Why military reforms (Part III)

The concluding part of the three parts article scans the maladies of the existing structures and suggests the direction for structural reforms and changes in HRD policies in the military.

Military’s operational planning

In the absence of a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), operational plans perforce will have to be decided by consensus amongst the service chiefs in an environment where the three services are virtually autonomous, operationally. The resultant outcome is a compromise plan which is a blend of three stand-alone operational procedures of three different services. In the bargain implementation of operational strategies that can provide swift and out of proportion returns would be limited to the extent of compromises obtainable from individual services. Suffice it to say, the fate of country’s defence and security have been abandoned to outcomes of balloting.

Working of the MOD

Since independence, the status of the service headquarters in the structural hierarchy of the Government has remained as attached offices to the Ministry of Defence (MOD) primarily to prevent the military from being included in the Government’s decision making process. This ‘keep them out’ policy has resulted in decisions concerning National Security being decreed by the bureaucrats with virtually no practical knowledge or experience on the subject. Lack of integration of the military into the fold of the MOD has thus created a ‘they’ and ‘we’ divide between these two entities which definitely is not in the interest of the country’s security.

Proposals emanating from service headquarters, including at the level of the Principle Staff Officers are dissected by desk officers in the MOD as a part of bureaucratic scrutiny. With practically no knowledge of the military or war fighting they reverse engineer the process by raising basic and irrelevant queries more to figure out the issue rather than examining the content of the proposal objectively. The process carries on endlessly for months and years frustrating the military besides leaving no time for any other productive work. It is only after those quizzes are responded to, that the correspondences from the military are placed before the addressee bureaucrat. After the proposals are cleared by the ministry, the finance department of the MOD raises its own interrogations often giving an impression that the military is not being trusted.

The MOD and its finance branch are seldom concerned with delays or the urgency of the matter frustrating Service Headquarters. This attitude has caused bitterness and the defence services have come to believe that the bureaucracy is distorting the concept of civilian control of military to bureaucratic hegemony over the services. This belief has gained further credence after the bureaucracy, in a number of cases, had acted in a manner suggestive of its contempt and lack of faith in the Parliamentary Committees and Courts by deciding to re – examine, delay, reject or water down their recommendations and conclusions supporting the services views. Obviously, the bureaucracy has come to assume that they are above the courts and the Parliament of the country. Functionally, the MOD and the service headquarters operating as two different entities have increased bureaucratic hassles and workload, delayed decision making processes adversely, even to the extent of disregarding safety of lives and permanent damage to costly equipment while degrading the standing of the service chiefs in the eyes of their own troops.

Handling military operations related situations

The handling of clashes and standoffs at the borders by the MOD had all along been lackluster exposing professional incompetence which obviously would be the case if those handling live war like situations lack basic minimum military knowledge and practical experience. In one particular instance, the actions of the government gave an impression that a super body outside the MOD had taken control of a standoff situation which ought to have been handled at best at the level of the Joint Secretary in the MOD and by the Brigade or a Divisional Commander in the field provided the people concerned had visualised such situations and had applied their mind earlier. Isn’t it normal and logical to expect such confrontation in the borders under the present prevailing circumstances? 

When incidents which ought to have been anticipated take place, should those responsible to handle the occurrence go silent and allow some other body to get into their shoes? The handling of the situation clearly brings out the panic and lack of self confidence in the minds of the leadership. Or was it lack of trust by the highest political authority in the professional competence and in the ability of those who were meant to handle the issue? The ineptitude and lack of clarity are obvious. To add to the confusion, the command and control arrangements at the troubled spot were anything but what ought to have been. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), which controls the paramilitary outfit at the border, appeared to be playing its own song in the midst of a grand orchestra. The MOD, the body which is responsible to handle such situations, provide directions and keep the people informed to assuage their fears and forestall rumour, remained silent giving mixed signals to the country and the adversary alike. In any case does anyone know who was supposed to handle such situations to its logical conclusion?

Restructuring MOD and the military at headquarters formations and units

The Ministry of Defence, Service Headquarters, formations and static headquarters and military units need restructuring as the present structures are not in tune with the requirements of efficiency or modern warfare. The flab in these outfits needs to be cut down to bring about efficiency and make them cost effective and functionally oriented. The systems and procedures in these organisations need review and there is a need to cut down on the clerical staff. Cases will have to be examined directly by the officers, type out their opinion and send them to authorities concerned for further opinion on the net rather than files floating around providing chance for leakages. Once a decision has been arrived it, the file can be stored for future reference. There is a need to restructure various arms, services, the logistic chain and the logistic systems for war fighting after taking into account the combined resources available with the three services and fashion them proportionate to their role. The need to restructure India’s military to meet the changing requirements of modern conditions and warfare is irrefutable.

HRD Policies

Today short command tenures, the need to show results within the short command stints and the ‘zero mistake’ yardsticks that have been developed over the years has not contributed to the development of confident and zealous field commanders. In the bargain troops have been flogged without any meaningful honing of their war fighting skills and junior leaders have not been provided the time and opportunity to train their commands, experiment with tactical situations and handle men in peace as well as in field conditions.

Those in command of troops are bound to make mistakes and things are bound to go wrong when in command. Similarly those involved in developing strategies are bound to take time or bring out philosophies which may not be workable or not to the liking of higher commanders. In the present system such mistakes will ruin the career of individual officers. As a result, with the present Annual Confidential Report (ACR) oriented system, officers prefer to spend maximum time in staff appointments so that there are no risks to their promotion. This time passing bureaucratic attitude is bound to adversely affect the service as a whole. Unfortunately, the system that we have developed over a period of time has cultivated a brand of leadership which places greater emphasis on personal advancement by projecting oneself and his outfit rather than working towards continuity and the good of the defence services as a whole.

All this is the result of the irrationality created by the Third Central Pay Commission, which equated Military and Civil services for Pay and Pensions despite diverse service conditions and terms of retirement. With relative status amongst the civil and military and perks such as travel by air, class of accommodation on temporary duties etc, being linked to pay and the Police and Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) being permitted to wear military badges of ranks, the race for catching up with the civil and not to lag behind the police and the CAPF began in the defence services in full earnest resulting in unimaginable damage to the very ethos of the Armed Forces. Demand for increase in vacancies in higher ranks, devaluation and proliferation of military ranks, up gradation of existing appointments to higher ranks, senior ranked officers performing duties hitherto performed by junior officers not commensurate with their experience, short command tenures and a wide gap in the rank of commanders and fighting troops are all the result of this ill-conceived idea. The web, into which the government has thus got itself entangled, has brought about a situation where the quest for promotion and equation with civil services will be a never ending phenomenon. Obsession with promotion thus created has affected the ethos of the defence services and has resulted in the declining standards of integrity and moral courage in officers, especially in senior ranks. The demands of the military in terms of vacancies, promotions and increase in pay will be never ending and insatiable.

As a part of military modernisation, areas relating to promotions, appointments, tenures in appointments, retirement ages, postings, foreign and criteria courses and foreign postings in the defence services need to become transparent and beyond favoritism, likes and dislikes of officers in position of power and authority. The system of ACRs needs to become more objective with service interest as the sole criteria. There is a need to lay down a well-defined transparent policy with regard to selection criteria, procedure and appointment of the CDS and Chiefs of Services. The promotion policies of Officers, Junior Commissioned Officers and Other Ranks, the promotion criteria, periodicity of promotion boards, channels of approval and time frame for declaring the promotion board results need to be made visible and specified on a rational basis. If and when Joint headquarters come up, issues relating to the selection and promotion criteria for these staff appointments need enunciation besides a system evolved for the promotion of officers in such joint staff. Over a period of time the HR set ups of the three services will have to be amalgamated. The Army, Navy and Air Force Acts need review in the light of changed times. Separate Pay Commission for the Defence Services taking into account their differing conditions of service from other government employees will need to be instituted.

Conclusion

The system of President of India being appointed the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces has outlived its utility as the impact or the influence of the President on the government in matters relating to the Armed Forces has been virtually nonexistent. As for the MOD it had been more of a stumbling block in the growth and morale of the Defence Services. The Armed Forces, therefore, need to be made accountable to the Parliament and vice versa. To facilitate Parliament scrutiny as well as its intervention in matters military, there is a need to institutionalise regular interaction between appointed Parliamentary Committees and the CDS as well as the Chiefs of the Services.

As part of restructuring, the role of the Defence Minister, Defence Secretary, the CDS, the Service Chiefs and the Theater Commanders will have to be specified. The areas of jurisdiction and the Chain of reporting within the Defence Services and with the MOD will have to be explicitly laid down. Consequently, suitable mechanisms to enable the CDS to provide advice on matters relating to National Security and the Defence Services directly to the National Security Council (NSC), the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister will have to be worked out. The Deputy to the CDS needs to be slotted in, in the NITI Aayog to get inputs from the Defence Services in Nation building, development and to policies affecting military’s requirements.

To prevent Civil military divide as it exists today, there is a need to delink Order of Precedence and status of Armed Forces personnel from pay scales. A suitable method to enhance the pride of the soldiers and Veterans Community based on their sacrifices will have to be built in. Respect and dignity to soldiers and their families need to be made a norm in the functioning of the Civil Services, including Police especially in rural areas. The lynchpin in the reform process would be the CDS. His selection and tenure, therefore, would need very careful consideration and thought. It would take a minimum of 10 years for the reforms to take some shape from the time the CDS is positioned. If we fail to act now on the issue of modernisation, the defence services will become a liability to the nation very soon, incapable of delivering at the time of need.

Concluded. (blogs.economictimes.com)