Subject: Internal Security

Context

In an innovative departure from normal practice, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will preside (in virtual mode) over the UN Security Council, on Monday (August 9) when India holds the President’s chair for one month. The subject of debate is maritime security.

Issues with global maritime security

• FON issue: There is  tension in the South China Sea over freedom of navigation (FON) rights in international waters and how China has laid claim to “territoriality” based on artificial structures (not natural islands).
• This formulation has not been accepted by the US that has exercised transit rights in these waters.
• Many ASEAN nations and Quad members such as Japan, Australia and India subscribe to the principle of FON and do not accept the Chinese interpretation of the “nine-dash-line”.
• Traditional challenges: Piracy and non-traditional challenges at sea such as gun-running and smuggling are old chestnuts.
• Maritime pollution: Accidents in the oceans have added to the anxiety about marine pollution and its downstream consequences for the health of the oceans.
• Global warming: A UN report has come up with grim statistics about the impact of global warming on the chemistry of oceans.
• This study notes that oceans have become more acidic as sea water absorbs more carbon dioxide.
• Furthermore, the upper layers of the open ocean have lost between 0.5 per cent and 3.3 per cent of their oxygen since 1970 as temperatures have risen.

Way forward for India at UNCS: Security and equitable growth

• The subject to be deliberated upon by the UNSC members is “Enhancing maritime security: A case for international cooperation”.
• This would be an extension of India’s advocacy of SAGAR (security and growth for all in the region) in relation to the Indian Ocean region (IOR).
•  At the UNSC strategic and security issues such as the South China Sea and FON would find little consensus as China is a permanent member and would stall any meaningful debate.
• Focus on global goods: What may find support for a useful debate at the UNSC would be those areas that could be brought under the rubric of the “global good”.
• For instance, the welfare of seafarers who are the sinews of the global merchant marine, has received scant attention in this Covid-scarred period and the IMO (International Maritime Organisation) has been unable to effectively address such issues.
• Correlation with globalisation: India can also advocate for sustained focus on the maritime domain and the correlation with globalisation, the blue economy, the health of the ocean and the overall impact on human security.

Conclusion

Security and equitable growth for all by husbanding the global ocean for future generations is a laudable goal and encouraging the UNSC to prioritise this issue is a worthy cause.

Context

The Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat’s recent description of the Indian Air Force (IAF) as a supporting arm and the IAF chief Air Chief Marshal R.K.S. Bhadauria’s rebuttal highlights turbulent journey marking the reorganisation process of the armed forces.

Issues before IAF

• The IAF is warning against splitting it into packets.
• Reports suggest that counting even ageing aircraft, the IAF is 25% short on fighter squadrons.
• A pan service shortage of about 400 pilots, almost 10% of their authorised strength, further aggravates this.
• Therefore, the IAF has a point when it warns against splitting assets, for, there may be nothing much to split.

Way forward

• Confidence building: A common understanding of the nuances of military airpower is the key.
• With the experience of operating almost every kind of aircraft the IAF operates, the naval leadership understands air power.
• This applies to the Indian Army too, in its own way.
• Confidence needs to be developed that rightly staffed apex joint organisations can draw up professional operational plans for air power.
• Enhancing military education: Confidence building will need some effort in the short term towards enhancing professional military education though, at the staff level.
• Analysis before implementation: Major reorganisations must strictly follow the sequence of written concepts, their refinement through consultation, simulation or table top war gaming, field evaluation and final analysis before implementation.
• This would help address command and control, asset adequacy, individual service roles, operational planning under new circumstances and the adequacy of joint structures.
• Who gets to lead what also matters.
• The Western Command between the Indian Army and the IAF, the Northern Command with the Indian Army, Maritime Command with the Indian Navy and the Air Defence Command with the IAF may be an acceptable formula.

Why jointness?

• With dwindling budgets, a steadily deteriorating security situation and the march of technology, the armed forces understand the need to synergise.

Challenges

• Challenges in co-existence: Different services do not co-exist well where they are colocated.
• Bitter fights over land, buildings, facilities, etc. harms optimal operational synergising.
• Allocation challenge: Then there is the issue of giving each other the best, or of wanting to be with each other.
• Lack of operational charter: The Andaman and Nicobar Command suffered from the lack of a substantial operational charter, and the services not positioning appropriate personnel or resources there.
• Lack of interest in joint tenure: As a joint tenure did not benefit career, no one strove for it.
• The U.S., when faced with the same problem, made joint tenures mandatory for promotions.

Steps to be taken

• Security strategy: We need a comprehensive National Security Strategy to guide the services develop capacities required in their respective domains.
• Professional education: We need to transform professional education and inter-service employment to nurture genuine respect for others.
• Mutual resolution of difference: The armed forces must resolve their differences among themselves, as the politicians or bureaucrats cannot do it.
• Quality staff: Good quality staff, in adequate numbers, at apex joint organisations, will help to reassure individual services and those in the field that they are in safe hands.
• Tailored approach: There is need for the acceptance of the fact that what works for other countries need not work for us.

Conclusion

We may need tailor-made solutions which may need more genuine thinking. For genuine military jointness, a genuine convergence of minds is critical.

Context

The Chinese are about to extend their geographical advantage by building a new high-speed rail from Chengdu, running close by and parallel to the Arunachal border, up to Lhasa.

Manpower and Defence Budget: Comparison with China

• The Indian army, according to diverse sources, numbers between 12,50,000 and 14,00,000 officers and men.
• Chinese PLA actually has only 9,75,000 officers and men.
•  They have downsized their army.
• China is an aspiring world power that spends $252 billion on its defence budget, as compared to $72.9 billion that India spends.
• Both countries limit their budget to around 2 per cent of their GDP, which in China’s case is five times our size.

Why does India need to reduce manpower in defense?

• Expensive:  A major portion of the budget is spent on manpower, 81 percent of the army budget goes into manpower and maintenance. Gradually, manpower is going to get increasingly expensive.
• Also, our strategic options get constrained because the army gets 61 percent of the defense budget.
• We need to downsize the army by 2,00,000 men over five years through retirement and reduced recruitment.
• The reduction in manpower will save approximately Rs 30,000 crore, which can be equally divided between the three services.

Way forward: Bigger role to navy and air force

• We can achieve better conventional deterrence against China by giving bigger roles to the navy and air force.
• The first step is to accept that we are an asymmetric power and leverage the RMA (Revolution in Military Affairs) so that numerical inferiority is of no consequence.
• They are invulnerable on land, and their only strategic weakness is their reliance on the Indian Ocean SLOCs (sea lines of communications) for 70 percent of their imported oil.
• The only guarantee of Chinese non-aggression and good behavior is a well-crafted threat to their oil tankers and a complete naval mastery of the escalation that is bound to follow.
• India can also leverage the QUAD resources in various ways such as information.
• Build up the Car Nicobar airfield into a full-fledged airbase.
• We could negotiate with Oman for the use of the old RAF airbase at Masirah to dominate the Gulf of Hormuz and threaten the Chinese base at Djibouti.

Conclusion

China cannot be countered by throwing expensive manpower at the problem, but only by shifting the battlespace to advantageous geography, by a united navy and air force effort, while a technically advanced army holds the Himalayan border.