PREPARE FOR THREE FRONT WAR: INDIA's SECURITY IMPERATIVE IN 21st CENTURY !
By
Col Rajinder Singh (retired)
The security environments of India have undergone diabolic changes in the recent past. As India marches further into the 21st Century, it is becoming abundantly clear that threat to her integrity and sovereignty rises from three adversaries, i.e. internal foe in the form of raging insurgencies, inclusive of North East, J&K and Maoists/Naxalite militancy; external foes on the Western and Northern borders. The threat becomes more serious when we consider that all three have begun to seek coordination and mutual support against their common enemy,‘called India ’. It becomes imperative for India to develop ability to face all three adversaries simultaneously and concurrently. And this has to be developed as early as by 2015 as India would enter a major security minefield after 2015. Time is running out for Indian defense planners.
Recent Maoist attack in Darba Ghati of Chhatisgarh provide ample proof of seriousness of the threat arising out of internal foes. It is no doubts they are trained and equipped by India's Northern and Western adversaries. There is enough evidence available of Chinese and ISI connection. Therefore India has to take peace overtures from China and Pakistan with pinch of Salt. Pakistan sees its "JIHADIS" as "Strategic Assets" against India. With US?NATO troops pulling out of Afghanistan in 2014 and thereby likely gaining of an upper hand by Pakistan, the security environments of India would become dangerously more acute.
China’s aggressive posture towards India and her hectic activities of 'string of pearls' policy in the Indian ocean, rail-road construction in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) along with positioning of its troops in the FCNA of Pakistan, some two years back, is a sure indicator of her future intentions about India. On April 15, 2013, some 50 PLA troops intruded into Indian territory, up to 19 KMs in Daulat Beg Oldi(DBO) Sector of Ladakh and established a tented camp. This was clear provocation and NO friendly act. Though matter was resolved amicably, but it was at a great cost to India, where she had to accept Chinese terms to dismantle Indian look-out post in Chumar.
If one adds to this macabre high-handedness of China, the unfolding schism of ‘Kayani Doctrine’ from Pakistan and the poisonous fangs of Maoism/ Naxalite violence, now biting 240 districts of 20 Indian states, one finds a classic script for India’s planned disintegration by her internal and external foes. Yes, India is likely to be under siege by her internal and external foes, in the ensuing decade.
Read all this in conjunction with an article that appeared in the year 2009 in ‘Global Times’, an English language Chinese official internet news portal. The article had sought to break up India into 20-30 smaller states to remove India as an impediment to China ’s global ambitions. It suits the Pakistani military and her Generals, who see a united India, as a potential threat to their rule in Pakistan.
It also suits the sectarian interests of some self-styled guardians of India’s poor i.e. tribal, rural and urban, all included. Indian history is full of instances of traitors like‘Jai Chand, who joined hands with Mohammed Gori against Prithvi Raj Chohan; King Ambhi of Taxila, who sided with Alexander against King Porus and ‘Mir Jaffar’, who betrayed Nawab Sirajudaula and helped Lord Clive. In modern times, they masquerade as ‘Koteshwar Rao’, “Kishenji” and “Ganpati” or even as “Paresh Barua”, “Sayyed Gillani”, “Dawood Ibrahim” and “Wadhava Singh”. Defense and strategic planners in India cannot view these internal mascots of danger separately or in isolation the 'three-pronged' danger to national security, emanating in unison from inside and outside.
Centuries back, great Indian thinker-cum-administrator, ‘Chanakya’, had listed four dangers to national security. They were: one, emanating from outside and abetted from outside; two, emanating from inside and abetted from inside; three, emanating from outside and abetted from inside; lastly, emanating from inside and abetted from outside. He had also cautioned that a threat emanating from inside and abetted from outside was the most dangerous threat for the integrity of a state. Time has come for India to upgrade her security apparatus to be able to cope concurrently with this three way pincer.
In all assessments, the threat to Indian security from China is considered paramount. In an interview, to editor-in-chief, Mr. Raj Chengappa, of ‘The Tribune’, a North India daily from Chandigarh, published on October 17, 2010, General VK Singh, then, Chief of army staff of Indian Army, while talking of China, had rightly observed that notwithstanding the present peace on the Chinese borders, there was a need to be vigilant as the intentions can change when the capabilities grow. In other words, peace or no peace, Chinese threat cannot be discounted, particularly when you view it in terms of its latest activities around India.
China had been following a policy of encirclement of India both by sea and land. Its 'string of pearls' spreads from Gwador in Pakistan, through Hamanbantota in Sri Lanka to deep water port at Sittwe in Myanmar. It would control the sea lanes to India in the Indian Ocean. Besides, China had been busy in making foray into South Asian nations around India. India has Pakistan on her western borders, whose military sees India not only her enemy number one but also the only evil in the world. The Maoist Nepal, despite temporary setback, also looks to China as a friend, philosopher and a guide. China has also cultivated Bangla Desh and sees it as a major anti-India plank for seeding and supporting separatist movements in India’s North East states. It supported Sri Lanka with weapons and equipment, during its final war with LTTE in the year 2008-09. What is worse is that China has been supporting the military regime in Myanmar to go nuclear through covert assistance from North Korea. If it happens then, India would be fully flanked in the North, East and the West by nuclear states. It would be very dangerous situation for India.
Thus, China’s over all military strategy against India has been four pronged:-
(a) Contain and isolate India by making her
neighbors hostile and unfriendly.
(b) Outsource its low cost proxy war to
Pakistan and Maoists/Naxalites by:-
(i) Supporting and encouraging internal
Insurgencies brewing in India and thus
break-up India through implosion.
(ii) Using Pakistan to the maximum to
retard India’s military and economic growth.
(c) Dominate sea-lanes around India through a
‘String of Pearls’ policy.
(d) Befool Indian leadership and Indian
public through overt goodwill gestures in the interregnum period.
Military Generals of Pakistan have their own arithmetic on India. Their game is to survive as rulers of Pakistan at all costs. The only way they can do this is by creating a “monster of Hindu India” in the public mind of their country and thus hobnob with anyone who is unhappy with India and her policies, whether it was USA of 50s though 70s or China since 1962. In so doing, if they have to ignore basic Pakistani interests, so be it.
In any case, in Pakistan’s military perceptions, interests of the ‘Generals’ are the national interests of Pakistan. It is, therefore, in their interests to have a continued state of hostility between India and Pakistan. Any attempt to normalize relations must be scuttled with some irreconcilable incidents, like Kargil-99 episode; assault on Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001 or Mumbai 26/11.
Thus, Pakistan military follows five pronged strategy on India, as under:-
(a) Isolate India by enhancing US/ West helplessness over Afghanistan by controlling militant network engaging USA/NATO in Afghanistan.
(b) Act in conjunction with China to not only retard India’s economic and military growth but also be an important node of a combined threat in-being to India’s security.
(c) Continued animosity with India by harping about ‘unfinished agenda of 1947’ and seeking Kashmir.
(d) Weaken, attrite and balkanize India through her ‘War by Other Means’ (WOM) by using her so called ‘strategic asset’.
(e) Use nuclear black mail to check mate India from a 'measured military response' and use of ‘strategic depth’ in case of controlled nuclear exchange. Thus, Afghanistan remains her major worry, if it was hostile to her. This is the Achilles heel in their strategy.
Both China and Pakistan seek to dismember India by an internal explosion triggered by double pronged fuse from the East via China-supported- Maoist/Naxalite insurgency, along with other separatist movements in the North East states and from the West through Pakistan sponsored trouble in Punjab, J&K and entire North India. \
There is no real effort required to find links of Maoists and other terrorist outfits of India with India’s Western and Northern adversaries. In fact, while Pakistan treats ‘ultra-outfits’ as her ‘strategic asset’; China covertly supports them with weapons, training and a safe sanctuary for leadership. Presence of ULFA commander-in-chief, Mr. Paresh Barua, in China is not without reason. Certainly, he is not holidaying in China. Thus, prospect of a combined and coordinated threat from three elements, in the near-future, is very much on the cards.
What must India do to counter this combination of three pronged threat from within and without? The first thing is to recognize internal foe, aided and abetted from outside. As highlighted above, internal foe can be more damaging than the external enemies. In identifying her internal foe, it is no gainsaying the fact that India was utterly confused. Learned intellectuals and intelligentsia of India considerably add to this confusion by calling insurgents/militants/terrorists as ‘our misguided boys’. How can the killers, extortionists, kidnappers and butchers be termed as ‘our misguided boys’, when they plan and kill innocent people at will? This is the bane of all democratic forms of political systems.
The law of the land is very clear: anyone who has picked up arms against the state is the enemy of the state, whether he/she was a resident of India or otherwise. Thus, the ‘enemy’ has to be dealt with as ‘enemy’. There is nothing ‘misguided’ about these paid ‘stooges’ of China and Pakistan. They clearly know what they were doing. If there was confusion, it was in the minds of those who think they would listen to reason. Even if they want to listen to you, their masters across the northern and western borders won’t give them this flexibility. This option was long annulled when these so called ‘misguided boys’ fell into the lap of their ‘foreign’ patrons.
Let us remember one thing that military option was adopted once all other efforts fail to make the so called ‘misguided youth’ listen to reason. This failure graduates them from so called ‘misguided youth’ to ‘enemy’ of India. If the ‘logic of bullet for bullet’ has to be followed, then, there can be no half-cocked measures.
In order to do so, we ought to delink internal security from law and order problems. We cannot confuse the two, as it leads to dilution of the problem, India faces. Once we do it, we would realize that both need different kind of forces to deal with it. Law and order is essentially to be tackled by police force, trained in dealing with law-breakers of a civilized society, ranging from theft, murder, cheating, forgery, kidnapping, spying and other such like civil offences. Law and order is essentially a term to be used for ‘individualized crime’ and not for ‘organized crime’, in whatever form. I would, therefore, even exclude mass protests, resulting into rail/ road blockades in organized manner, from the realm of law and order.
Internal security requires a specialized force capable of conducting a military operation to fight well-trained ‘irregular soldiers’ of our external foes. Besides, militancy and insurgency, it would also encompass all acts of mass violence by organized crime mafia, such as communal riots, violent agitations, affecting national progress and development. Drug-trafficking, gun-running and organized extortion must also come under the purview of internal security.
Internal security, also, needs to be delinked from external security, from the execution point of view and not from overall defense planning and strategy. The forces dedicated for internal security not only be properly trained, organized and equipped but must also be placed under a unified command on all India basis. Internal security must have a national security grid and forces dedicated for each grid, depending upon the extent, nature and type of internal threat.
External security must have specialized forces separately, for the defense of mountainous and plain types of terrain, requiring minimum switching of forces from one theatre to another, except emergency. There is a need to raise dedicated area specific and specially trained, organized and equipped troops to effectively ward off any surprise. This is to ensure realistic and measured response to external military threats, individually or combined from China and Pakistan, with nuclear dimensions appropriately debated.
A comprehensive strategy to tackle all three dangers concurrently must be evolved to effectively ward off the dangers. We also need to have an appropriate mix of nuclear defense, both at tactical and strategic level, in our overall strategy of national defense. I see following six points, though nothing new about them but still worth considering:-
(a) Unified Command Under CDS (Chief of defense Staff) and Theatre commanders. Vitalize three wings of our armed forces and internal security forces in such a manner that they ought to fight under unified command on a synchronized battlefield with area specific needs, from mountains to desert to plains and riverine terrain. He should also act as National security adviser (NSA. It is time NSA is appointed who is well versed in matters military and not from the cadres of people who spent their lives, “suited- booted” in the foreign capitals. There is no need for a separate person to be appointed for this purpose.
(b) National Grid For Counter Insurgency. To deal with the menacing threat of internal threat, the nation ought to be organized into a grid of sectors and sub-sectors with dedicated force allocated to each sector/sub-sector. Overall command of the National security grid be under the CDS and respective theatre commanders.
(c) Space And Nuclear Defence Command.(SAND-CO). Functioning directly under PM, it should have, scientific adviser to PM, CDS cum NSA, Defence Minister, Home Minister and External affairs Minister along with head of NIA as members. The Vice President of India should be observer with this command.
(d) Integrated Intelligence Organization for External & Internal Threats. National Intelligence Agency (NIA) should command all agencies engaged in intelligence gathering and interpretation. All intelligence agencies, such as RAW, SB, SSB, IB and intelligence agencies of various states be place under the command of NIA for effective coordination and dissemination of intelligence.
(e) National Security Council (NSC). The national Security Council must be vitalized to include relevant central government ministries, such as Home, External Affairs, Defence, Finance, Commerce etc and Chief Ministers of various Border States. It should be headed by the President of India with Prime Minister as Vice Chairman. It should have external and internal security wings headed by Defence Minister and Home Minister respectively.
(f) Theatre Specific Organization of Armed Forces. To deal with external threat from North and West, defensive forces must be organized based on terrain specific requirements. The theatre specific forces must have limited offensive capabilities. Besides India needs to create double role offensive forces, who can switch rapidly from mountains to plains or deserts. These strike formations must have their adequate Air support and air defence components. Indian air force must develop a capability to carry out deep strikes in the North and West simultaneously. The role of strategic Missile Forces would be very important in any future conflict. Indian Navy must not only guard her coast line or the sea lanes in her economic zone but develop a capability to transfer a division sized force on the enemy coast line. It is high time it has an offensive arm as Marine Corps.
It is imperative for India to be prepared for the worst. And the worst is when internal and external foes join hands to balkanize her. The moral and material support to Maoists and J&K militants from China and Pakistan, respectively, give enough indications as to what India must expect from her external foes. India doesn’t have to not only develop ability to fight on three fronts simultaneously but also be mentally tuned to face such an eventuality. Half the job would be done, once India accepts this as a reality of the near-future. Sometimes preparing for war serves as a good deterrent to the adversaries. Preparing meticulously, with worst scenario in mind, often lays the foundation of victory. And ignoring the warning signals is to face military disgrace and humiliation of 1962 type!
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