What role for a tri-service chief?

The value of the Chief of Defence Staff will depend on whether he is able to trigger reform of higher defence management structures

Amidst a worrying economic slowdown, the government has made three major security-related moves over the last 15 days. First, it terminated the special status of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) and bifurcated the state into two Union Territories. How much political resistance and violence this will unleash will only be known when the security clampdown in Kashmir is loosened. Second, in the realm of nuclear weapons, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh backed away from India’s long-held doctrine of “no-first-use”, declaring that New Delhi might initiate nuclear strikes in certain circumstances, which he did not spell out. Third, in his Independence Day speech,