Modi 3.0 must improve civil-military relations. Bring NSS, relieve CDS of extra duties

India’s Chief of Defence Staff is mandated to wear too many hats, which can impact his advisory duties. The government must address this.

Lt General Prakash Menon

The 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the results have certainly strengthened India’s democratic credentials. The future course charted by the central government, led for the third time by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will be revealed through its policies and actions, indicating the extent of acceptance of the broad political contours of the electoral verdict, albeit subjectively interpreted.

In the realm of national security and specifically civil-military relations, the road to reform is always long and endless. The importance of unfailingly persisting with attempts to bring about improvements cannot be overemphasised. It is derived from the fact that while the political leadership decides about shaping and applying the military instrument in the practice of statecraft, its knowledge of military matters is understandably insufficient without inputs from the professional military leadership. More importantly, the crystallisation of political objectives to be achieved through military force should only be done after a thorough interaction between political and military leaders. Such interactions must be undergirded by reinforcing mutual understanding of objectives, capabilities, required resources, and the risks involved.

The primary aim of improving civil-military relations is to strengthen military effectiveness in an increasingly complex political, strategic, technological, economic and geopolitical environment. Without mutual understanding, the political leadership may either underutilise the capabilities of the military or try to get them to act beyond their capacity.

In India’s constitutional framework, the President serves as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, signifying civilian supremacy. However, the military, which is expected to use force, is the sole professional entity responsible for developing skills in the application of large-scale violence and defending the nation from adversaries attempting the same. What this implies is that despite civilian supremacy, political leadership heavily relies on military advice in shaping and applying military strategies.

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Overburdened CDS

The post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) was created on 1 January 2020. It was mandated that the CDS inter alia would act as the Principal Military Advisor to the Union Defence minister on all Tri-Service matters and as the Military Advisor to the Nuclear Command Authority (NCA). These advisory roles are related to the development and potential application of military force, with the NCA exclusively handling nuclear weapon use.

Additionally, the CDS is mandated to wear two more hats—one as the Secretary of the Department of Military Affairs (DMA) and Permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (PCCOSC). Fulfilling the advisory aspects of these appointments is challenging in peacetime and even more so during security crises and war. There is a strong case for the CDS to be divested of the role of Secretary DMA. It could be addressed by the Centre, alongside the establishment of the long-awaited Theatre Command, which hopefully the NDA government will expedite on priority.

Ideally, considering the importance of the advisory role in times of war and the operational role of Theatre Commanders, the CDS should only have two roles—Principal Military Advisor to the Defence Minister and Military Advisor to the NCA. He should not be encumbered with any operational role. This also means that a separate PCCOSC will need to be appointed. The CDS, whenever necessary, could be a special invitee to the meetings of the COSC or an equivalent mechanism once the Theatre Command is formed.

NSS and statecraft

One of the most important components of civil-military relations is achieving a shared appreciation of the global and regional geopolitical environment. From this shared understanding would evolve the nature and scope of threats to national security as well as the opportunities that could be exploited. This requires a National Security Strategy (NSS), which, like Theatre Command, remains an unfulfilled aspiration. In 2018, an apex-level Defence Planning Committee (DPC), chaired by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, was set up to formulate an NSS and a National Defence Strategy. The DPC was anchored in the HQ Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) in the Ministry of Defence. However, there has been no update on its progress since then.

The new government should task the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB), part of the National Security Council (NSC), with developing an NSS and institutionalising an annual review. The NSAB, which directly operates under the NSA, supposedly includes a multi-disciplinary representation. It consists of people outside the government and mostly includes retired government officials, experts from the private sector and academia.

The NSAB is the appropriate forum to craft the NSS as it is located at the highest policy-making position. It can garner the necessary expertise and access intelligence and information. The first NSAB, headed by K Subrahmanyam, crafted India’s Nuclear Doctrine. The fact that it has endured in its original form bears testimony to the NSAB’s potential.

The long-term planning for developing various tools of statecraft—such as the military, economy, diplomacy, technology, intelligence and information—depends on the guidance from the NSS. On the other hand, for the practitioners dealing with the here and now using resources available in the kitty, the absence of the NSS can be somewhat made up for by broad policies and effective tools. However, the argument that India is managing quite well without an NSS cannot hold for long-term planning. It is imperative to allocate scarce resources to develop tools of statecraft so that it is available and ready for practitioners when needed.

The selection of higher military leadership is the prerogative of political leadership, but it must be based primarily on professional competence. As holders of military expertise, their advice must be forthright and free from the tendency to be yes-men to political leaders. This requires military leaders to always place professional perceptions of national interests over personal interests. The political leadership must remain sensitive to the fact that supersession in selecting military leaders should be exceptional. The prevailing atmosphere shaped by rule-tweaking manoeuvre must be eschewed. The recent short notice one-month extension given to Army Chief General Manoj Pande, and the speculations that followed, reflect an ambience that needs correction.

Political guidance based on a National Security Strategy and its derivative, the National Defence Strategy, has long been overdue. Such insufficiencies often lead to avoidable issues, such as the overreach of political supremacy in selecting higher leadership, the CDS being overburdened with multiple roles that could impact his advisory duties, and delays in instituting the Theatre Command. Considering the combined negative impact of these factors on military preparedness and effectiveness, the new government must act swiftly to put the national security system in order under the darkening clouds of global and regional geopolitical tensions.

Lt Gen (Dr) Prakash Menon (retd) is Director, Strategic Studies Programme, Takshashila Institution; former military adviser, National Security Council Secretariat. He tweets @prakashmenon51. Views are personal.