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Director
IDSA, Ladies and Gentlemen,
1. I feel privileged to be
here this morning at the 40th Anniversary
Commemorative Seminar of The Institute of Defence
Studies and Analyses. The IDSA is today among the
foremost think-tanks on defence, security and foreign
policy related issues in the country. Over the past
four decades, we have seen, this institution steadily
gaining in stature and reputation. It has had the good
fortune of having outstanding intellectuals and able
administrators as its Directors as well as staff; one
of whom is our Air Chief today.
2. IDSA is now known for the
incisive and well thought-out research papers and
articles it generates, and the seminars and workshops
on topical subjects of security and foreign policy
that it regularly arranges. All these have played an
important role in raising the level of consciousness
regarding national security issues in the capital.
Many Track II initiatives have been triggered off by
this Institute, and in the recent past Cmde Bhaskar
has set such a scorching pace, that I often feel that
he must be actually on Track I, and the rest of us
have been relegated to Track II.
3. Seeing this galaxy of
luminaries arrayed before me, I cannot help thinking
of George Clemenceau’s remark about war being “much
too serious a matter to be left to the Generals”. I do
not take exception to this adage, because today there
are people who know just as much about our business as
we in the Armed Forces do; and they miss no
opportunity to tell us so! What does worry me however
is the collective sense of indifference with which we
have since independence regarded the study of war,
strategy, and national security. This is possibly
occasioned by the hubris that is engendered by our
ancient heritage and culture, and the consequent
feeling that there is nothing much to be gained by a
study of others’ experiences. But the pity is that we
do not even study the fund of politico-military
thought available in our own rich heritage of Vedas,
Puranas, and tracts like the Manu Smriti and the
Arthashastra.
4. The other worrisome facet
of our thought process is the pride with which we
regard the fact that our civilization has survived the
ravages of repeated invasion, conquest and
subjugation. Let me quote for you, a verse by the poet
Allama Mohammad Iqbal which says:
“Yunan o Misr, Roma sab mit gaye jahan se.
Phir bhi magar hai baki, namo nishan hamara.
Kuchh baat hai ki hasti mitati nahin hamari,
Sadiyon raha hai dushman, daur-e-zaman hamara”.
5. Inspiring words, but one
gets the sense that survival by itself is considered a
major meritorious achievement. The late George Tanham
who produced a monograph on “India’s Strategic
Thought” put it succinctly when he said that, “The
forces of culture and history and the attitude and
policies of independent India have so far, worked
against the concept of strategic thinking and
planning. As India’s environment grows more tense and
pressures of every type increase, structures for
strategic forethought and planning will have to
emerge.” It is in this context that we must welcome
initiatives of the kind that IDSA frequently takes.
6. No nation ever progressed
without some sense of national destiny or purpose. In
our context however, it seems that it is not Indians
but foreigners who have started speaking of India’s
“manifest destiny”. Nothing illustrates this better
than the July 28th edition of the US magazine
“Business Week”. The issue is devoted to a minute
examination of Indian and Chinese economies, industry
and culture, and paints a cautiously optimistic but
balanced picture about the tremendous possibilities
that lie in the future for these two countries.
7. As a self-confident and
vibrant India looks towards achieving its manifest
destiny in the years ahead, the Indian security
establishment will also increasingly need to play a
larger role in achieving our national aims.
Institutions such as the IDSA will, more than ever
before, need to present decision-makers with a range
of educated policy options on various issues. Indeed
the setting up, in February this year, of the National
Maritime Foundation which takes its place alongside
the Centre for Land Warfare and the Centre for Air
Power Studies, means that we now have a complete range
of specialist think-tanks, to supplement the efforts
of IDSA and other institutions.
8. As the world awakens
to our true potential, India is the flavour of the
season and focus of interest internationally with a
range of studies and analyses being commissioned to
examine virtually every aspect of our country and its
potential. In the theme chosen for this seminar, the
coupling of security and foreign policy perspectives
for a resurgent India is therefore not just relevant,
but also most appropriate.
9. Security goes well
beyond strategic and military considerations, to
involve political, economic, social, technological and
even environmental factors. Emerging concerns also
include dwindling energy and water resources, which
could become the root of future conflicts. In the post
cold-war era, we have witnessed the tyranny of
technologically advanced countries imposing regimes
governing technology, space, nuclear energy, and even
the environment and human rights. These regimes do not
emerge from a consensus or even mutual deliberations,
but are discriminatory in nature, and are imposed
arbitrarily. They should therefore form the
underpinning, and provide the context within which
India’s defence, foreign, economic and even S&T
policies must evolve synergistically.
10. From the range of topics
selected, and the distinguished speakers invited, it
is evident that the proceedings of the seminar are
going to be an intellectually stimulating, thought
provoking and rewarding tour de force for the
participants. I will therefore, in the next 25
minutes, confine myself to pointing out a few
milestones which have shaped our security attitudes
and structures so far. I will then place before you,
some of the challenges which the future is going to
throw up for us, and which we must plan to meet. Let
us start by casting our minds back over the past 57
years of our existence as an independent nation, so
that we are not “condemned to repeat the past” as
George Santayana puts it, by “forgetting it”.
11. It is evident that many of
the mind-sets, perceptions, and policies that emerged
in the early days of our Republic were shaped by the
nature of our long independence movement. Let me just
mention a few of them. I would hasten to add that I am
recalling some facts of history and not making any
value judgement:-
- First, Mahatma Gandhi’s success in achieving
independence for India through non-violent had no
parallel in modern history. He was a great man of
unique vision and principles, but devotion to the
“form” rather than “substance” of the values that he
subscribed to led to an idealistic world-view amongst
our post-independence leadership. So our policies
acquired a moralpolitik orientation as opposed to the
realpolitik of our neighbours. Moralpolitik is simply
a foreign policy based on morality, which some may
consider an oxymoron. This was manifest in Pakistan
promptly taking the “low road” to join SEATO, and the
Baghdad Pact while we decided to adopt high minded
postures like non-alignment and the quest for
universal nuclear disarmament.
- Second, as the Hon’ble Raksha Mantri put it
during his recent speech at the Carnegie Endowment,
two centuries of colonial rule and exploitation, a
large part of it by a group of British merchants who
formed the East India Company left Indians suspicious
of foreign traders and bred a lingering mistrust of
what is now called “globalisation”. This led to an
urge for autarky, or economic self sufficiency, which
we struggled to achieve for over four decades. This
was a mixed blessing; for while it did help in
building up core industries like steel, space and
atomic energy, it also stifled private enterprise in
favour of the public sector and led to technological
stagnation in several areas.
- If the creation of the INA in Singapore, and the
Indian Legion in Germany out of Indian PoWs, shook the
British Army, the RIN Mutiny possibly sealed the fate
of the British Empire. So it is undeniable that the
Indian Armed Forces did contribute to accelerating our
independence. The Army also played a major role in
persuading a few recalcitrant princely states to join
the Indian Union, and helped in handling the massive
refugee influx after partition. Notwithstanding this,
the Armed Forces were generally perceived as having
played only a marginal role in our independence
movement, and in some quarters as having been an
“instrument of oppression”. This led not only to their
being marginalized post-independence, and their
counsel being largely ignored, but also gave rise to
an impression that India could survive with minimal
investment in the Armed Forces.
12. I mention all this, only
to place in perspective our attitudes as a newly
emerged republic. Against that backdrop, let us also
look at certain post-independence events or junctures
which can be termed as “defining moments” in the
evolutionary process of our national security and
foreign policies.
13. The first of these was 27
October 1947 when barely two months after
independence, Pakistani forces invaded Kashmir. Our
nascent leadership; both political and military,
undertook no overarching analysis of the situation and
gave no strategic direction other than to “repulse the
invaders!” In a year of fierce but sporadic fighting
in inhospitable terrain, the Indian Army gallantly
managed to achieve the tactical aims set before it and
the Valley remained with us. A haphazard cease-fire
line was drawn, and the invaders kept whatever they
could hang on to. The single major outcome of this
operation was the creation of the so called “Kashmir
problem” which has festered and bled the country for
six decades, and currently appears to have become an
open-ended issue.
14. On 20 Oct 1962, the
Chinese army attacked Indian Army positions in NEFA
and Ladakh, and the brief but bitter war which lasted
just a month left, us militarily defeated and
humiliated as a nation. This debacle while
demonstrating naiveté and ineptness in different
spheres also exposed our total lack of strategic
thinking, planning and vision. A blessing in disguise
was the bitter realization that we did not live in
Utopia and that you could not hope to concentrate on
development if you did not ensure a secure environment
for the country. And that meant strong, capable armed
forces. This marked the end of our post-independence
euphoria and recognition of harsh military realities –
at least for some time.
15. Our finest hour, without a
doubt, came on 16th December 1971 when 90,000
Pakistani troops surrendered to the victorious Indian
forces after their historic victory that led to the
creation of Bangladesh. The nine month prelude to war
saw a diplomatic campaign being mounted in the best
traditions of Vedic statecraft, with sama, dana, bheda,
danda all being invoked in turn. The military
leadership worked in reasonable harmony, and showed
moral courage by buying the time required for a
logistics build up. Some imaginative planning resulted
in a military campaign which included every tactic of
war; from covert and special ops to para-dropped, air
assault, armoured, amphibious, aircraft carrier,
submarine and missile boat operations. And yet we
faltered in the end-game. No coherent and tangible
“war-termination” strategy had been evolved and in the
final analysis, it could be said that some of what
Bhutto lost in the war, he recovered in negotiations.
16. The Peaceful Nuclear
Explosion in May 1974 marked what should have been
another defining moment for us, but in hindsight it
can best be seen as yet another missed opportunity.
Already ten years behind China, we should have
followed Pokharan I with a series of tests required to
get within striking distance of weaponisation. Perhaps
it was a combination of international disapprobation,
economic compulsions, and over-caution which made us
hold our hand. Whatever the other contributory
reasons, lack of a strategic vision certainly lay at
the bottom of the timidity and tentativeness that
marked this “technology demonstration”.
17. The decade of the 1980s
saw several major hardware acquisitions by the Armed
Forces and it must be flagged as a landmark period. It
seemed that we were at last on the way to acquiring
the surplus of security assets that would mark us the
pre-eminent nation in this region. In the span of
about 5-6 years, the army bolstered its artillery and
armour, the navy acquired a nuclear submarine, an
aircraft carrier, a squadron each of fighters and
maritime aircraft, and the IAF added the Mirage-2000,
MiG-29, Mig-27, Mig-23, IL-76 and An-32 to its
inventory.
18. The reality was otherwise.
While little change had come about in our strategic
thought process, this massive accretion of military
might was seen as a serious threat by countries like
China, Australia, and others in Southeast Asia. We did
not bother to rationalise and explain through
doctrines or white papers – that was not our style.
This build up also coincided with our first forays
beyond our shores; into Maldives and Sri Lanka. In the
bargain, we began to be suspected of hegemonistic
designs and sinister intentions, which just did not
exist.
19. It is now clear that the
balance of payment crisis in 1991, which led to the
opening up of the Indian economy under the able
stewardship of Dr. Manmohan Singh, was a seminal event
and a defining moment in our modern history. With the
realisation that economic growth would underpin
India’s future relevance in the world, economic policy
became the driver for our diplomatic initiatives.
Dogma, while not jettisoned totally, took a back seat.
A nascent realisation began to dawn that our security
policy could not exist in splendid isolation and
needed to be meshed with our overall foreign policy
and economic objectives.
20. In sum, the 27 years
following independence, saw us moving from idealism to
a quest for a Western nuclear umbrella, to rejection
of the NPT, and then to Pokharan I. The next 24 years
could be summed up as a state of “nuclear ambiguity”,
then “non-weaponised deterrence” and finally in May 98
came our defining moment: Pokharan II. Whatever our
reasons for crossing the nuclear Rubicon, and whatever
the resulting impact on national security, one thing
became clear, at least to students of strategy. It was
not the financial liability of maintaining a minimum
credible deterrent that was going to be problematic
for us. It was the intellectual capital, the time and
the capacity required to comprehend arcane nuclear
dogma, and to resolutely pursue the minutiae that
constitute deterrence, that was going to be difficult
to mobilise.
21. I am, however, happy to
conclude my survey of the past on a positive tone.
Over the recent past, security considerations have
started receiving a much higher priority than before,
though much more needs to be done in this direction.
The structures are now in place, and I would like to
think that we are on the way to evolving a sound
edifice.
22. The PM’s recent visit to
the US has the potential to recast our bilateral
relations with the US. But as many of you sitting in
the auditorium have cautioned, we have to see how the
reciprocal initiatives on both sides will play out. So
this really sums up my list of “defining moments”. Let
me then move on and define the challenges that lie in
store, as we move forward slowly but surely to take
our rightful place in the international order. I
intend to highlight just five or six issues of
salience.
23. Firstly, if India aspires
to don the mantle of even a regional entity, we have
to shed our diffidence, and find not just the ways and
means but the will to project our power overseas. This
does not mean that we are going to be aggressors, or
to invade someone. We may need to eject intruders from
our own island territories, to come to the assistance
of our neighbours, to rescue Indian nationals
overseas, and as the tsunami showed, to render aid in
natural calamities. Or indeed to safeguard our
emerging vital interests overseas. Starting with an
embryo Rapid Deployment Force, we would need to build
adequate sealift and airlift capability to have a
credible and sustainable trans-national capability.
24. Secondly, with oil
prices hitting $ 70 yesterday, we have an energy
crisis of serious proportions, looming over us. India
is currently the world’s sixth largest energy
consumer, and in 2010, will hit the fourth place. With
a great deal of foresight, ONGC Videsh, in addition to
a long term contract for gas supply with Iran, is
negotiating with 22 other countries to pursue energy
projects involving exploration, development,
transportation and refining of hydrocarbons to meet
our future needs. If we are going to invest such vast
amounts of national resources in locations as far
afeild as Middle East, Africa, Central Asia and SE
Asia, it is essential that we take adequate security
measures to safeguard our assets and interests against
any unforeseen eventualities. This point is closely
linked to what I have just said about trans-national
capabilities, and a rapid deployment force would be
ideal for such a purpose.
25. There is also a move
afoot to build up a national strategic oil reserve. To
safeguard this oil reserve and to ensure that it is
never unduly depleted, our maritime forces would need
to deploy in sufficient strength at strategic
locations on the high seas to ensure the safety of our
oil traffic in international sea lanes.
26. Our third security
challenge is the rapid and alarming deterioration in
the political and economic state of countries which
are our immediate neighbours. So much so, that we are
in real danger of being completely surrounded by
“failed states”; a situation which will be entirely to
our own detriment. In addition to their internal
turmoil, but possibly related to it, there is a very
disturbing phenomenon of growing hostility towards
India. This is a challenge that we have to overcome,
or it will become a millstone around our neck. While
political and diplomatic endeavours are going on, we
need to establish a link or strengthen existing
relations with their militaries. Whether it is
confidence-building, military aid or even a gentle
hint, the armed forces can be gainfully utilised for
all these purposes.
27. A fourth area of
vital interest to us lies in the expanse of the seas;
the island nations of the Indian Ocean. Currently,
countries like Sri Lanka, Maldives, Mauritius,
Seychelles and Comoros are friendly and well disposed
to us. However, their security remains fragile, and we
cannot afford to have any hostile or inimical power
threatening it. These countries are generally in need
of military hardware, training or technical assistance
and sometimes of help in policing their waters or
airspace. Our armed forces are always prepared to
help, and we are working very closely with the MEA in
an endeavour to minimise delays and to meet their
needs with promptness. In this context, it might be of
interest for this audience to know that we have
recently created in Naval Headquarters, a new
directorate of Foreign Cooperation under a 2-star
Admiral.
28. The fifth challenge
relates to the all pervasive and omnipresent threat of
terrorism, both within our country and all around us.
This is a phenomenon which is confined neither by
national boundaries, nor by the mediums of land, sea
or air. Its sinister tentacles embrace illegal traffic
in drugs, arms, human beings, and even in weapons of
mass destruction. In combating terrorism lies the
biggest security challenge to the armed forces, to
nations and to the international community as a whole.
This challenge is likely to take up much of our energy
and resources in the days ahead.
29. As a responsible nuclear weapon state, our sixth
challenge will lie in management of deterrence.
Nuclear deterrence as you all know lies in the mind of
the adversary. To deter someone, you must be able to
convince him that the consequences of using a nuclear
weapon will be so horrible and devastating, that he
should never even contemplate it. Here we are placed
in the distinctive situation of being a declared “NFU
state” faced with a nuclear opponent who has in the
past threatened first use, and thinks of a seamless
“conventional-nuclear war continuum”. The only way to
make deterrence robust is to ensure that your second
strike capability is not only well protected, but that
it is also overwhelmingly devastating. CBMs certainly
have a place in deterrence, as does dialogue and a
certain degree of transparency between adversaries.
30. I come to the final
challenge that faces the nation’s security
establishment; and that relates to transformation of
the armed forces into a lean, technology intensive,
networked and “joint” entity. Jointness and the RMA
are imperatives that the armed forces can ignore only
at the risk of becoming “dinosaurs” in the current
environment. Transformation is a tall order under any
circumstances; and the historical experience of other
countries indicates that it would need political
resolve and direction to initiate as well as sustain
such a process.
Conclusion
31. All in all, there is no
doubt that because of India’s growing strength, and
issues like our prospective permanent membership of
the UN Security Council, we will need to integrate our
security, foreign and economic policies. A substantial
part of the onus will fall upon Track II organisations
to provide policy alternatives and options for
decision-makers. The Hon’ble Raksha Mantri, while
officiating at the Foundation Stone laying ceremony of
the IDSA’s institutional complex had rightly remarked,
“While governments have certain responsibilities to
discharge, it is the role of the academic and the
analyst – what is referred to as the Track II
constituency – to provide objective and rigorously
analysed inputs on matters pertaining to national
security.”
32. Consequently, the role of
IDSA and other organisations will grow in importance.
However, this will require individuals to have a deep
understanding of the subject, which require intense
study and rigorous academic analysis. And here let me
quote the words of John Adams the 2nd President of the
USA: “I must study politics and war, so that my sons
may have the liberty to study mathematics and
philosophy.”
33. In conclusion, let
me thank you for your patient hearing, and wish this
Seminar all success. I am sure that your deliberations
will be meaningful, and go a long way towards building
a synergistic and visionary national approach for the
strong, purposeful and modern India that is just over
the horizon. Thank you.
34. Jai Hind.
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