Monumental challenges facing the new Defence Minister
Air Marshal Brijesh Jayal outlines the
Much has been spoken about the last cabinet reshuffle where, for the first time, a woman was chosen to head the ministry of defence. The debate has largely centred on the breaking of a gender glass ceiling and the incumbent’s brief ministerial experience, rather than what the new person can do to a ministry that worships status quo and is stuck in a time warp.
Many of the problems ailing the ministry of defence are both historical and structural, and they remain so because of the desire of the civil and military bureaucracies not to disturb the status quo. One uses the term “military bureaucracy”, with some hesitation, but sadly, over the years, the armed forces’ headquarters have, to a degree, been influenced negatively by the work culture of the North and the South Blocks.
The new minister takes charge at a time when the Doklam standoff is behind us, the line of control continues to simmer, the army chief talks of his forces’ readiness for a two- and-a-half-front war and the IAF chief of readiness for a two-front one, in spite of having earlier compared his depleted force to a seven-member cricket team.
In the face of numerous security challenges, the minister has set her priorities right by first reaching out extensively to our forces in the remotest areas to get a true feel of the ‘sharp end’ of her ministerial responsibilities. She will, no doubt, return impressed with the extremely tough task that our military personnel accomplish in their daily lives, their high morale and their sheer ability to cope with what they have rather than wait interminably for what they must have. Buoyed by the sobering experience of seeing the challenging part of her area of responsibility in the field and feeling proud to have been given the opportunity to head such a dynamic ministry, she will now expect to be informed about how this phenomenally complex operational machine is administered and managed from the ministry of defence, her home turf.
In briefings, she will learn that as per the transaction of business rules of the government, it is the defence secretary who is responsible for the defence of the country and not the defence minister. This may come as a surprise to her, but it will soon be clear that in matters of defence, the bureaucracy indeed has all the authority but little corresponding accountability. She will learn that higher defence organisation, a subject of much debate and innumerable studies, continues to remain wedded to a bygone era with security institutions resisting change.
She will also learn that it is the MoD that is responsible for all major decisions affecting the armed forces, including their war-fighting potential, with no uniformed personnel with domain knowledge within, thus casting the concept of specialisation to the winds. Further, the Kargil Review Committee recommendation of integrating the armed forces headquarters within the MoD, in line with modern democracies, was, by a sleight of bureaucratic hand, met by renaming service headquarters as ‘Integrated HQ of MoD’ whilst changing nothing other than their letter heads.
When she visits the three Sena Bhawans for respective briefings, she will be conscious of the commitment she made on taking over, to provide the services with whatever they need. It is here that she will be faced with her next reality check when she learns that translated into practical terms, the combined service wish lists by far exceed what the defence budget can possibly afford and, as a logical first step, prioritisation of both individual service-wise and across the three services can be the only way to attempt progress.
Here she will be faced with another stark reality, that of the absence of a singlepoint military head to render her technical guidance and professional advice. She will learn that whilst the concept of a chief of defence staff has long been accepted in principle, it remains on paper, as it has been near impossible to get all the stakeholders on the same side.
The origin of many of these rivalries can be traced to the archaic higher defence management model, which, in essence, means that we have three different services, each planning, training and equipping individually to fulfil its operational responsibilities. Whilst the world over, a concept of integrated Theatre Commands has already taken shape, with China being the latest convert, we continue as before with individual service commands –totalling seventeen–neither co-located nor necessarily looking after a common geographical operational area with the lone exception of Andaman and Nicobar Command, which is “unified”.
The outcome of this outdated higher command structure, whilst denying the operational benefits of integrated warfare, then results in the duplication of roles and missions with each service wanting to grab as large a domain of roles as possible. Such claims are based not on available scientific and engineering tools of joint warfare analysis, but age-old traditions and subjectivity. This results in duplication and ownership of various types of capitalintensive weapon systems and their equally expensive training, support and logistic infrastructure.
As the minister withdraws to the confines of her offices to absorb all that she has seen and heard over her travels and interactions, she will be reminded of the doyen of India’s strategic affairs community, K Subrahmanyam, and his summation of the state of affairs where “politicians enjoy power without any responsibility, bureaucrats wield authority without any accountability and the military assumes responsibility without any direction.”
She will by now be aware of the huge gulf that exists between those managing and administering national security and those actually executing it, and will rue that whilst internationally the concept of integrated warfare brought about by revolution in military affairs has been recognized with militaries transforming to adapt to these changes, the Indian military establishment appears content to remain frozen in time. The blame for this state of affairs cannot be apportioned to any one, but needs to be shared by every institution of our democracy that includes the armed forces, the MoD, the cabinet committee on security and, indeed, Parliament.
As she looks to the future, she will no doubt identify two parallel paths that need to be pursued with equal vigour to begin to set the MoD house in order. For the shortterm, she would need to soften the various institutional turf wars within the ministry and attempt at meaningful prioritisation in keeping with budgetary constraints. This could at best be a holding operation in the short term to ensure the best for national security.
For the long term, armed with support of her institutional team, she may draw inspiration from some of the prime minister’s national exhortations for out-ofthe-box thinking towards transformation, and get Parliament approval to set up the equivalent of a Blue Ribbon Commission that would look afresh at where India wishes to place its armed forces and the roles and missions expected of them in keeping with the nation’s aspirations. These recommendations would then need to be discussed, debated and finally legislated upon by Parliament. It is this one giant step that will earn her a place in the history of the MoD, not her gender or the length of her ministerial experience.