It is a travesty of India’s intellect, academic as well as military, that solutions to problems Indian are, more often than not, sought on the basis of western philosophies and thought. Indian military analysts rely more on Sun Tzu or Clausewitz and Mahan with little thought to Chanakya’s Arthashasrtra, Shivaji’s strategy against vastly stronger Mughals or Kanhoji Angre’s sea battles against the British, Dutch and the Portuguese.

Our study of WWII, Vietnam war, in fact all recent American and Israeli wars, is deeper and wider than that of Indian wars, including those fought since Independence. The fundamental reason for this lacuna is our reluctance to find fault with ourselves and a propensity for finding scapegoats for own shortcomings, on one hand; and on the other, disdain for our power of thinking against the forcefully propagated western thought.

It is with this background that this article argues against the Indian Army’s and Indian Navy’s incessant clamouring for having a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) and Integrated Operational Commands. The article also aims to trash the army’s implied claim that air power would be utilised more effectively were it integrated into the existing operational army commands.

CHAIRMAN CHIEFS OF STAFF COMMITTEE vs. CHAIRMAN JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF

The Indian ‘Chiefs of Staff Committee’ (COSC) is in reality a Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, for it does comprise of all the chiefs of staff as does the American Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), except that the latter has an additional member, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, a combat arm which the Indian military does not have. Also, while the US JCS is headed by an independent chairman, who could be from any of the four arms, the COSC is chaired by one of its members; though, by convention, by the senior-most chief, government could well appoint any member as the chairman. To assist the chairman COSC in his functioning, he has an independent personal staff as well as several joint committees that are formed by staff from the three service headquarters (HQ). So the committee is as well equipped as it needs to be to consider and formulate war strategies. Having an independent arbiter at the apex, as does the US JCS, whom the Indian army and the navy want to ape, questions, so to speak, the very integrity, national loyalty, nonpartisan ethos, rational thinking of the three “wise men”. If indeed there is a need to doubt a service chief’s capability to put the country before his own service, then how does an independent chairman, but again from one of the services, suddenly acquire this nonpartisan quality? Are we forgetting a hallowed military axiom, faith begets faith, doubt leads to disintegration? Organisations do not bring about dependable solutions; it’s people who do! The questions to ask here are: not which sort of organisation will get us the right answer, but how to make existing organisations function as they ought; how do we get ourselves to have inter-service faith; how do we inculcate the confidence to bare open our inadequacies among ourselves; how do we air our doubts; how do we ask for each other’s help without false pretences. We are playing too much hide and seek within ourselves, and then when the chips are down, panic-stricken holler for help!! If we stop posing falsely with each other, confide with confidence, learn to accept own inadequacies and inabilities and ask for solutions and/or assistance from our sister services before the chips are down, we will save ourselves, not only a red-face, but an operational embarrassment.

Having the three service chiefs function equally as a committee has several advantages: An independent chairman “confronting” the government singly may not prove to be as effective in a crunch situation, as would be a committee of three. There have been instances of the US CJCS being “bullied” by his president, secretary of defence and by the cabinet. A quartet (or a trio in our case) would have had/will have a stronger chance of standing its ground. Before finally giving the “ok” to the army chief’s request for air support in the Kargil Operations, the prime minister, along with rest of the CCS (Cabinet Committee on Security), would have preferred the army to manage on its own the eviction of Pakistani intruders; but when the air chief intervened to say air support to the army was inescapable and that the air force was prepared to do so immediately, the PM accepted the request, though somewhat reluctantly.

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But there is a flip-side too. The COSC/JCS may have strong difference(s) within itself on professional grounds. It would be a folly to leave the arbitration always with the chairman. A political intervention could become inevitable under certain circumstances; a strongly dissenting chief could be over-ruled by the chairman without the knowledge of the CCS/PM. Such a situation can have serious consequences. Such a situation was in the offing during the Kargil operations. Army HQ wanted Air HQ to provide armed helicopter support without – not only not getting government clearance, but even without keeping the government informed. It had become impossible to persuade Army HQ to understand that given the high terrain, lack of vegetation and the exceedingly good visibility, mere helicopter operations would be suicidal; also, before commencing air operations, it was axiomatic that the air force be prepared for sudden escalation. We had to take cognizance of our 1965 experience: we had used the out-dated vampires against the Pakistani armoured offensive in the Chhamb-Jaurian sector without preparing ourselves for escalation. The inevitable had happened: the Vampires were shot out of the sky and the PAF counter-air attacks on our airfields destroyed several aircraft on ground. Our air support in the Kargil operations did not invite retaliation by the PAF because they realised that it would be a jump from the frying-pan in to the fire! Insistence on using fighters saved us many helicopter casualties. A CJCS could well have over-ruled a dissenting air chief, with disastrous consequences.

A popular misconception doing the rounds among veterans is that the defence secretary (defsecy) lords over the service chiefs. Firstly, such a situation can occur only if a service HQ/chief allows this to happen. Scrutinising service proposals is a legitimate function of MOD; defsecy does this on behalf of the RM (Defence Minister); he has no authority of his own. If there is adequate substance in a service proposal, MOD cannot deny it, though they may delay it. But if the arm-chair free-advising lot think that introduction of the CJCS will remove this “over-lording”, they are sadly mistaken: the defsecy will be upgraded to prindefsecy (principal defence secretary) and there will be a detrimental change in MOD-service HQ working relationship: the service chiefs will not only not get to see the RM, but they will also not be able to approach the prindefsecy!!

Before considering establishment of a CJCS, a comprehensive analysis ought to be done on the benefits or otherwise accrued from the establishment of the Integrated Defence Staff HQ. It is the author’s view that it may not have accrued the benefits that were envisaged, but may have further complicated the interactions between Services’ Headquarters and Ministry of Defence (MOD); also, formulation of joint plans could have become more tenuous. There is also a need to consider the likely increases in defence budget and non-operational manpower. In short: stop fiddling around unnecessarily, function within the existing system and make it work.

INTEGRATED THEATRE COMMANDS

Before man took to the skies, command of territories was dictated by armies and the navies ruled over the seas. But once the warrior got a bird’s eye view, he realised soon enough that if one dominated the skies, land was his to occupy and foresaw that if he soared like the albatross and had the flight endurance of a bar-tailed godwit that flies non-stop from Alaska to New Zealands, he could cross the oceans without a ship. While this gave a warrior without inhibitions and a weighing-down prefix of land or sea, an outlook extending well beyond the horizon, the traditional soldier and sea-warrior saw this as a diminishment of his domain. Just like the Jurassic period terrestrial Tyrannosaurus and the marine Elasmosaurus would not have countenanced the Pterosaurs dominating them from the sky, the modern day armies and navies find it difficult to accept air forces usurping their domains; while the aforesaid words are more in jest, the reality is that the aerial reach and destructive power of air forces could be overwhelmingly greater than that of land or marine forces. While quite appreciative of this, armies and navies would rather have this power under their control, than let the air force take the dominating role.

Even the US military have a difficulty in managing their strength within their allotted budget, though their monetary largesse, as a percentage of the GDP, is more than double that of India and in absolute terms, several times higher; yet India’s difficulty in this determination is many times that of the US. It is a fundamental maxim that one needs to cut his coat according to his cloth. When there is but one piece of cloth and three coats to cut, determining the size of the coats is difficult, but very crucial.

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The difficult task of determining the structures and strengths of our military arms could be less complicated, were we to unequivocally state in the preamble to the joint doctrine the prioritisation of our security concerns and gave a broad outline of how we intend to counter them. There should be little debate before concluding that there are two top, uncontested issues: China’s belligerent claim on Indian territory and Pakistan’s incessant claim to Kashmir. How do we prevent Pakistan from encroaching further in to Kashmir and then politically reclaiming POK/militarily evicting Pakistan forces from POK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir).

In the short term, how do we continue to thwart China’s nibbling our territory; in the long-term, can we contemplate freeing our Chinese-occupied territories? A dispassionate, objective computer-managed war-gaming analysis should give us a fair verdict on our required military strategy and structure. This author’s gut-feeling is that the IAF will have the most crucial role to play in both the scenarios. The size of its “coat” will have to increase substantially, and it would have to be regularly moved from theatre-to-theatre and back. Giving/allotting a fixed air force to any command would be an impossibility, more so if India is to envision a two-front conflict. Thus the concept of an integrated command has no validity when addressing only homeland security. Well in to the future, when India’s influence and trade grow to global proportions, we could contemplate highly mobile integrated task forces; until then protect your own territory(ies), for which we do not require integrated commands.

Despite the above argument against creating integrated home-based commands, should the army continue its clamour for integrated commands, army commanders need to accept that air force commanders are equally, if not more so, fit to head these unnecessary formations. Aerial warfare sophistication is increasing exponentially, and army commanders, who are already hard put to comprehend use of air power, will be even more disadvantaged. It is for this reason that Army is so reluctant to share its in-house studies and reports. Ever ready to trash air support in operations, their actual analytical reports are kept under wraps. The Kargil war report was presented to the RM with much fanfare, but Air HQ was neither requested to participate in its preparation, nor given a copy for its knowledge, if not critique. Air HQ is still to get a whiff of it, despite repeated requests over the years.

IAF has been more successful than most air forces in thwarting armies’ preoccupation with their addiction to have air forces under their grip. Recent writings by PAF veterans are a testimony to their unhappiness to Pakistan Army’s dominance over them. When this author (the first serving chief to do so) visited China, the PLAAF (Chinese AF) chief was ever so keen to know how the IAF does not operate under the supremacy of the army, a suffocating experience for them, which inhibited their balanced growth, training and strategic orientation. Can one imagine a PLAAF chief briefing his IAF counterpart how to “manage” the army commander at Chengdu, in command of the Tibet military region? Well, that’s exactly what happened nearly two decades ago! He was keen to have his delegations visit IAF’s selection centres and training institutions. A PLAAF delegation did visit the AF selection centre at Mysore, but it was not considered appropriate to give them access to our training institutions.

CONCLUSION

It is time that Indian military commanders learnt to trust their own experiences more than those of foreign military commanders. We should have gained sufficient confidence to admit mistakes, wrong decisions, give credit where it is due and not seek it for self-glory. We have to understand there is no single-service operation. Even if there is no actual participation by a service, it needs to evaluate whether it could have chipped-in with advice or actual support. The military must understand that an operation/a failure/a faux pas, howsoever insignificant must be revealed to government; we cannot be disdainful that “these civilians” can never understand; it is our job to make them understand. Let us not fight for self-glory or accruing power. If our motto truly is SERVICE BEFORE SELF, then the motto of even of greater and higher significance has to be NATION BEFORE OWN SERVICE! If we can follow that creed, we will accept that there is neither the need for Chairman Joint Chiefs of Defence Staff, nor the need for Integrated Theatre Commands in the existing Indian scenario.

– The author spearheaded the IAF during the 1999 Kargil War