obliterate the world many times over in a  ‘Strangelovesque[i]’ parody that mocked life.

Motivation for the Sino-Indo-Pak arsenals was more by the need for an impermeable defensive shield that took inspiration from Brodie’s aphorism that nuclear weapons had changed the very character of warfare with war avoidance rather than waging being the political objective. India’s nuclear doctrine evolved from four guiding norms. The first was that the nation would not be the first to use nuclear weapons. The second, a nuclear first strike would invite an assured massive retaliation. There was a third equally critical unwritten faith and that was, under no circumstance would the weapon be conventionalized. The final canon, it is significant to note, developed in the time of the Cold War and yet remained uniquely divorced from the one norm that characterized that war, that is, the illogical faith that a nuclear war was not only wageable but also winnable. This last principle matured into an iron cast division between the Controller of the weapon and its Custodian.

The decision not to conventionalize, was based on circumstances unique to the Indian State. India’s nuclear program was conceived and executed through a techno-political decision made in 1948, which resulted in the establishment of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission. From then onwards through the 1974 euphemistic peaceful nuclear explosion and the near quarter century of dithering till India declared herself a nuclear weapon state in 1998, the agenda was driven by a techno-politico-bureaucratic nexus. The paradox was the absence of formal military involvement in the nuclear establishment till after 1998. Significantly, no other nuclear weapon state has embarked on a weapons program without the direct and persistent involvement of the military. All this was a direct consequence of the post partition aberration in higher defence management which suffered from a misplaced trepidation of military control of the state and the flawed belief that civilian control of the military not only implied superior dual control by the politico-bureaucratic alliance but also a self fashioned conviction that military matters were essentially of execution and had little to do with policy making or strategic planning. It was not till 1999 when the Kargil review committee and the consequent group of ministers reviewed national security in its entirety, that substantial changes to higher defence management in India were put in place. The institution of the Strategic Forces Command and its Commander in Chief along with a doctrine to operationalise the deterrent were amongst the salient reforms.

Of the techno-politico-bureaucratic nexus it must be said that even before the articulation of the nuclear doctrine it never sought a conventional role for nuclear weapons. Whether this strategic orientation was by instinct, design, by tradition or an innate fear of the power of the military is really not germaine to our study; what it did do was to create a distinctive approach to the entire process of operationalising the deterrent, for it played a decisive role in separating Controller from the Custodian. Viewed from a different perspective this last feature expressed the conviction that, between nuclear armed antagonists, the use of nuclear weapons sets into motion an uncontrollable chain of mass destruction that not only defies manipulation but also obliterates the very purpose of polity.

[…]

India’s Nuclear Doctrine

India’s nuclear doctrine was made public on 4th January 2003. The doctrine presents two perspectives. The first part deals with ‘Form’ with nuclear exchange avoidance and minimality as governing considerations. Sensitivity to the multilateral nature of settings and yet not show a diffidence to the existential nuclear challenges that marked the regional scenario; was intrinsic to policy. Credibility as a function of surveillance, effectiveness, readiness and survivability completed the structure. The doctrine provided for alternatives and a guarantee that the second strike would cause unacceptable damage. Also included are certain philosophical goals that underscored belief in the ultimate humanity of things.

The second part of the doctrine deals with substance, with operationalising the deterrent and Command and Control as the main themes. Development of the ‘triad’ is so structured that credibility was neither compromised nor readiness undermined. As mentioned earlier a clear division is made between the Controller and Custodian with multiple redundancy and dual release authorization at every level. Command of the arsenal under all circumstances remains under a political prerogative with comprehensive alternatives provided for the nuclear command authority. To recapitulate the salient features of the Indian nuclear doctrine are listed below:-

  • Nuclear weapons are political tools,
  • The nuclear policy follows a ‘Punishment Strategy’. Its governing principle would be No First Use.
  • Retaliation to a first strike would be massive and would cause unacceptable damage.
  • The use of chemical, biological or other WMD may invite nuclear option.
  • Nuclear weapons will not be used against non nuclear weapon states.
  • A unilateral moratorium against nuclear testing and continued stringent controls over proliferation.
  • The goal of global nuclear disarmament remains.

As mentioned earlier, a deterrent relationship is founded entirely on rationality. On the part of the deteree there is rationality in the conviction of disproportionate risks and on the side of the deterrer rationality of purpose and transparency in confirming the reality of risks. The exceptional feature of this cognitive transaction is that the roles are reversible with the crucial proviso that it is in the common interest to maintain equilibrium in the relationship. The determinants of a durable deterrent co-relation are for the association to withstand three pressures that are an abiding feature of contemporary politics in the region:

  • The deterrent must be stable by which is implied the doctrinaire underpinnings; command, control and arsenal stewardship must be unwavering and transparent. Inconsistencies and opacity promotes unpredictability, a speculative bulge in the arsenal or the temptation for pre-emptive action.
  • Crisis stability entails the abhorrence of a predilection to reach for the nuclear trigger at first provocation. In this context decision time must give adequate leeway for recognition of having arrived at a ‘redline’ through transparency and unambiguous signaling.
  •  Technological intrusions place the planner on the horns of a dilemma. As a rule technology’s impact on the arsenal and command and control systems serves to compress time and increase overall effectiveness. This intrusion is inevitable. What is undesirable is that it also invites covertness whereas its impact demands transparency.

The three dynamics above have a common thread which could be exploited to enhance stability. This common thread is the need for transparency. During the cold war the two protagonists managed these dynamics through the brute power of the arsenal, dangerous tripwire readiness and incessant provocative deployment. Any solution on these lines is neither exceptional nor tenable and from a contemporary point of view ludicrous. If stability is the aim then clarity and precision in mutual dealings provide the opportunity to develop and solidify the deterrent relationship.

Stresses on Deterrent Stability

There is an entire range of factors that influence stability of a deterrent relationship but those that disproportionately prevail are what will be discussed in the ensuing paragraphs. We begin with the strategic environment and its external dimension. A single hyper power marks the global situation in the wake of the curtains coming down on the Cold War. In addition, the trends of globalization which technology and the mushrooming of democracies has ushered in, makes for the very concept of nation states in terms of their absolute sovereignty a shaky proposition. Three very obvious inconsistencies remain an abiding source of friction for a sovereign nation within the international system. In fact it makes a mockery of the individual nature of a state’s power and its interests. These three maybe summarized as follows:

  • The internal dimension of sovereignty encourages centralism at a point in history when more plurality and democracy is demanded.
  • Sovereignty in its external avatar makes inconceivable international laws and universal regulations yet it is precisely the opposite that globalization requires.
  • Given the vast differentials in military and economic power, sovereignty in terms of supremacy of state remains a chimerical concept. This is vitiated by the networked and globalized nature of the contemporary situation.

Centralism, the absence of plurality and the vast disparity in economic and military power are all symptomatic of the situation in the region. Add to the equation a defacto military center of power that has persisted in the use of non-state actors in pursuit of its ‘national interests’[ii] and the portents of instability become more than apparent. The impact of these contradictory forces taken together not only makes for an unstable relationship, but also brings in a measure of nuclear multilateralism on account of the chain reaction that is set into motion in an action-reaction situation. While the lone hyper power would seek to control the action-reaction predicament, the other poles in the global scenario would seek advantage in it. The fact of the Sino-Pak collusion in the nuclear field is one such manifestation while the NPG waiver is another symptom of the same. The necessity is to cause strategic equilibrium in a manner in which the realities of the regional situation interplays with the external environment. The one virtue that would serve to bring about balance is transparency.

The next consideration is internal pulls and pressures that the protagonists are subject to. These often defy rationality and tend to serve an agenda that loses sight of purpose of the nuclear deterrent, that is, nuclear war avoidance and, as has been stated by the governments, a repugnance for a nuclear arms race in the cold war mode. Unfortunately, the effect of these internal dynamics is not just to enlarge the arsenal but to drive it in a direction that is neither predictable nor over which controls exist.

The impending mounting of nuclear warheads on the Babur cruise missiles, the work in progress of arming conventional submarines with nuclear tipped missiles are cases in point which do not in anyway uphold stability of a deterrent relationship. Additionally they do not conform to any strategic or doctrinal underpinnings (whose goal is nuclear war avoidance). Far more disturbing is Pakistan’s declared policy to employ non-state actors[iii] as an essential part of their military strategy. Given the fact that both control and custody of the nuclear arsenal is resident with the military and complicity with terrorist organizations such as the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba is an indispensable part of their gambit, the probability of a failure of orthodox command and control (as conventional wisdom understands it) is cataclysmically high. Such a state of affairs hardly engenders confidence in a deterrent relationship remaining stable. Add to this cauldron the impending operationalising of tactical nuclear weapons and you have the nightmare morph into reality.

“How Much is Enough?” and the Philosophy of Avoidance

Security anxieties that plague the region are fed on a staple of historical suspicions, absence of trust and a stultifying and obsessive paranoia. It places before the planner a lopsided and unbalanced ‘failure conundrum,’ having the potential to spur ‘speculative bulges’ in stockpile of fissile material and in the arsenal all in search of an answer to that open ended inscrutable question of ‘how much is enough?’ Logic for numbers may be found provided the strategic underpinnings that govern the development of the arsenal are kept verifiably transparent. One such logic to cap arsenals is graphically illustrated below:

[…]

Conclusion: Out Staring an Abyss

The challenge before us is clear. To put the genie back into the bottle is neither realistic nor a proposition that merits serious consideration. Areas that could be addressed begin with dispelling the veil of opacity that surrounds the nuclear deterrent. Technology intrusions that have put the arsenal on a hair trigger must be subjected to a safety catch through the instruments of transparency and the removal of ambiguities in strategic underpinnings. NCA to NCA communications must be conditioned by institutional verification measures that evaluate and exchange risks and alert status. It is only such devices that will enable strategic restraint to be realized in the region. While these remain the broad objectives, the first series of steps on the road to stability maybe specifically identified as follows:

  • Transparency in strategic underpinnings (including collusion) through the declaration of doctrinal canons must be made unambiguously clear.
  • Command and Control of the deterrent must differentiate between the custodian and the controller as also between the conventional and the nuclear without entertaining the possibility of non-state actors being a part of the overall strategy.
  • Technological intrusions must be made transparent both with a rationale and the impact on arsenals particularly so when the dangers of conventionalizing of the nuclear weapon becomes manifest.
  • Alert status of the deterrent at all times must be communicated. Logic for stockpile or fissile material and numbers and nature of arsenal will serve to eliminate the dangers of speculative bulges.

Thus far nuclear relations in the region have been bedeviled by a persistent effort to combat the monsters that the shroud of covertness has cast; it has left us the unenviable task of out staring an abyss. Nietzche in the circumstance would have advised an assault  on the first causes – dispel opacity.

Download full article here: Shankar, Staring Down an Abyss

_____________

[*] Nietzche F. Beyond good and evil, Chapter IV: Apophthegms and Interludes. He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

[i] Dr Strangelove was a Hollywood satire directed by Stanley Kubrick set in the nineteen sixties. The insanity of the tripwire readiness of the American nuclear establishment to initiate a process that sets of a chain reaction which culminates in a nuclear holocaust. The real tragedy in this spoof was the dangers of decentralization and pre delegation, so to the inabilities to control escalation. The irony was that there was no real provocation.

[ii] US Secretary of State cable-30 Nov. BBC.co.uk/news. Wikileaks key issues

[iii]    General Kayani’s statements with respect to Pakistan’s army’s support to militants as quoted in The Hindu 02 Dec., 2010

 

Syria: “loosening the blood-dimmed tide”*

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Arundhati Ghose

This article was first published in the August 2012 issue of Defence and Security Alert. 

An anniversary issue gives one an opportunity to step back from viewing the ebb and flow of the current and to take a wider view from a not-too-distant shore, and to try and read the portents of the welling of the sea, the threatening of a tidal wave. A ‘tide’, for some accuracy, has been variously described primarily as ‘the alternate rising and falling of the sea due to the attraction of the moon and sun’ and ‘a powerful surge of feeling or trend of events.’ Today, events in the Middle East in general, and in Syria in particular, is viewed  by most commentators mainly through immediate and bloody events, with different interpretations of these events by countries with differing goals. India’s votes in the UN, with the Arab League and the West in the Security Council and abstaining in the vote in the General Assembly, have been judged from this perspective, reflective of a short or medium term judgement of India’s interests. But what if the tide swells and spreads, what if it becomes a global tsunami and the “Syrian moment’, as it were, becomes as portentous as the assassination, almost a hundred years ago, in Sarajevo? The likelihood is no longer only a probability; there are currents that would seem to make this a near and ‘blood-dimmed’ certainty.

Without going into pre-history, which one would have to if the issues were related purely to religious sectarian rivalries, or indeed only political and ideological ones, (after all, it has long been conventional wisdom that the next world wide war would start in the Middle East)-it would have to be admitted that the faultlines becoming apparent today might be traced to  years more recent, when ambitions for power and control began to be stoked by the sudden and almost unexpected wealth created by the first oil shock in the 1970s and the interventions by outside powers upset delicate balances in complex regional rivalries. What started as diplomatic jostling for leadership  within the Ummah between Saudi Arabia, made newly powerful not merely by immense oil wealth but  by its courting as a power in global affairs by the established old powers of the West, and the Iran of the Shah who saw a revival of dreams of the Persian Empire of old, injected the concept of ‘political Islam’ into international discourse. The use of ‘political Islam’ to oust the failing Soviet rule over Afghanistan, encouraged in part by the Iranian revolution that saw the establishment of a purely theocratic State, engendered the arming and funding of disparate groups, which were led to believe they were in the vanguard of defending Islam against the atheist. As the Soviet Union withdrew, these groups were lauded as ‘mujahideen’ victors of the war for Islam.

Into this fragile situation, the second Gulf  War and the invasion of Iraq led to consequences which are today determining the outlines of the current crises- in the Arab world in general and in Syria in particular. Whether the US could have, should have or whether it ignored the possibility of these consequences is not the issue here: there is no doubt the there were at least three major consequences which unsettled such stability as had existed in the region before the invasion. These were , at a level, the  so-called Arab Spring, the hardening of the Shia-Sunni divide within the Ummah and the  emergence of Iran as a regional power.

According to some  influential Arab commentators, the ease with which Saddam Hussein’s regime was dismantled-with foreign intervention, to be sure, was an important factor in the impulses which resulted in the revolt of the peoples of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya-three neighbouring but very different countries – against the dictatorial though secular regimes in these countries. Iraq had also been a ‘secular’ country, though a Sunni minority formed the elite in power and the majority Shia were ruthlessly suppressed.  The equally ruthless dismantling of the structures of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq by the American occupation forces, turned Iraq into a Shia majority country closely allied to Iran. The introduction of religion, specifically the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood into the governing structures of these countries was also presaged by the changes in Iraq. The new element making the mixture more complex has been the use of the social media when mainstream media faced controls; this has caused concerns in other States, and not only those of centralized States such as China.

All these trends have coalesced in Syria, where the Shia-Sunni divide has divided the Arab world and threatens to spill over world-wide. Turkey, which had envisaged a leadership role for itself following the early days after the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, presenting itself as a ‘model’ of a democratic, modern Islamic State, has found its support for the Sunni rebels in Syria being challenged not only among its Alevi (Alawite-Shia) minority- 15% of its population, but threats from Syrian Kurds who have been trying to make common cause with the Turkish Kurds (20% of its population). Syria is reported to have ceded control over several areas in its north to its Kurds, with the latter raising the Kurdish flag over governmental buildings. Turkey has reportedly joined Arab Sunni States like Saudi Arabia and Qatar in funding and arming and providing ‘safe havens’ for the opposition ‘rebels.’ There are credible reports that many of these ‘rebels’ are not Syrian, but an unholy mix of  Sunni  Chechens. Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Yemenis, with groups of al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood among the more organized elements in the otherwise  disorganized Free Syrian Army. It cannot be discounted that the Kurds are similarly supported by Syria and Iran. Shia Iraq has its own problems with its Kurds, but the country has been more supportive of Arab Shia Syria than other Sunni members of the Arab League. Sunnis and Alawites are already fighting in Lebanon with Hezbollah threatening armed retaliation if Syria were to be attacked and Jordan is on the edge.

Syria’s strongest regional supporter is, of course, Iran. The strengthening of Iran is also a direct consequence of the collapse of the Sunni led regime of Saddam Hussein. That the current hostilities between both major sects poses a threat to Islamic unity, vis-à-vis the US and the West for Iran, and from movements to topple established regimes from Saudi Arabia, seems to have been recognized by both countries; the recent personal invitation to the Iranian President from the Saudi King to the emergency session of the OIC, the high level composition of the Iranian delegation, the seating of Ahmedinejad on the right of King Abdullah might indicate some back-room efforts to stabilize the situation. Iran is also reported to have announced that it had a proposal to sort out the situation in Syria at (at the time of writing) the forthcoming NAM Summit to be held in Iran would seem to be a pointer in this direction. However, given that the situation has now several non-regional countries and non-state actors involved, any such attempt might be difficult to implement.

Iran of course faces challenges on two fronts- in the Syrian situation and, long predating even the invasion of Iraq, with Israel, the US and the West over  Iran’s alleged determination to develop nuclear weapons. Today, whether for domestic political reasons or not, Israel appears to be straining at the leash to mount an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities; faced with an impending election, the US, in an effort to restrain such a disastrous step, has tightened sanctions on Iran almost effectively isolating Iran economically. In Syria, the US sees an opportunity to weaken Iran further and has supported the Sunni Arabs and Turkey, even threatening military action in the event Syria uses or even moves its chemical weapons, in addition to other support already being extended to the so-called ‘rebels’. Action against Syria under the aegis of the UN has been effectively stalled by vetoes by both Russia and China. Apart from Russia’s close friendship with Syria, the experience of NATO action in Libya and its fear of Chechen militants becoming empowered to act in Central Asia, the many initiatives taken by Russia would seem to signal a more assertive global role by Putin’s Russia. China has been less active, but has consistently opposed the involvement of outside powers to effect regime change using the UN for military action. Some China watchers feel that China is being cautious , as officially, at least, it has cited the Libyan case; it is possible that it would change its stance once its change of guard is smoothly accomplished in October. Others feel that not withstanding its global stature, there is a degree of nervousness about possible external incitement in its restive provinces of Tibet and Xinjiang. Whatever the reasons, the world is gradually becoming divided as the impact of the trends in the Middle East as a whole but in Syria in particular, starts spilling over outside the region, even into Africa.

The tide has started lapping at our shores; Malaysia has suspended its diplomatic relations with Syria after the OIC suspended Syria’s membership and Pakistan, where sectarian violence is endemic, and which has been seen by many commentators as the epicentre for the export of terrorists, has seen a rise in the hunting down of minorities especially Shias. Indeed, India’s stake in stability in the region has increased manifold.

The Syrian crisis cannot be easily disentangled from the ones facing Iran; if one looks at some of the albeit worst case scenarios, any military action against Iran or against Syria even be declaring ‘no-fly zones as proposed by France, would have major global spill-over effects. The forces that have been loosed would almost certainly spread to territories outside the Middle East. This would also be the case if the perilous geopolitical situation described earlier, continues at the current bloody levels. Taking an overview of the situation, it appears that, unlike other recent crises-Iraq and Afghanistan, the major powers are no longer the major determinant of a possible solution: today, most US positions seem to be taken in the throes of Presidential election fever, tempered into trying to ensure that while Iran can be weakened by a Syrian implosion with the provision of a limited number of arms to the ‘rebels’, Israeli hawks need to be restrained from actually attacking Iran. The UK and France are merely mischief-makers, with little power to act on their own; given the stalemate in the Security Council, they (and Turkey) may try to energise NATO, as in the case with Libya. In the Lybian case, however, the centrality of the West in settling disputes in the Middle East had already started to erode, presaged by the split within NATO on the issue of Iraq. Russia and China may have the veto, but China is unlikely to get directly involved, given its clashing ideological and economic interests in the region and Russia is hardly likely to have the stamina of facing down the West and the Sunni world alone. The crucial countries in a possible solution are Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The forces of extremist groups which were let loose in Afghanistan, have gained in power and ambition. India has been subject to their vicious depredation for decades. There is no doubt that in addition to India’s own economic interests and its expatriate population in the Gulf, the dangers of a Global War of Terror would pose extreme challenges to India’s security, should it, as it is bound to, if the worst case scenarios happen- unless India, having first-hand experience of dealing with these forces, at least tries to do more that merely ride out the storm. One possible direction could be for India to mediate between Iran and Saudi Arabia- the countries that have the power to limit the stalemate or escalation.  It is just possible that, notwithstanding the public action of the OIC, given the unusual cordiality of the interaction between the King of Saudi Arabia and the Iranian President at the OIC meeting in Riyadh, some deal was negotiated; at the very least, it is clear that both countries would see a continuation of the Syrian crisis as being harmful to themselves and to the Ummah. All India would need to do would be to support the initiative and press for its implementation-on whatever lines agreed to – by both countries. If there is any give on the part of both, and, India could use the challenges she faces at the moment in the current situation, as bilateral leverages for encouragement, other countries, the US and Russia, for example ,could also be asked to support an Iranian-Saudi led solution.

If we fail, there is near certainty that the war will go global- and unlike any of the earlier World Wars, it will be a war without clearly defined armies, State against State, State against non-State actors and non-state actors against other similar groups with no loyalties except to their own ambitions. It will be a war without end.

[*] W.B.Yeats: The Second Coming

“Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.”

About the Author:

Ambassador Arundhati Ghose joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1963. She worked in various capacities in the Embassies of India in Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium and The Netherlands; and as Ambassador of India to the Republic of Korea, Ambassador and Permanent Representative to UNESCO; Ambassador of India to Egypt; Ambassador and Permanent Representative of India to UN Offices in Geneva, and the Conference on Disarmament. After retiring from the foreign service in November 1997, Ambassador Ghose served as Member, UPSC (1998-2004); Member and Chairman of UN Secretary General’s Disarmament Advisory Board (1998-2001); Member from India on Committee for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2004-2005); Member of Executive Council, IDSA (2004-2007) and functioned for two years as Chairman of its Programme Committee and as member of the task force on non-proliferation and disarmament set up by the MEA in 2007. She is currently Adjunct Fellow at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore and on the editorial Board of the journal Faultlines, New Delhi. The Ambassador has contributed chapters to books and articles in journals and newspapers on nuclear issues, disarmament and has been invited to speak at various fora on these and related topics. 

The Soldier and the Mantri (*): Civil-Military Relations in India

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Vice Admiral (Retd.) Vijay Shankar

Keywords: Civil-Military Relations in India, Henderson-Brooks and Bhagat Report, “The Soldier and the State,” Societal Values and Military Imperatives

Download full article here: Shankar, Civil Military Relations

Excerpts:

The Curzon-Kitchener Imbroglio

Between April 1904 and August 1905, an intriguing incident occurred in the governance of the Raj, the tremors of which are felt to this day. The then Viceroy Lord Curzon, emphasizing the need for dual control of the Army of India, deposed before the Secretary of State, at Whitehall, imputing that the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Kitchener was “subverting the military authority of the Government of India” (almost as if) “to substitute it with a military autocracy in the person of the Commander-in-Chief.” This was in response to Kitchener having bypassed the Viceroy and placing a minute before the home Government where he described the Army system in India, as being productive of “enormous delay and endless discussion, while the military member of the (Viceroy’s Executive) Council rather than the Commander-in-Chief, was really omnipotent in military matters.” He further remarked that “no needed reform can be initiated and no useful measure be adopted without being subjected to vexatious and, for the most part, unnecessary criticism, not merely as regards the financial effect of the proposal but as to its desirability or necessity from a purely military point of view.” [i] In the event, both Viceroy Curzon and the Military Member of his Council, Sir Elles, on receipt of the Imperial Government’s direction subordinating the Military Member to the Commander-in-Chief, resigned.

Indeed times are different, the Government then was an imperial one, India was a colony to be exploited, its material capital defended and the monarchy was at its zenith. Yet, the Viceroy’s largely unencumbered authority was challenged successfully, to all intent and purpose, by the military face of British India. Curzon had shot his bolt when he emphasised superior dual control of the army which in effect asserted operational control bereft of accountability; while Kitchener of Sudan brought to the debate indisputable military experience and underscored the criticality of unity of command without which the army would be condemned to bureaucratic meddling and operational impotence (the ultimate check and strategic orientation, at any rate, would remain with the Secretary of State and the India Council at Whitehall).

Delving into the Commander-in-Chief’s mind, it was clearly the closed loop of the ‘responsibility-accountability and therefore authority’ chain that was in danger of being subverted and replaced by a skewed system that neither had the competence to fully understand the utilisation of the military and yet exercised operational control over it, nor the tradition to stand accountable for its actions. It is this hapless legacy that periodically surfaces whenever independent India has been faced with a situation when the application or even the preparedness and posture of military power could perhaps have provided resolution or, indeed, deterred an armed conflagration.

The Nature of the Indian Military: The Sum of Misplaced Fears 

Independent India was founded on the belief that the Anglo Indian services (which included the Military and the Indian Civil Service that conventional wisdom suggested was the steel frame of empire) was neither Indian, nor civil, nor provided service of any import to India.[ii] The civil services in this setting was nimble enough to morph into the Indian Administrative Service and in time to politicize and adapt to a context that nurtured sycophancy, redefined the idea of authority sans accountability and found virtue in the ills of a fragmented society.[iii] In all this forgetting the words of Lord Wavell when he declared “The English would be remembered, he believed, not by this institution or that, but by the ideal they left behind of what a district officer should be (of providing justice and sympathy to the Indian peasant).”[iv]

The military on the other hand, noting that its strength lay in its apolitical tradition, professionalism and of loyalty to colours and constitution did not make any attempt to either deconstruct its ethical foundation (to India’s benefit) or seek to play a more enduring role in  nation building and in national security decision making (to its abiding distress). In the causation of a newly independent nation confronted by a variety of mortal security challenges the latter lack of impulse posed an awkward dilemma which as events unfolded, only served to elbow the military establishment to the status of an a ‘attached’ office, to be heard only when consulted shorn of any part in strategic decision making. Why this came to pass is a question that is not easily answered, but clearly two dynamics were at play, the first was the misguided fear of a ‘Kitchener redux’ and therefore the misplaced trepidation of military control of the state and the second was a flawed belief that civilian control of the military not only implied superior dual control by the politico-bureaucratic alliance but also a self fashioned conviction that military matters were essentially of execution and had little to do with policy making or strategic planning.

A General Theory – Societal Values and Military Imperatives

Civil-military relations describe the correlation between society and the military institutions founded to safeguard it from threats both external and internal. Clausewitz, very insightfully, saw in military activity an orientation that was not only directed at “material force” alone; but also saw an impetus towards “moral forces which give it life” by which is meant all the psychological factors which include civil-military relations that in fact emphasise that military activity is a continuation of policy by other means.[v]  In a more comprehensible and narrow sense civil-military relations portrays the association between the political dispensation of a society and its military establishment.

Even in theory, this correlation generates two dynamics that shape military institutions. The first of these is  characterized by societal values that tend to make military action increasingly ineffective as that social order becomes ever more liberal;  while the second dynamic is one that shape military institutions purely by violent functional imperatives that provide the logic for arming forces and using it either to coerce or in hostile action. The intensity with which these two forces collide is determined largely by the extent to which security needs bear on societal values. Balance is not an inevitability in this conflict.[vi] The dilemma of civil-military relations is to seek stability within this framework.

To illustrate, if we were to analyse the civil-military correlation in India and in China against two attributes of efficiency and coherence of response we would find that in India’s case, where societal values overshadow all else, the nation is often swayed by its democratic mores, cultural traditions, historical and pluralistic ideals to fully realise the significance of its military as a direct consequence of which there is a persistent undertone of friction and unease in the relationship which fails to recognise that the professional soldier is in fact a subordinate and supporting partner of the statesman. In turn, this manifests as a lack of cohesion, tardiness in response and a general inefficiency in attaining a decisive strategic posture, the aftermath of the terror attack on parliament and 26/11 are symptomatic; while in China it is the intensity of security concerns that prevail, as a result of which central authority in the civil-military connect is far less polarised and enjoys heightened focus, the rapid adoption of strategies such as ‘Access Denial’, ‘The Assassin’s Mace’ and an anti satellite programme are indicative.

The Indian Context an Atypical Paradigm

The military in the Indian context is uncharacteristic for a variety of reasons. If two were to be singled out these would be; firstly, its apolitical training and tradition of allegiance to flag and constitution and secondly, its lack of vigorous involvement in the independence struggle which in the main was driven by a political movement motivated by rules made by the colonists and holding non-violent beliefs . Yet in Clement Atlee’s words lie an awkward irony; he reportedly stated that the two most important reasons for the haste with which the British left India were “the Indian National armies activities of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, which weakened the very foundation of the British Empire in India, and the Royal Indian Navy mutiny which made the British realise that the Indian armed forces could no longer be trusted to prop up the British.” [vii] The disproportionate impact of such an underplayed role ought to have suggested to our founding fathers the enormous power potential that a well harnessed military represented rather than rekindling anxieties of a Kitchener encore. A direct consequence of the latter disquiet was the deliberate putting in place structures that that kept the military far removed from strategic security decision making.

[…]

The Quest for Definition

The essence of civil-military relations is the energy that it potentially gives to policy. Recognising this Sun Tzu (544-496 BC) the Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher declared that “order or synergy within a State’s (security) organisation provides it with “Shih” translated to mean ‘force’, ‘authority’, influence or ‘energy’; an essential ingredient for success while disorder spells failure.”[ix] The arena for civil-military relations is strategic and its burden is the potential or, indeed, the actual application of force with violence that it may entail in order to achieve political ends. For the establishment to be in denial of both domain and purpose of the correlation is to effectively stunt the drive and advancement of the State to its rightful place amongst nations.

The narrative, of this much misread dimension, of nation building in India begins with the circumstances of independence. Bellicose imperial legacy of the previous two centuries and the calamitous effects of military adventurism in Europe and East Asia in the first half of the twentieth century had left in Prime Minister Nehru an abiding undertone of aversion to matters military. This despite the fact that within the first year of nationhood the Indian army had in Jammu and Kashmir assured that the instrument of accession was championed, the Pakistan army and tribal militias vacated in a bitterly fought campaign and a Line of Control established; while in September 1948 Operation ‘Polo’ was launched to integrate the princely State of Hyderabad into the Indian Union. But it must be said that to a very large extent resolute action and control of the military (with discerning understanding of the correlation between the civil and military) was exercised in both instances by the exertions of Vallabhai Patel, the then Home and Deputy Prime Minister.[x]

At independence, Mountbatten’s legacy was a three tiered control edifice for civil-military correlation with the Prime Minister and his cabinet at the apex and the Defence Ministers Committee along with the Chiefs of Staff Committee forming the other two tiers. This structure, unsurprisingly, took inspiration from the then defunct ‘Committee of Imperial Defence’ to form the Defence Committee of the Cabinet (chaired by the PM with the Chiefs of Staff as members along with key ministers and secretaries) with the declared purpose of creating a structure that could not only provide civil-military correlation and cater for the needs of higher defence management but also to develop a strategic vision, formulate military strategy, and provide planning support to implement strategy and realise vision.[xi] Theoretically it was to be supported by the Defence Minister’s Committee, the Chiefs of Staff Committee, the Joint Planning Committee and the Joint Intelligence Committee. In concept this presented a very robust civil-military framework. However, by 1949 the controlling element of the structure, the Defence Committee of the cabinet became defunct leaving the supporting elements headless and, perhaps more critically, putting a ceiling on their ambit as defined by the operational level.

[…]

As India trundled into the 1950s to find itself on a canvas that was dominated by the two ‘Cold Warriors’ it was armed with little else than the towering character of Nehru, his romanticism over the virtues of non-alignment and its teeming millions. Despite the gloom of failing economic policies (growth during the decade averaged a dismal 3%), the depressing prognosis of a nuclear holocaust and disturbing militaristic concerns in the region; it was critical to come to grips with two distinct problems both of which had significant bearing on security policies. First, the existing world order was unwilling to stomach a hypocritical approach to taking sides in the cold war between the power blocs and the many proxy wars that it had fired up.  Second, the simmering unresolved border question with both China and Pakistan on account of historical aberrations that formed a part of baggage of the partition award. Though the predicaments appeared separate they were in fact linked by the precedence India conferred on her own statehood, sovereignty and national interests. Flawed civil-military relations saw to it that neither was reverential adherence to the forlorn non-aligned policy corrected nor was there a serious attempt at exploiting early opportunities to resolving the border question.[xii]  In addition, given that there was far less tolerance amongst states to the asymmetries of power, there were no long or even short term strategic military options placed before civilian authority.

Against this backdrop a controversial episode that underscored the state of civil-military relations comes centre stage when the army Chief General K.S. Thimayya offered to resign in September 1959. Thimayya’s resignation was sparked off by a disagreement with Defence Minister V.K. Krishna Menon over the promotion of senior army officers. However, the archival evidence now available shows that the reasons for the resignation ran deeper. Just a few weeks before the affair, Indian and Chinese forces had clashed along the eastern frontiers. To counter the growing threat from China, Thimayya wanted the political leadership to consider seriously the proposal mooted by President Ayub Khan for joint defence arrangements between India and Pakistan. Nehru had previously turned this down, as it would imply forsaking non-alignment. Menon, too, was opposed to this course. Thimayya broached this matter and others directly with the prime minister and was assured that he would discuss the issues with Menon. When things did not progress, Thimayya sent his resignation. The prime minister naturally saw this as a step to force his hand on policy issues. Nehru managed to persuade Thimayya to withdraw his resignation without giving him any assurances. But by this time the issue had been leaked to the press. When questioned in Parliament, Nehru played it down as arising out of temperamental differences. Nonetheless, Nehru’s concerns were obvious when he stressed that ‘civil authority is and must remain supreme.’ [xiii] Palpably in this setting, that ‘civil authority’ meant unilateralism, was implicit.

Unilateralism in the formulation of military strategy botched calamitously in the 1962 war against China. It brought into stark contrast the relative efficiency with which the First Kashmir War was planned, coordinated and waged and so too the competence with which civil-military planning and action brought about the integration of Hyderabad into the Union. The Government of the day faced harsh criticism despite enjoying an overwhelming majority. The primary condemnation was the woeful neglect of defence preparedness, an unreal approach to international relations, particularly with China, and the dangerous inadequacies of higher defence management significantly the intrusive, extemporized and incompetent manner in which civil-military relations had evolved. President Radhakrishnan went on to censure the Nehru government declaring that they had been “crude and negligent about preparations.” Lack of preparedness of the military was blamed on the Defence Minister who had to demit office. Nehru assured the Rajya Sabha on 09 November 1962 (during the three week lull in fighting) “People have been shocked, all of us have been shocked, by the events that occurred from 20 October onwards, especially of the first few days, and the reverses we suffered. So I hope there will be an inquiry so as to find out what mistakes or errors were committed and who were responsible for them.”[xiv]

The Chief of Army Staff, who was designated to conduct the inquiry, labelled it as an ‘Operational Review’ and set five terms of reference. First, adequacy and potential of training for high altitude warfare; second, material and equipment appropriateness; third, system of command; fourth, physical fitness of troops and lastly, capacity of Commanders to influence the men under their Command.

Going by the scope of an ‘Operations Review’ and the terms of reference handed down, these would suggest that the aim of the convening authority was to deliberately limit and strait-jacket the investigators to the operational level of the conflict. This may even have been understandable, given that the Army Chief had been deliberately relegated to that level. However, conventional wisdom and military analytical tradition will advocate the need to start a scrutiny of this nature with an understanding of the political direction, strategic posture, preparation and higher military decision making in the run-up to war and its prosecution.  Leaving the Inquiry divorced from the functioning and decision making at service headquarters, ministry of defence and indeed by the cabinet of ministers headed by the Prime Minister (where decisions on strategic orientation and the political direction of the war were made), was not only to castrate the Inquiry, but was also to insinuate that all was well in the realm of higher defence management and civil-military relations. Facts had made it pretty apparent that it was here that an inquiry was most needed. The Supreme Commander’s terse censure of the Prime Minister and his Government had underscored where the fault lines ran.

The inquiry took the form of the Henderson Brooks and Bhagat Report which was presented to the new Defence Minister Mr Y.B. Chavan on 02 July 1963. Earlier in April, in reply to a question in Parliament, he affirmed that Army Headquarters had already instituted measures to implement the lessons to be learned based on the terms of reference of the report. These included quality of planning, air-land cooperation, training for high altitude warfare, depth of officer man relationship, focused intelligence service and the creation of a chain of strategic airfields.[xv] What was conspicuous in its omission was a statement on the blemishes in higher defence management, the failings in the political direction of the war and ‘courtiership’ being promoted in the military. He also mentioned that the contents of the report in its entirety were not being disclosed for considerations of security.

On 02 September 1963, an intriguing statement was made by the Defence Minister in Parliament, he disclosed that the Inquiry Committee had not confined its investigations to operations alone but had also examined the “developments and events prior to hostilities as also the plans, posture and the strength of the Army at the outbreak of hostility.” Further, that a detailed review of the actual operations had been carried out “with reference to terrain, strategy, tactics and deployment of troops.” He also summarised the main recommendations of the report sticking to the terms of reference (which by now was well known) and later (on 09 September) in a statement on defence preparedness, he confirmed that changes were underway which encompassed expansion, reorganisation, modernisation, development of comprehensive infrastructure and enhancing operational efficiency. The value and effectiveness of these sweeping changes were soon to be confirmed during the wars of 1965 and 1971 against Pakistan.[xvi]

What remained disturbingly unanswered was the out-of-mandate areas that the report addressed with regard to “developments and events prior to hostilities, strategic posture and plans, which must be taken to have included civil-military relations, higher defence management, decision making and the political direction of war.” In 1963 to divulge these may well have compromised national security, but to persist through time is to invite long shadows to loom over the military establishment.[xvii]

[…]

Download full article here:  Shankar, Civil Military Relations

[*] Mantri is a word of Sanskrit origin meaning sage, it is used for a variety of public offices. It is also the root of the English word mandarin for an official of the Chinese empire.

[i] “The Curzon-Kitchener Controversy,” Outlook, 19 August, 1905, pp. 941-2. Free access online via www.unz.org and The Gazette of India Extraordinary, 23 June 1905, available online.

[ii] Nehru, Jawaharlal. “Glimpses of World History” Lindsay and Drummond Ltd. 1949, pg 94.

[iii] The late PN Haksar, doyen of the IAS and a close confidant of the Nehru family in the keynote address to the Naval Higher Command College in 1988, speaking on civil military relations suggested that the “only progression for a bureaucrat was if he hitched his wagon to a politician” whether this was said in resignation, matter of factly or as an objective reality was never entirely clear, yet what was, was that the apolitical nature of the Administrative Services as a governing principle had suffered a premature cardiac arrest.

[iv] Mason,Phillip. “The Men Who Ruled India”, Pan Books 1985, pg 399.

[v] Clausewitz, Carl Von. “On War” Edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret. Princeton University Press 1976, pgs 86, 87 and 137.

[vi] Huntington, Samuel P. “The Soldier and the State”. Harvard University Press 1957, the interplay between societal values and the functional imperatives of the military is a recurrent theme in Part 1 between pgs. 2 and 102.

[vii]The Tribune on line edition, February 12 2006. Clement Atlee the British Prime Minister who presided over India’s Independence in conversation with PV Chuckraborty, Governor of West Bengal in 1956 as extracted from a letter written by the latter on 30 March 1976.

[viii] Corbett Julian S. “Some Principles of Maritime Strategy”, Longmans Green and Co. New York, Bombay and Calcutta 1911, pg 8.

[ix] Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”. Translated by Samuel B. Griffith, Oxford University Press, New York 1963, pg 92-93.

[x] Gandhi, Rajmohan, “Patel: A Life,” Navjivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad 1990, pgs. 455 and 480.

[xi] Integrated Defence Staff website, www.ids.nic.in/history.htm, Accessed in October 2012.

[xii] Offer made by Premier Zhao en Lai in a letter to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1959, “The Sino-Indian Boundary Question (enlarged edition)”, Foreign Language Press, Peking, 1962, pgs 47-50.

[xiii] Srinath Raghavan, “War and Peace in Modern India: A Strategic History of the Nehru Years”. Permanent Black, Ranikhet, 2010, pg 267-269.

[xiv] Noorani, AG, “Publish the 1962 War Report Now”, The Hindu, e-paper, 12 July 2012, Opinion.

[xv] Arpi,Claude, The War of 1962: Henderson Brooks-Bhagat Report, Indian Defence Review Vol 26.1 Jan-Mar 2011.

[xvi] Ibid

[xvii] Extracted from author’s own article titled “The Ghosts of Henderson Brooks and Bhagat” first published in the September 2012 issue of Defence and Security Alerts.