The second part of the three parts article
deals with the role of modern weapons and equipment in adopting modern concepts
of war fighting and the government’s effort to establish a defence industrial
base.
Concept of military
modernisation
As for the country, most fail to
comprehend that military modernisation goes much beyond the realms of acquiring
state of the art weapons and equipment. Redesigning higher defence management
structures, re-organising the military into a lean, mean and an efficient war
machine with appropriate command, control and communication set ups,
establishing and grooming structures needed for deriving the maximum out of the
C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance,
and Reconnaissance) systems and evolving HRD policies to maintain the morale
and motivation of troops too are essential part of the modernisation exercise.
Upgrading military
hardware
Technological innovation and ensuing
transformation in weapon systems and equipment revolutionise war doctrines and war
fighting techniques. Military structures and organisations adapt themselves to
suit war doctrines and the type of war fighting envisaged. India,
unfortunately, has remained indifferent to the changes that have taken place in
the field of warfare and has been on a static run since independence. The state
of the Indian military at present belongs to the days of Field Marshal Montgomery.
Products of technological developments such as satellite imageries, drones,
unmanned vehicles in the air, sea and land, modern command and control systems,
precision warheads capable being launched from almost any platform, cyber and
electronic warfare tools have altered the way armies fight. These instruments
have a major impact on the operational planning, command and control in a
battle and the size and configuration of the defence services. As of today, the
defence services do not even have an institutionalised mechanism to harmonise
common tri-service issues such as procurement, logistics, training and personnel
policies.
The present day military structure,
operational concepts and training methods of the Indian Defence Services are
built around operations being planned and fought by individual services.
Operational concepts are based on mechanized warfare and large-scale ground
warfare concentrating primarily on ground combat with Navy and Air Force
providing combat support role besides dominating their own domain space. Stuck
with a structure which is unsuitable for modern warfare, outdated weapon
systems and equipment and a government unwilling to pay heed to the
requirements of the military in changed times, the Indian army has had no
option but to remain stagnant besides training and preparing for yesterday’s
war.
Major portion of the country’s
military hardware today are near obsolescent needing immediate replacement.
Confusing aims and lack of directions has resulted in shortage of finances for
any meaningful defence modernisation in keeping with the changes that are
taking place around the world. The clamor for cut in the defence budget from
some quarters and the poor state of the country’s social sector has pegged the
country’s defence budget ever since India’s independence to around two percent
of the GDP. The geo- political environment and the threat to the country’s
peace have thus been discounted.
Long borders, resultant large standing
army and lack of reforms which probably would have shaped the defence services into
a trim and sharp instrument has further compounded the problem leading to bulk
of the defence budget being spent on revenue account, leaving very little for
the crucial capital account expenditure. The contradiction is, even the meagre
funds available for capital expenditure are surrendered unexpended year after
year because of a muddled procurement procedure compounded by the Indian
bureaucratic attitude and ways. The effect of these procurement hassles has
left the military and the country to suffer costs on multiple accounts.
Defence industrial
base
One would be astounded to realise that
the ‘Defence Industrial Base’ which the government is talking about in relation
to its ‘Make in India’ policy already exists in the country with 44 Ordnance
Factories (OFs), 9 Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) and over 50
Defence Research and Development Laboratories under the Defence Research and
Development Organisation (DRDO). These OFs and the DPSUs alone employ a massive
workforce of 1,80,044 personnel while the Defence Laboratories employ
approximately 30,000 employees including 7,500 scientists. Most of these
establishments are non-performing assets considering the size of their
workforce and the money being spent on them. These establishments are not
relevant today in the context of India’s competent private sector, which is
capable of producing much better quality military related stores and equipment
than those produced by these government owned set ups.
Low technology infantile defence
industrial base, lethargic and outdated ordnance factories still kept running
with the sole purpose of retaining the existing work force and a large number
of DPSUs, which based on their lackluster performance ought to have been shut
down long ago, have all drained public money besides projecting huge eye catching
defence expenditure without any meaningful outcomes. Added to it, India’s Defence
Industrial policy had kept high technology and
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) out of
the scene. Most of the Defence R & D laboratories lack direction, a sense
of purpose and effective control besides the finances required to deliver
results and in time. With practically no incentives, research and development
related to defence equipment has failed to takeoff in the private sector
domain.
The role of
military in planning
Infrastructure development in the
country has a military angle to it. In its present state, the Indian Defence
Services present a depressing picture of an organisation incapacitated for
moblising troops in a manner that it meets the requirement of security and
speed. The problem is compounded in the mountains where switching forces from
one sector to the other in time to contain enemy offensive after it has been
discerned is a near impossibility. The irony is, even after witnessing a massive
dual purpose infrastructure come up across the border, we have not been able to
fathom the processes and the coordination that would have gone through between
the military, political hierarchy, the bureaucracy, and the financial controllers
to achieve what they have been able to, to enhance military capability and to
improve the quality of life of those living in their remote border areas
simultaneously.
Across our borders infrastructure such as National highways,
airfields communication networks and the like have been located and aligned
keeping in mind the requirements of security, surprise and quick mobilisation
besides the need to keep multiple military options in executing operational
plans. In our case, the erstwhile Planning Commission and the present National
Institution for Transforming India Aayog (NITI) has shut the doors for any
military involvement in the planning process. This deficiency in our planning
processes would negate the advantages that such inputs can provide and would
thus affect the quality of decisions which is not in the country’s larger interests.
Continued
in Part III: Structural Reforms and
Changes in HRD policies for the military. (blogs.economictimes.com)
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