Restructuring for 21st Century Warfare

Ever since India’s independence, while the nation has mostly been at peace, the Indian Army has been at war. The army has fought wars against inimical neighbours in 1947-48, 1962, 1965, 1971 and 1999 and has also helped the civil administration to stem militancy and insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir and the north-eastern states. It has fulfilled its multifarious roles with admirable valour and in a spirit of sacrifice and selfless devotion to duty.

Military strength is a pre-requisite for peace and stability on the Indian sub-continent. India’s socio-economic development, and that of its neighbours, can continue unhindered only in a secure environment. No nation can afford to be complacent about and to take unmanageable risks with its security. In the rapidly changing geo-strategic environment, comprehensive national strength hinges around modern armed forces that strive constantly to keep pace with the ongoing technological revolution. The changing nature of warfare, the existential threat from India’s nuclear-armed military adversaries and new threats like terrorism spawned by radical extremism, require a quantum jump in the Indian Army’s operational capabilities.

In order to successfully defeat future threats and challenges, the army must modernise its weapons and equipment and upgrade its combat potential by an order of magnitude. The shape and size of the Indian army’s force structure a few decades hence merits detailed deliberation and quick decisions as capabilities take several decades to create, test and experiment with till they finally mature. It has been well said that there are no prizes for the runners up in war. War is a gruesome affair and, as Napoleon put it so eloquently about two centuries ago, “God is on the side of the battalions with the bigger cannon.” To afford the “bigger cannon” there is a need to make adequate budgetary provisions. The present defence budget, which is pegged at less than 2.0 per cent of India’s GDP, is grossly inadequate to support genuine modernisation as against the replacement of obsolete equipment. 

The army must reduce its deployment timings by upgrading the logistics infrastructure for mobilisation so that it can facilitate the execution of its Cold Start doctrine. A modern intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (the ‘sensors’) system is required to reduce the number of troops needed to man the borders. The army needs to enhance its capabilities for carrying offensive operations into the territories of India’s military adversaries so as to deter them from waging war. Firepower assets (the ‘shooters’) – artillery, missiles, rocket launchers, unmanned combat air vehicles, attack helicopters, ground strike aircraft – must be increased substantially, particularly precision strike capabilities.

Command and control systems should be automated and synchronised with the sensors and shooters to exploit the synergies provided by network centric effects based operations. Rapid reaction and air assault capabilities need to be developed to intervene militarily in India’s strategic neighbourhood whenever the national interest so requires. The army’s internal security, counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism capabilities also need to be modernised as most of the emerging challenges will lie in the domain of sub-conventional conflict and operations other than war. The time has come to seriously consider a ‘third force’ for internal security operations. Doctrinal concepts, organisation structures and training methodologies must keep pace with technological advancements. The army must train its personnel for certainty and educate them for uncertainty.

Re-structuring and modernising the Indian army will require political courage, military astuteness, a non-parochial approach and a singularity of purpose. Only a future-ready army can march into the coming decades with confidence, well prepared to tackle the new challenges looming over the horizon. The Government of India must appoint a bipartisan National Military Commission to go into the whole gamut of re-structuring and modernisation. The commission should comprise eminent political leaders, armed forces veterans, civilian administrators, diplomats and scholars who are capable of dispassionate reasoning and are familiar with the current military discourse. It should be given no more than six months to complete its work so that the re-structuring exercise can begin early and be completed by 2020-25.
 
Finally, the Indian Army of the future must be light, lethal and wired; ready to fight and win India’s future wars jointly with the Navy and the Air Force over the full spectrum of conflict, from sub-conventional conflict and operations other than war to all out conventional war; so as to ensure regional stability and internal security. The nation must get a modern force that can fight and win India’s future battles with the least number of casualties and minimum collateral damage through surgical strikes. It should be a force capable of carrying the battle into enemy territory. It is time the bogey of the Panipat Syndrome is laid to rest.

Only then will the nation get a peaceful environment for socio-economic development. The aim should be to ensure peace through conventional deterrence so that India can achieve all round prosperity and join the ranks of the world’s developed nations.

Courtsey: The Indian Express, 15 January 2010

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views either of the Editorial Committee or the Centre for Land Warfare Studies).