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INDO-PACIFIC Continued: India to Create New Chief of Defence Staff Position

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INDO-PACIFIC Continued: India to Create New Chief of Defence Staff Position INDO-PACIFIC India to Create New Chief of Defence Staff Position OE Watch Commentary: As the Indian government continues reforming its armed forces, the accompanying excerpted article reports on how one reform that has been under consideration for a number of years appears to finally be set to take place. The article from India Today examines the recent announcement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the creation of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), a new position that, as the article notes, “would be the government’s single-point military advisor, and sharpen coordination between the forces.” The author provides significant background information on how the creation of the CDS position came about, and what changes could take place Service Chiefs pay homage at Amar Jawan Jyoti, India Gate - Navy Day 2017. following its establishment. Source: Indian Navy via Wikimedia, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Service_Chiefs_pay_homage_at_Amar_Jawan_Jyoti,_India_Gate_-_Navy_Day_2017_(4).jpg, GODL India. The author points out how “the post of CDS, one of the prime learnings from the Kargil War of 1999, was an unfinished agenda of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government” and that “India is the world’s last major democracy without a single-point military advisor like the CDS.” He also notes how the Kargil Review Committee, formed after the 1999 war to review the events that led to up the conflict and provide an assessment of the military, “was scathing in its indictment of the entire national security and apex decision-making apparatus, calling it a relic of the British Raj.” While there has been a lot of attention from Indian officials on how long it took for the committee’s recommendations (particularly the establishment of the CDS) to become policy, the author mentions how “the KRC had blamed India’s antiquated defence structure for loading the service chiefs with the twin tasks of being operational commanders who would fight wars and also national security planners responsible for training and equipping the services.” This highlights one of the significant changes that will take place following the creation of the CDS. The author notes how the Andaman and Nicobar Command is currently the only tri-services command and that it “was to have been a test- bed for what a future tri-services command would look like,” though “in 2015, the navy, clearly unhappy with the experiment, reclaimed the command.” The author brings up another committee formed a couple of years ago, which recommended “doing away with the 17 different single- service commands” and having “three joint theatre commands; north, south and west each to be headed by a theatre commander, who would report directly to the CDS.” Lastly, the author mentions a few things that have yet to be worked out even as the government moves forward with establishing the post of CDS. He notes how “Army chief Rawat and the IAF’s Dhanoa are being seen as possible candidates for the post” and he believes that “integrating all the three services into one common war theatre is a process that is several years down the line.” Regardless, the position of CDS is now in the process of being established and marks one of the most significant reforms in the Indian Armed Forces.End OE Watch Commentary (Stein) “The Southern Command, which has all three services present in strength, could be the first to be theaterised.” OE Watch | October 2019 40 INDO-PACIFIC Continued: India to Create New Chief of Defence Staff Position Source: Sandeep Unnithan, “Chief of Defence Staff: Can the new superchief call the shots?”India Today, 23 August 2019. https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/story/20190902-enter-the-superchief-1590316-2019-08-23 The Red Fort is both a powerful metaphor for India’s military might and a backdrop for change. The crenellated seat of two empires, Mughal and British, it was from this fort’s ramparts that India announced to the world that it had made the transition into an independent republic. It was also from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi announ ced India’s most significant defence reform in 72 years. Speaking at the Red Fort on the 72nd Independence Day, Modi announced the institution of the post of a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). The CDS would be the government’s single-point military advisor, and sharpen coordination between the forces making them even more effective, he said…Few within the mammoth ministry of defence, which has functioned almost without change since the days of the British Raj, saw it coming. Even the armed forces were taken by surprise. Early last year, in a first across-the-board consensus, the three services agreed to appoint a permanent chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (CoSC). The proposal sent to the PMO for approval was for a fourth four-star officer who would head the CoSC consisting of the three service chiefs (it is currently held by the seniormost ser vice chief in rotation)… The post of CDS, one of the prime learnings from the Kargil War of 1999, was an unfinished agenda of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. This was something Modi hinted at as he addressed the combined commanders’ conference in December 2015… The decision to appoint a superchief of the armed forces comes at an inflection point in India’s national security imperatives. The real shift has been in the way the political leadership looks at the military as a coercive tool of hard power against nuclear-armed Pakistan. The governments of Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh were deterred by Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal into not retaliating for the 2001 attack on Parliament and the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks in 2008. Modi has signalled space for military conflict even under a nuclear umbrella. …The first draft of the national security strategy is to be submitted shortly to the government. Prepared by the Defence Planning Committee headed by National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval, the policy (which insiders call a white paper on defence’) will address one of the fundamental arming without aiming’ flaws in India’s military modernisation individual services planning for wars separately and project hardware requirements delinked from budgetary realities. The government has already signalled a cap in defence spending and is unlikely to spend more than 16.6 per cent of central government expenditure…Appointing a CDS to accelerate training and cooperation, and prioritise defence spending among the services, is even more key in times of modest budgets… India is the world’s last major democracy without a single-point military advisor like the CDS. It is also the only major democracy where the Armed Forces Headquarters are outside the apex government structure as attached offices’ rather than integrated departments. The defence ministry structure for three commanders-in-chief who would head their respective services, with a central committee for coordination, was only meant to be a temporary arrangement until one better suited to Indian conditions was evolved. But it has continued for over 70 years as a bizarre stovepipes system with each service doing its own force and war planning. There is little integration between the armed forces HQ and defence ministry. In this breach filled with fear and mistrust, the post of CDS has become a most contentious appointment, rife with the possibility of turf battles. …A repeat of this chaos was witnessed during the Kargil War of 1999. The army alleged that the IAF entered the battle only after 20 days when it could have decisively changed the game if it had come in early. The air force said the army projected impossible requirements for helicopter gunships without knowing their limitations. In short, when it came to the crunch, neither service could operate seamlessly with the other. This confusion was not lost on the 2000 Kargil Review Committee (KRC), headed by strategic analyst K. Subrahmanyam. The KRC was scathing in its indictment of the entire national security and apex decision-making apparatus, calling it a relic of the British Raj. It recommended a thorough revamp and reorganisation of the entire national security apparatus. An objective assessment of the last 52 years will show that the country is lucky to have scraped through various national security threats without much damage, except in 1962,’ the committee observed. A group of ministers (GoM), set up in 2001 after the KRC submitted its report, undertook the most comprehensive national security reviews in post-independent India. One of the GoM’s task forces on defence management headed by Arun Singh, an acolyte of the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi recommended the creation of the post of CDS… The four-star CDS, according to him, would be a first among equals, and propel jointness’ among the three services, administratively control the nuclear forces and supervise the progressive decentralisation of decision-making’. Delegation of powers to service headquarters was envisaged, with the latter becoming the integrated headquarters of the ministry of defence rather than attached offices. The CDS would also function as the principal military advisor to the defence minister. …The KRC had blamed India’s antiquated defence structure for loading the service chiefs with the twin tasks of being operational commanders who would fight wars and also national security planners responsible for training and equipping the services…In the past 17 years, there has been only one tri-services command, the Andaman and Nicobar Command, which has elements of all three. It was being commanded by a three-star officer from each of the three services in rotation and was to have been a test-bed for what a future tri-services command would look like.
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