The Arihant in India's Quest for a Grand Strategy

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The Arihant in India's Quest for a Grand Strategy This article was downloaded by: [King's College London] On: 18 November 2014, At: 10:55 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Comparative Strategy Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ucst20 Lost at Sea: The Arihant in India's Quest for a Grand Strategy Frank O’Donnella & Yogesh Joshib a Department of Defence Studies, King's College London, Strand, London, United Kingdom b Center for International Politics, Organisation and Disarmament, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India Published online: 18 Nov 2014. To cite this article: Frank O’Donnell & Yogesh Joshi (2014) Lost at Sea: The Arihant in India's Quest for a Grand Strategy, Comparative Strategy, 33:5, 466-481 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01495933.2014.962970 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. 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Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions Lost at Sea: The Arihant in India’s Quest for a Grand Strategy FRANK O’DONNELL Department of Defence Studies King’s College London Strand, London, United Kingdom YOGESH JOSHI Center for International Politics Organisation and Disarmament School of International Studies Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi, India India’s first nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine, the INS Arihant, signifies a mile- stone in its rise to power. However, its development and supportive strategic discourse reveal the absence of an Indian grand strategy. India urgently needs a grand strategy to direct its defense policy. Introduction India has reached a historical milestone by developing its first nuclear-armed submarine, the INS Arihant. India now joins a small group of nations that are able to indigenously develop submarine-launched nuclear weapons technology. The emergence of the Arihant constitutes a critical juncture in India’s status as a rising power and its efforts to operationalize credible nuclear and naval forces. Its deployment in the Indian Ocean will bolster Indian naval force projection, underline India’s intentions to develop a full nuclear triad of land, air, and sea forces, and represent another attribute of the great-power status New Delhi desires. However, the development history of the Arihant, and its reception as an emerging mil- itary tool within Indian strategic discourse, reveals certain characteristics of Indian strategic thought and planning. The Arihant has surfaced from an ad hoc and secret development process spanning decades. As the submarine nears completion and its technical details become available, reactions to its emergence in Indian strategic discourse regularly feature suggested missions and roles that exceed those for a nuclear-armed submarine for use as a Downloaded by [King's College London] at 10:55 18 November 2014 last resort. These tendencies raise questions about the Arihant’s ultimate strategic purposes. The manner of the Arihant’s development and introduction highlights several aspects of India’s strategy development. The intensive secrecy during development hinders its effective integration into strategic discourse through a realistic appraisal of the potential missions. The Arihant is instead assigned various prospective missions. These recommended missions compensate for the absence of a grand strategy that identifies political objectives for this military resource to meet. Releasing a public national security strategy alongside regular public consultations would permit India to best leverage its intellectual, economic, and military resources. This 466 Comparative Strategy, 33:466–481, 2014 Copyright © 2014 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC 0149-5933 print / 1521-0448 online DOI: 10.1080/01495933.2014.962970 The Arihant in India’s Quest for a Grand Strategy 467 release would reduce the current distortions in its strategic discourse based upon the details of military technologies. Theories of Grand Strategy The academic concept of grand strategy is essential as a means for states to organize their resources to meet political objectives. These objectives are designed to advance their interests in the international system, as national polities define these interests. There is no single agreed definition of grand strategy in the literature. The discourse on grand strategy revolves around the question of the degree to which a grand strategy must be fully defined in order to operate. Basil Liddell Hart, a British military historian writing in the mid-twentieth century, defined the role of grand strategy as “to co-ordinate and direct all the resources of a nation, or band of nations, toward the attainment of the political object of the war.”1 This is too limited a definition; it is difficult to distinguish grand strategy here from “strategy,” which is the threat or the use of force to obtain a political objective. Grand strategy can incorporate strategies, but must necessarily involve something broader than the use of force, as force is only one instrument available to a state. Grand strategy should also not be confined to wartime, as states have long-term interests and develop policies to support these in peaceable contexts as well.2 Hal Brands has alternatively offered a succinct definition that integrates more instru- ments than the use of force. Grand strategy is “the theory, or logic, that binds a country’s highest interests to its daily interactions with the world,” and “at its best, grand strategy represents an integrated conception of interests, threats, resources and policies.”3 This is more useful as a starting point for our analysis. However, to understand when a grand strategy is in operation, we must look to define its components. This leads to the questions of how to identify grand strategy; how to recognize its existence, characteristics, and mode of operation. Can grand strategy only be said to exist when it is extensively publicly articulated, and its following policies dictated to every operational level? Or is greater flexibility possible, in that private recognition of the interests by the government and some broad policy approaches to meet these are all that is needed? As a third option, is it possible for a state to conduct itself in global affairs without a grand strategy? Edward Luttwak, in a recent historical work, suggests that “All states have a grand Downloaded by [King's College London] at 10:55 18 November 2014 strategy, whether they know it or not. That is inevitable because grand strategy is simply the level at which knowledge and persuasion, or in modern terms intelligence and diplomacy, interact with military strength to determine outcomes in a world of other states, with their own grand strategies.”4 This argument suggests that grand strategy inherently operates at the level of political leadership. The identification of interests and development of supportive policies automatically produces the grand strategy. Grand strategies may be well or poorly operationalized, but no state exists in the international system without one. There is also a robust debate about whether India possesses a grand strategy. The academic literature on this question divides into two main schools. One school argues that India has an identifiable grand strategy, with the political objective of ensuring a stable external environment conducive to domestic goals of internal cohesion and economic growth. This school admits that there is little in the way of official publications to verify this approach, but insists that it can be elucidated by reviewing government conduct over a period of decades.5 468 F. O’Donnell and Y. Joshi The second school argues that India has no appreciable grand strategy. Arguments in this school may not necessarily go as far as that of George Tanham, who famously argued that India also lacked an underlying strategic culture thinking about the use of force, but cohere around an understanding that India’s external conduct is ad hoc and reactive.6 There are no commonly understood political objectives to plan policies around. These arguments are more convincing due to their support by several Indian diplomats. One has remarked of his work, “You make up your own goals, which is hugely enjoyable and has impact. But it would be nice to have direction from time to time.”7 This article argues that an Indian grand strategy is non-existent. This absence is dis- cussed as it relates to the fielding of the Arihant and its political integration into strategic discourse. For a grand strategy to be effectively communicated, it must be externally iden- tifiable. Luttwak’s point about grand strategy as merely the viewpoint of decision makers at the apex of their political systems overlooks the problems that can occur when this view- point is not coherently communicable. But a larger problem also arises when components of the polity do not share the objectives or means to attain them.
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