A Military Vision of the Future

Militaries the world over are in the throes of defining the future through vision documents. A vision document is seen as proof of understanding the future and coping with it. The Indian army has been at this since the 1980s and Gurmeet Kanwal's book is one in this line. It is, however, unique in being the first from outside the official sources.

A commendable element in the book is the use of Indian sources to define and explain the arguments made in it. This will give readers in India and abroad an insight into the current Indian military thinking on future conflicts and ways to prepare for them. The book also serves to set a benchmark by which the military vision can be juxtaposed with the larger matrix of national security. National security encompasses issues that go beyond the purely military needs. This is particularly true in a global scene where, as the author posits, large-scale wars with the full might of military weapons are getting less likely by the decade.

The book covers the global, regional and national threat scenarios with a host of measures necessary to tackle them. In the process, its analysis and recommendations remain an exclusively military side of the security story. The military perspective from this well-written volume is a result of the analysis which excludes the larger set of imperatives that drive the nation's search for security.

Readers of this newspaper and the larger strategic and economic community would want to know the ways in which the security needs of the Indian people can be better met, even as the book demands a larger share of the GDP for defence. The classical economics question of what additional security can be obtained from every additional rupee given to the military needs an answer. Militaries make the error of first defining the threats, then seeking the perfect state of military being, and asking the state to provide the moneys for it. The political leadership attempts to find ways to harmonise these demands. Since wars are not on the immediate horizon, Indian governments have always chosen to keep defence expenditure at a nationally affordable level, rather than the military's preferred maximal.

The organisational structures of the defence ministry come in for scathing criticism by the author. There are many improvements needed, and the Group of Ministers after the Kargil conflict has made substantive recommendations to improve things. An assessment which refers to Defence Secretaries as "generalist bureaucrat(s), whose background may have been limited to stints in the culture, health and commerce ministries, is not suitably trained to wrestle with complex tri-service issues ..." is not only unfair but reflects a military presumption that is disturbing. This cannot be termed part of the army's vision.

The arrival of nuclear weapons with India and Pakistan has irrevocably changed the nature and scope of wars between them. Kargil and the 2002 military standoff between the two countries have demonstrated the limits of military options to resolve their differences. The book nevertheless strongly argues in favour of deep thrusts into Pakistan by powerful tank and mechanised forces, and to "call the nuclear bluff" of Pakistan. It covers at some length the ways in which nuclear strikes can and should be made in such a war. This purported vision of the Indian Army cannot possibly be the officially accepted one. It goes against the clearly stated Indian government position that nuclear weapons are for strategic (read political) and not war fighting purposes, and that they are in no way linked to war plans. The conclusions that may be drawn by India's friends and adversaries from this part of the vision are unlikely to be reassuring.

Indian Army Vision 2020, as a study in the public domain, is a significant publication. The author's military connections will place a special meaning on the book's purpose and message. Readers in India and abroad, experts and generalists, will be struck by the way the Indian military sees the future and its own place in it. This book will also lead to questions. There would no doubt be some on the reasons for delay and lack of clarity in the government on the army's needs. There would also be quite a few on whether the Indian Army envisions its needs to be above the national priorities of security in its wider perspective.

(Courtesy: Business Standard, New Delhi, April 30, 2008)

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.