Military transformation can’t wait

The tragic death of Gen Bipin Rawat has necessitated the appointment of a new Chief of Defence Staff. What are the challenges that the next CDS will face?

India’s efforts at higher defence reforms and the creation of Joint Theatre Commands will have far-reaching consequences for its military’s effectiveness. Such reform involves significant organisational and administrative modernization besides material upgradation of the military. India’s ability to maintain a credible deterrent military capability hinges on getting these reforms right.

The death of India’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Gen Bipin Rawat, in the tragic Mi17V5 crash in the Nilgiris on December 8 is a temporary setback to the efforts to integrate the military better.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, speaking at the Vijay Parv Samapan Samaroh on December 14, reaffirmed that service integration is high on the government’s priority list. He stated that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) would go ahead with the efforts to achieve theaterisation at the earliest.

In a telling comment, Singh emphasised that “When we talk of ‘integration’ and ‘jointness’, it is not limited to initiatives taken by the government alone. Its success must be achieved by the ‘meeting of minds’ of our defence forces”.

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That comment was necessitated by differing opinions and dissent from within the military services. It is therefore crucial that the reform process reviews and revisits the issues involved in a broader context. As India awaits the appointment of the next CDS, there is an urgent need to review the rationale and implications of the reform process set in motion, and to address the reservations aired, some publicly and some not so publicly.

The debate over the form and extent of jointness is, in essence, about defence planning in general. The Vajpayee-era Group of Ministers report of 2001 examined the issue in detail and must serve as a capstone document as India implements military organisational reforms. Theaterisation is one aspect of the reforms that the GoM report recommended. We must go ahead with it without losing sight of the primary focus of higher organisational reforms, which looks beyond operational-level integration of military command and control structures.

The GoM report highlights that the “Ministry of Defence needs to be suitably restructured and strengthened. Far-reaching changes in the structures, processes and procedures in defence management would be required to make the system more efficient, resilient, and responsive. This would also ensure the maximisation of our defence capabilities through the optimal utilisation of our resources, potential, and establishment of synergy among the Armed Forces”.

It goes on to say: “The main focus of the GoM has been on bringing about improvements in the organisations, structures, processes, etc., through the integration of civil and military components and by ensuring “jointness” among the Armed Forces to the extent desirable”. A civil-military institutional approach, where consensus and debate, rather than arbitrary imposition, given resource shortfalls, will have to emerge if such structuring is to be taken to its meaningful end.

CDS and Secretary-DMA

In appointing Gen. Rawat as CDS and concurrently as Secretary of the Department of Military Affairs (DMA), the government had glossed over many significant recommendations, thus paving the way for resistance, discord and dissent rather than “meeting of minds”.

As Secretary-DMA, Gen. Rawat was bestowed with administrative powers over each of the three military services through amendments to the Government of India Allocation of Business and the Transaction of Business Rules, 1961.

The GoM report had highlighted that “…there is a need to progressively decentralise decision-making and delegate powers to the Service Headquarters (SHQ), wherever feasible. This process is expected to ensure greater speed, higher levels of efficiency and accountability.” Instead, each Service continues to be an ‘attached office’, now reporting to the DMA as against the Department of Defence (DoD) earlier. The powers bestowed on the CDS and the Secretary-DMA saw a blunt, ready-to-take-tough decisions approach to push down integration and balancing without an enunciated military strategy. This means a high degree of centralisation of powers. Such practices have resulted in a tendency to offset long-standing demands of the services. Was the recommendation (of the GoM report) that each SHQ be allowed to manage its highly specialised functions and processes with greater autonomy given short shrift? Are military organisational reforms correctly aligned?

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The way ahead

The way ahead could be to make each SHQ a distinct department of the MoD. Concomitant to such integration, the Vice Chiefs of Staffs of each Service and the Chief of Integrated Staff to the Chiefs of Staff Committee (CISC) [who is also the de facto Vice Chief of Defence Staff (VCDS)] needs to be designated additionally as Secretaries of the Government of India, as against the CDS being the lone Secretary-DMA.

Such an arrangement would be akin to the multiple secretaries administering the Ministry of External Affairs. While functioning as a permanent Chairman of the COSC, with the VCDS as its Member-Secretary, the GoM report had envisaged that the CDS should rank primus inter pares in the COSC and function as the ‘Principal Military Adviser’ to the Defence Minister. This relationship of first-among-equals stood breached with the CDS assuming administrative control of each SHQ when he was appointed Secretary-DMA.

In effect, it throttles functional efficiencies that must address much that ails the Indian military, as in acquisitions and in creating flexible organisations that can adapt and respond relatively quickly to changes in its external environment. The government and the military need to engage with foundational concepts of the organisation: that associated with the recognition of responsibility, the assignment of authority, and the idea of accountability. The resilience of organisations as they face different challenges depends on how these organisational foundations are set in place and nurtured.

The GoI Allocation of Business and Transaction of Business Rules, 1961, distributes roles but it is unclear who is responsible for drafting the elusive National Security Strategy.

With whom does the buck stop for the military security of India? Are our processes well aligned to handle an enterprise meant to fight and win the nation’s wars? Is professional management eluding an enterprise involving budgetary outlays of nearly Rs 5 lakh crore, or some 14% of the total central government expenditure?

(The author is a former Flag Officer Naval Aviation, Chief of Staff Headquarters Andaman & Nicobar Command, and Chief Instructor (Navy), Defence Services Staff
College, Wellington)