National Security Strategy: Framing the first steps in the Indian context

Expanding this debate to encompass a range of issues can be problematic both for policymakers and for practitioners. When used without precision, the idea tends to leave more room for misunderstanding than wise policy counsel. Crafting a security strategy is necessary as it can serve three broad purposes: Build political consensus between the key stakeholders on security; assist in informing the legislature of the resource needs to secure the country; and act as a strategic tool to communicate the national resolve to domestic and international audiences. It is for this reason that several modern democracies have felt it necessary to deal with issues of national security against a strategic planning framework for it to be useful to its political leaders, policymakers, diplomats and military practitioners. Moreover, a turbulent world order makes a national security strategy a strategic necessity. 

  In many countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil, Japan, South Korea and South Africa, the primary stakeholders include all departments within the executive and legislative branches, and even the strategic community. In most cases, the national interests were derived from either the constitution, legislation, or presidential speeches — that provide an abiding rationale to the strategic planning process in the country. An inclusive approach helps build the required buy-in and ensures that aggrieved parties do not undercut the process. Barring a few countries, the ways and means are kept under wraps. Tasks are shared with discretion, only with those responsible for executing the strategy. In most cases, the national security strategy is approved at the highest level and, in a few cases, it is referred to the Parliament for approval. 

  India’s notion of security   

  Since its independence in 1947, India has persistently been criticised for lack of a strategy. The contrary view has been that India has always pursued a national vision, even if it was never articulated or documented. Successive governments, without ever enunciating a strategy, have focused on three broad national objectives: Rebuilding the Indian State; strengthening its material capacities; and restoring its international salience enjoyed before the advent of colonialism. In retrospect, the State’s policies have been far from perfect and have been deficient in several different ways, and have struggled to deliver. It is no surprise, therefore, that the absence of India’s national security strategy is often cited as the key reason for the cautious policy choices of the Indian State. 

  India’s reluctance to frame a serious strategic review process has come at a reputational cost to the State. Barring the India-Pakistan War of 1971, there is no other major military conflict, internal or external, in our history, where the Indian State can claim its strategic conduct to be flawless or bereft of any criticism. Muddling through a security crisis has been characteristic, and despite its reverses, the Indian State has desisted from investing any serious capital to forge a government-wide security strategy. In its neglect and vacillation on strategic matters, the military stood relegated to the margins of the security planning process and framework in the past. Left to themselves, India’s armed forces have worked on planning assumptions that might not truly reflect the needs of the time. This led to the realisation of military roles and capabilities riddled with inter-service rivalry and turf competition. 

  A few aspects explain this dichotomy. Engaged with the idea of economic growth and development, Indians have viewed themselves and their role, not from the perspective of how they can shape their environment, but on how they can cope with it.  Consequently, there has been a tendency to broadbase the national security agenda within the country. While this might have been useful in explaining the broader dimensions of our national security concerns, it does not enable a useful distinction between the real or imagined threats, tangible or intangible threats, to be of use to policymakers and security practitioners. Non-traditional threats tend to figure more prominently in our thinking than the traditional ones. Then, the institutional refrain to prioritise these threats is clearly discernible when our extensive land borders, marked by longstanding boundary disputes and territorial contestations along the northern and western fronts, cannot be ignored. A prioritisation of threats is essential. 

  Strategising long-term security

  From a military standpoint, this paradigm needs to be developed along two lines of the strategic planning dynamic—strategy and strategic guidance. This can be explained as a hierarchical chain, where each level of the strategy is bridged to its next lower level through strategic guidance. Both strategy and strategic guidance are internationally acknowledged inter-twined policy-enabling instruments that are necessary to shape the strategic posture of the State. A hierarchy of such documents that guarantee political buy-in and military inclusiveness alone can pave the way for a successful security dividend in a turbulent world order.    

  The National Security Strategy (NSS) must form the basis for any security-related planning in the country. Emanating from the highest political office (and in our case, the Prime Minister’s Office), the document, while drawing inspiration from the Constitution, must provide an overarching framework for a whole-of-government approach to the national security planning process. However, to lend formality and periodicity to this process, parliamentary legislation would be essential. Ideally, the legislation must task the PMO to formulate the security strategy, with the National Security Advisor’s office playing an important role in the crafting process. Equally important, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) must endorse it so that the strategy gets the implicit acceptance of various agencies that are responsible for delivering on national security. 

  In other words, the NSS becomes the point of departure for all security-related planning in the country. A logical follow-up of this process would be the formulation of the National Defence Strategy (NDS) and the National Military Strategy (NMS) at the level of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), Chief of Defence Staff (CDS)/Chiefs of Staff Committee (CoSC), respectively. The NDS will have to identify the planning imperatives for the armed forces and other defence-related issues such as research, development, production and procurement, while the NMS will have to task the three services to deliver on assigned military roles and missions. The NDS will be essential to lay down the policy guidelines to recruit, organise, equip and train the armed forces, while the NMS is crucial to operationalise the military components to deter or defeat threats.  

  A hierarchy of strategy documents (NSS, NDS and NMS) alone cannot enable the development of India’s deterrent. Ministry-specific strategic guidance would still be required to steer the development process. Ideally speaking, this guidance must emanate from the PMO to accord sanctity to the defence planning process that the country wishes to pursue. A PMO-driven and CCS-endorsed guidance will ensure that policy on military matters does not risk the lack of political or bureaucratic buy-in, to underwrite India’s long-term security. From a military perspective, the second level of guidance will be required from the Raksha Mantri’s (RM’s) office to spell out the lines of effort to be pursued by the three Services and other defence agencies for building the future force. And yet, a third level of strategic guidance will be required from the CDS’ office to ensure requisite levels of readiness and their timely delivery in times of crisis or conflict.   

  While the three levels of security strategies (NSS, NDS and NMS) would provide the intellectual gravitas to the planning process, the three distinct yet complementary levels of defence strategic guidance (PMO, MoD and CDS/CoSC) will provide the fine print for departmental action to achieve the goals and objectives.  

  Making choices

  A government-wide strategic planning framework that facilitates the formulation and promulgation of the national security strategy is essential. It can help build coherence on matters of national security; shape India’s foreign policy, and in turn vitalise its defence policy; act as a bridge between its short- and long-term security goals and objectives; and assist in drawing clarity on the ends and means to make useful policy choices. More importantly, it will help outline the broad contours of the defence strategic guidance, which is acutely necessary to shape India’s military instruments of force. The sheer pace of technological change cannot be prolifically exploited in the absence of a formal defence strategic guidance. It could even drive policy-relevant research in our think tanks to address visible gaps in our strategic planning processes and assessments. 

  From a strategy-crafting perspective, the challenge will be twofold. First, how should the China-Pakistan axis be seen – as a combined threat, or cooperating threats, or a strategic fusion of two State resources against India? The three-decade-old assumption of a two-front war, with one of the two fronts operating either independently or with support from China, now needs a reality check. Second, with the growing salience of non-contact warfare largely based on cyber and space-based assets, missiles and drones, and long-range loitering munitions, what would India’s future defence policies and requirements of relative war-fighting capacities look like, and what capacity enhancement can be expected by way of strategic partnerships and global defence-industrial collaborations? 

  With increasing interest in India’s national security strategy-in-the-making, the strategic policy planning landscape in India would be transformed. Balancing India’s competing military threats with our diverse capability needs will, however, remain elusive in the absence of a formally articulated national security strategy and robust downstream guidance to the three services. With many big and small wars raging in India’s neighbourhood, a publicly articulated national security strategy will ensure that all stakeholders understand the intent of the political leadership and the military capacity necessary to deliver on the strategic choices in question.