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DEFENCE AND DIPLOMACY IN PURSUIT OF NATIONAL SECURITY VOL. 1 NO. 3 l APRIL-JUNE 2012 DEFENCE AND DIPLOMACY CENTRE FOR AIR POWER STUDIES New Delhi DEFENCE AND DIPLOMACY is published quarterly by the Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi, established under an independent trust titled Forum for National Security Studies registered in 2002 in New Delhi. Board of Trustees Shri M.K. Rasgotra, former Foreign Secretary and former High Commissioner to the UK Chairman Air Chief Marshal O.P. Mehra, PVSM, former Chief of the Air Staff and former Governor Maharashtra and Rajasthan Air Chief Marshal S.P. Tyagi, PVSM AVSM VM, former Chief of the Air Staff Smt Vijayalakshmy K Gupta, Secretary (Defence Finance) Ministry of Defence 139 South Block New Delhi. Dr. Sanjaya Baru, former Media Advisor to the Prime Minister and currently Editor, The Business Standard Captain Ajay Singh, Jet Airways, former Deputy Director Air Defence, Air HQ Air Commodore Jasjit Singh, former Director IDSA Managing Trustee DEFENCE AND DIPLOMACY Journal welcomes research articles on defence, military affairs and strategy (especially air power and space issues) of contemporary and historical interest. Articles in the Journal reflect the views and conclusions of the authors and not necessarily the opinions or policy of the Centre or any other institution. Editor-in-Chief Air Commodore Jasjit Singh AVSM VrC VM (Retd) Assistant Editor Distributor KW Publishers Pvt. Ltd. All correspondence may be addressed to Assistant Editor DEFENCE AND DIPLOMACY Arjan Path, Subroto Park, New Delhi 110 010 Telephone: (91.11) 25699131-32 Fax: (91.11) 25682533 e-mail: [email protected] website: www.aerospaceindia.org © Centre for Air Power Studies All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the Director, Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi DEFENCE AND DIPLOMACY Journal is published four times a year and is distributed by KW Publishers Pvt. Ltd. 4676/21, First Floor, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110 002 Telefax: 23263498 e-mail: [email protected] Printed and Published by Air Cmde Jasjit Singh (Retd) on behalf of the Forum for National Security Studies (the Trust running the Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi) and Printed by Shri Avtar Printing Press, 71/7, B-5, Rama Road Industrial Area, Najafgarh Road, New Delhi and Published at P-284, Arjan Path, Subroto Park, New Delhi 110 010. Editor: Air Commodore Jasjit Singh (Retd). Subscription Rates India ` 225.00 (single issue) ` 800.00 (4 issues) Overseas US$ 35.00 (single issue) US$ 130.00 (4 issues) RNI NO. DELENG/2012/41043 CONTENTS Editor’s Note V 1. India’s National Security: Challenges and Issues 1 Shivshankar Menon 2. Opening the Arctic’s Box with Environmental Change 15 Dhanasree Jayaram 3. Joint Training: Key to Synergy 25 S. S. Dhankhar 4. Pearl Harbour: As Viewed Through a Different Lens 37 V. Pereira 5. Crude Politics: Is it Really Worth it? 49 Sanjay Kulshrestha 6. Revisiting the 1971 War 61 Nishant Gupta 7. Imperatives of Space Security 73 Yeon Jung Ji 8. Iran-US Relations and the Nuclear Imbroglio 83 M. R. Khan CONTENTS 9. China’s Air Power: Capabilities and Strategy 93 J. V. Singh 10. Challenges in India-Pakistan Relations 105 K. N. Tennyson 11. The Hump Airlift: A Success Story 115 Ashok K. Chordia Defence and Diplomacy Journal Vol. 1 No. 3, 2012 (April-June) IV EDITOR’S NOTE You will be glad to know that Defence and Diplomacy has been very well received and we are indeed grateful to our subscribers for making it possible and authors for their efforts and contributions. We look forward to your continued support in future. This issue comes to you carrying the “Air Chief Marshal PC Lal Memorial Lecture” delivered this year by Shri Shivshankar Menon, the National Security Adviser, who lays special stress on the role of air power in India’s national security in future. For more than a century since the heavier than air machines began to fly, air power has played a crucial role in national defence as well as in economic growth in the civil sector, not to talk of being the highest position it occupies in the level of technology available to any country. The experience of wars waged in the post Cold War era only reinforces the importance of long range precision strike air power, whether land-based or launched from aircraft carriers. Our own experience in 1971 four decades ago, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on 7th December, 1941 and the historical “Hump Airlift” from India to China in Second World War stand out among the large number of major cases of successful employment of air power that changed the course of the war and history. The future, if anything, is likely to see more of what was experienced in the past with air power being the instrument of choice in the conduct of coercive and cooperative foreign policy. Jasjit Singh Director, Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi INDIA’S NATIONAL SECURITY: CHALLENGES AND ISSUES (P. C. Lal Memorial Lecture, April 2, 2012, organised by the Air Force Association) SHIVSHANKAR MENON Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh, Chief Marshal P.V. Naik, President, Air Force Association, Air Chief Marshal N.A.K. Browne, Chief of the Air Staff, Ladies and Gentlemen I am deeply honoured to be asked to deliver the P.C. Lal memorial lecture this year. The topic selected is a very wide one, as it should be for a lecture in memory of someone like Air Chief Marshal (ACM) Lal. His contributions to the nation were wide-ranging and manifold, ranging from national security to Indian air power and doctrine to defence industry to civil aviation and to allied subjects. After his education in St. Stephens College and King’s College, London, he had a distinguished war record in World War II, displayed his command of air strategy in the 1965 and 1971 Wars, and made major contributions to building up Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) as Managing Director (MD), and to civil aviation as Chairman and MD of Air India and Indian Airlines simultaneously. His autobiography and his seminal 1975 USI National Security lecture on “Some Problems in Defence” are well worth reading even today. They remind us of his eminent good sense, his strategic vision Shri Shivshankar Menon is the National Security Adviser to Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. 1 Defence and Diplomacy Journal Vol. 1 No. 3, 2012 (April-June) INDIA’S NATIONAL SECURITY: CHALLENGES AND ISSUES and his systems approach, optimising available resources. Dipping into ACM Lal’s autobiography, one is reminded of the importance of thinking for ourselves, given the uniqueness of India’s situation. In the 1965 and 1971 Wars, we saw the results of his systems approach, of making the best of what we had, with brilliant results for the Indian Air Force. But you know this better than I do. Air Chief Mshl Lal’s USI National Security lecture spoke of “responsible planning”, of “thinking purple” or jointness, of military officers in the Ministry of Defence, and of the proposal for a Chief of Defence Staff, which Gen Chaudhury had raised before him. It is worth reminding ourselves today of what Air Chief Mshl Lal advocated. He said, “Clear political direction, intelligent cooperation between the civil and the military authorities and close collaboration among the three Services” were what was needed. He never made Trenchard’s claim of “substitution” between one Service and another or between civil and military. Instead, he was an advocate of all three Services, and the civil and military authorities, working together in the most productive way, and he lived his life by his principles. He was truly a leader who lived a full and integrated life, whose work and writings are still relevant and bear repeating. Ladies and Gentlemen, A few days ago a young colleague of mine sent me an article by K.M. Panikkar, from the journal International Affairs of January 1946, about the defence and security of India. He distinguished between the defence of India (i.e., its internal organisation, the structure and maintenance of our armed forces, and so on) and the security of India. Panikkar said, “The Indian security sphere covers the entire Indian Ocean area. India’s interest in the security of the Persian Gulf, the integrity and stability of the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan, the neutralisation of Sinkiang and Tibet and the security of Burma, Siam and the Indo-Chinese coastline, apart, of course, from Malaysia and Singapore, is obvious enough to all”. Panikkar believed and argued that for its security, India must become the pivot of an organisation meant to preserve peace in this large area, with the primary security responsibilities remaining with Britain, and with defence as India’s responsibility. It was his view that that India’s defence should be based on a “ring-fence concept”. What Panikkar said about the Defence and Diplomacy Journal Vol. 1 No. 3, 2012 (April-June) 2 SHIVSHANKAR. MENON ring-fence was really no different in substance from what Hastings, Dalhousie and Curzon had said before him, and he admitted as much with some pride. Very soon after Panikkar wrote the article, developments in India, (partition and independence), the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Cold War, the state of the post-War world economy, and several other factors made his ideas and plans academic, influenced as they clearly were by the colonial after-effect on Indian minds.