The Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has not succeeded in adding any additional universal stigma to nuclear weapons. It lacks the support base needed for replacing the Cold War vintage “Mutual Assured Destruction” with “Mutual Assured Abstinence”. The nuclear weapon countries’ faith in the deterrence logic remains intact.
The world once again bowed its head in shame and paid tribute to the victims on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki days on 6 August and 9 August, respectively. The comity of nations wrestled with the guilty conscience on the 76th anniversary of both days. Quite ritually, the future of nuclear weapons or nuclear disarmament came up for discussions during many of the prayer meets.
A section of the international community strongly believes that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), popularly known as the Ban Treaty, could help in realising the idea of nuclear disarmament, and has therefore urged the international community, especially the nuclear weapon states to sign the treaty. In fact, the Mayor of Hiroshima appealed to the Japanese government to sign the treaty a few days before the Hiroshima Day. Japan is one of the important countries, which has not signed the treaty as yet. The treaty, at present, has 86 signatories.
Is nuclear disarmament going to become a reality soon? The idea of nuclear disarmament has somewhat gathered momentum after the Ban Treaty came into force, i.e., became operational after 90 days of ratification by the 50th member on 22 January 2021. The treaty now is generating curiosity as well as hope.
The oft-repeated question is: Is this a treaty for nuclear disarmament? Is it similar to The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) or the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)? The BTWC and the CWC are the disarmament treaties for the other two categories of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). A large number of nuclear disarmament enthusiasts belonging to civil society along with some non-nuclear weapon countries want the world to believe that TPNW, or the Ban Treaty, is nuclear equivalent to the BTWC or the CWC.
In fact, like the other two WMD treaties, the Ban Treaty, too, has comprehensive prohibition measures. The treaty bans development, testing, production, manufacturing, acquisition, transfer, use, threat to use, and so on. However, the most interesting provision of the treaty is the ban on “stationing, installation or deployment of any nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices” in the territory or at any place under the jurisdiction or control of a member country.1
The treaty has indeed regenerated hope and optimism for nuclear disarmament in the international community. Although President Barack Obama did not deliver the promised nuclear disarmament for which he had received the Nobel Peace Prize in advance, yet his promise at least did not weaken the nuclear taboo or norm against the use of nuclear weapons existing since the first and last use in 1945. The Ban Treaty is credited to have assembled support for the nuclear disarmament narrative in the Donald Trump era.
Nuclear disarmament did not enthuse President Trump much. Even other dominant nuclear weapon powers did not go beyond some inconsequential resolutions in the United Nations (UN) for nuclear disarmament. The Ban Treaty consolidated the momentum of humanitarian initiatives. The treaty, in its preamble, has maintained the essence of the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons. In fact, the treaty was adopted and opened for signature in 2017 in an adverse situation, for nuclear disarmament.
However, the treaty has not succeeded in adding any additional universal stigma to nuclear weapons. In fact, it lacks the support base needed for replacing the Cold War vintage “Mutual Assured Destruction” with “Mutual Assured Abstinence”. The nuclear weapon countries’ faith in the deterrence logic remains intact. Nuclear deterrence, even though the most sanitised narrative, requires a continuance of nuclear weapons.
None of the nuclear weapon countries participated in the negotiation process for the treaty. All had different arguments, logic and rationale for abstaining from negotiations for the treaty. Some of the reasons could be valid but in general, the reliance on the salience of nuclear weapons has put a spanner in the participation for the treaty. Moreover, carving a new treaty by sidestepping the crisis-ridden Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which has a larger base, including all old nuclear weapon countries, has not gone down well with many countries and writers. A major section believes that the non-nuclear member countries should have forced member countries possessing nuclear weapons to implement Article 6 of the NPT.
Interestingly, not only nuclear weapon countries but also as discussed, the nuclear umbrella holding countries like Japan have stayed away from negotiations. Of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members, only the Netherlands participated in negotiations but cast the only negative vote against the treaty. All the NATO countries, including the Netherlands, are still desisting from the treaty.
The treaty exhibited an intriguing response pattern of some peace activist nations. Sweden participated in negotiations but has not signed the treaty as yet. Norway, which has been at the forefront of funding various peace, humanitarian and disarmament initiatives, too, skirted negotiations and of course, the signing of the treaty. A former nuclear umbrella holding country, New Zealand, has signed, ratified and submitted the declaration that it does not possess or station any nuclear weapon on its territory.
Over the years, the institutions for disarmament have evolved. The Special Sessions of the UN General Assembly devoted to Disarmament have been of immense help. The United Nations Disarmament Commission and the Conference on Disarmament (CD) have played an important role in shaping the disarmament initiatives. Admittedly, these institutions are turning non-functional. For instance, the CD has not succeeded in delivering a treaty in years because of the principle of consensus. However, escaping the negotiating body is not a solution. The challenge lies in building a consensus over the provisions for a disarmament treaty and galvanising public opinion in its favour.
Quite significantly, even the provisions of the Ban Treaty are blocking the path of many countries joining it. The treaty merely mentions the need for bearing the cost for verification but any disarmament treaty needs an elaborate verification and inspection machinery and infrastructure to build confidence among the members and the global community. The verification deficit indicates the ad hoc nature of the treaty.
At the time of negotiations, many accused that some dominant forces pushed a readymade text and that the entire process of negotiations was merely a façade. The treaty does not have a roadmap for nuclear weapons disarmament/dismantlement. The next meeting may set a deadline but the absence of nuclear weapon countries will make it futile.
Several countries have complained that through the Ban Treaty the longstanding principle of sovereign consent prevalent in international law is damaged.Proponents of the Ban Treaty are advised to read the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties in letter and spirit.
India, too, has stayed away from the treaty. It has neither participated in negotiations nor signed the treaty. India wants a treaty to be negotiated in the CD for universal, non-discriminatory and verifiable nuclear disarmament. The Indian government observes that the Ban Treaty “does not constitute or contribute to the development of customary international law; nor does it set any new standards or norms.”2
In the absence of other nuclear weapon countries, India joining the treaty may amount to opting for unilateral nuclear disarmament. This cannot be recommended to a country, which is surrounded by two hostile nuclear neighbours. However, the Ban Treaty needs to be seen as a transitional initiative of a creative new disarmament politics. The oft-repeated idea—a feasible, comprehensive, verifiable and enforceable nuclear disarmament regime—could become a reality only by a genuine commitment of nuclear weapon countries to a Nuclear Weapons Convention negotiated in the CD.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Viable Alternatives Required to Replace Existing Procurement Procedures
Amit Cowshish
August 10, 2021
If existing procurement procedures are a hindrance in acquiring state-of-the-art defence materiel expeditiously, a case needs to be made out, based on demonstrable drawbacks of the existing system for a detailed blueprint of what system should replace it.
The Army Chief MM Naravane recently criticised the current process of procurement of defence materiel for the armed forces in no uncertain terms. Speaking at an event organised by the Delhi-based United Service Institution, he said the process had not kept pace with time and the need of the hour was a revolution in bureaucratic affairs.1
He added that many procedural lacunae had crept into the acquisition process due to the overbearing nature of rules and regulations, leading to a ‘Zero Error Syndrome’ and that the focus must be on faster decision making. Calling for a systemic metamorphosis, he suggested that perhaps the concept of L1 (lowest bidder) should be done away with altogether.2
Most of what the Army Chief said is valid, but it begs the question why the procedural lacunae – none of them new – could not be addressed while revising the Defence Procurement Procedure 2016 (DPP 2016). It was only last October that, after extensive consultations with all the stakeholders, including the industry and think tanks, DPP 2016 was replaced by the Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020 (DAP 2020).
The Services were an integral part of this exercise, which was overseen by an 11-member committee constituted by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in August 2019 under the stewardship of the Director General (Acquisition) with the following terms of reference,3 which subsume the concerns expressed by the Army Chief:
Revise the procedures as given in DPP 2016 and DPM 20094, so as to remove procedural bottlenecks and hasten defence acquisition
Align and standardise the provisions in the DPP 2016 and Defence Procurement Manual DPM 2009 (DPM 2009), wherever applicable, to optimise life cycle support for equipment
Simplify policy and procedures to facilitate greater participation of Indian industry and develop a robust defence industrial base
Wherever applicable, examine and incorporate new concepts, such as life cycle costing, life cycle support, performance-based logistics, ICT, lease contracting, codification & standardisation
Include provisions to promote Indian start-ups and research & development
Any other aspect which will contribute towards refining the acquisition process and support the ‘Make in India’ initiative
In turn, this MoD committee set up many sub-committees to examine various aspects of the procedure laid down in DPP 2016 and DPM 2009 and after more than a year of deliberations – during which a draft manual was also released inviting comments from the interested parties – the final 681-page document was approved by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) and released by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. All Service Chiefs, Chief of Defence Staff, and Secretaries of various MoD departments are members of the DAC.
In the foreword to DAP 2020, the Defence Minister claimed that it “introduces a slew of conceptual, structural and procedural reforms in the acquisition procedure to create a climate in which the industry can thrive while meeting the security and operational needs of the Services” and that the document’s focus is on “ensuring that contemporary technology based equipment is made available to the Services in a time bound manner, to further expedite the modernisation of the armed forces”.5
It is difficult to imagine what constraints the committee might have faced in making procedural improvements to address the problems that the Army Chief mentioned in his address. The fact is that within the broad principles of public procurement laid out in the General Financial Rules, 2017 (GFR 2017), the MoD is free to evolve a procedure that addresses the peculiarities of defence acquisitions.
This would be evident from a comparison of GFR 2017 and the Manual for Procurement of Goods, 2017 issued by the Ministry of Finance (MoF), and their earlier versions, with the several versions of the DPP issued between 2002 and 2016, and the latest DAP 2020. There is a marked difference between the procedure followed by the MoD and other civil ministries though the basic principles underlying the procurement architecture remains the same.
It is possible that the Army Chief was hinting at the need for changing one or more of these fundamental principles of public procurement. One gets this impression from the Army Chief’s suggestion to do away with the L1 concept altogether. Considering that a section of the strategic community has been castigating this concept for a long time, it is surprising that the MoD-appointed committee and its sub-committees either did not take up this issue or were unable to offer an alternative.
Be that as it may, four points need to be made regarding this L1 business. One, though L1 is among the fundamental principle of public buying, there are exceptions to it as in the case of single-source procurements. In fact, most of the MoD’s single-source negotiated acquisitions from the Indian vendors or under the government-to-government or inter-governmental agreements are not based on the L1 concept. Procurements made from the United States (US) through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) route are a case in point.
Two, the L1 system does not require the Services to blindly pick up the cheapest equipment. The L1 bidder is determined through a rigorous process of elimination. This process starts with the Request for Information (RfI) to gather information about the available equipment that meets the Services’ operational requirements and to formulate the Services Qualitative Requirements (SQRs).
The SQRs are formulated by the Services – at times warranting some modifications in the available equipment to meet their requirement – and approved by the Services Equipment Policy Committee (SEPC).
The detailed SQRs are mentioned in the Request for Proposal (RfP) and the bidders’ responses are technically evaluated by the Services to shortlist the vendors whose products meet their needs. The shortlisted vendors are then asked to bring their equipment for extensive field trials, wherever considered necessary. These trials constitute the second filter to shortlist the vendors based on the actual performance of the equipment.
At the last stage, the commercial offers of only those vendors, whose product fully meets the requirements of the Services, are opened and L1 determined. Conceptually, L1 is identified from among the bidders whose product is certified by the Services as being suitable for performing the intended operational role. Seen in this perspective, the L1 system seems fair and equitable, but if it is not, it should indeed be modified, if not junked altogether.
Three, it is permissible to specify Enhanced Performance Parameters (EPP) in addition to the SQRs, enabling the vendors to offer a product that is more advanced than the one based on the SQRs. The vendors meeting those EPPs get a weightage up to 10 per cent while determining L1.
In simpler words, if the price quoted by a vendor for the product meeting the EPPs mentioned in the RfP is Rs 100 and full weightage of 10 per cent is applicable as per the terms of the RfP, the quoted price is reduced to Rs 90 for the purpose of comparison with the price quoted by other vendors. And if, with reference to the depressed price, such a vendor emerges as L1, the contract is awarded to him/her at the quoted price of Rs 100. This is a departure from the conventional L1 concept.
When introduced in 2016, this feature was lauded as a progressive step that would address the real or perceived rigours of the L1 system to a considerable extent. Going by the Army Chief’s statement, however, the excitement was misplaced.
Lastly, if none of the systems mentioned above is working well and has become a hindrance in acquiring state-of-the-art defence materiel expeditiously, a case needs to be made out based on demonstrable drawbacks of the existing system and, more importantly, a detailed blueprint of what system should replace it. Prejudicial condemnation of the L1 system, or other aspects of the existing procedure, is of little help.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
4. With the formation of the Department of Military Affairs (DMA) in December 2019, the revision of the Defence Procurement Manual 2009 (DPM 2009) was reassigned to this department. The revised version is yet to be finalised.
Bangladesh Looks to Russia to Resolve Rohingya Crisis
Anand Kumar
August 06, 2021
The Russia–Myanmar relationship is gathering strength. Bangladesh wants to use the increasing bonhomie between Russia and Myanmar to start a tri-lateral process to reach an amicable solution to the Rohingya refugee crisis.
The issue of Rohingya refugees has turned out to be a major problem for Bangladesh in recent times, especially after the mass exodus of Rohingyas from Myanmar in August 2017. Bangladesh has tried to engage bilaterally with Myanmar and also attempted to garner international support to deal with this problem effectively. It has managed to get support not only from the Western countries and the Muslim world but also from important international organisations like the United Nations (UN). Despite this, the problem is far from resolved. In its bid to find a solution to this problem and to repatriate Rohingyas to Myanmar, Bangladesh has now sought the help of Russia as the relationship of the Myanmar junta with Russia is gathering strength.
The Rohingya crisis has existed for a long time. The first instance of migration of Rohingyas from Myanmar to Bangladesh was seen in 1977. Since then, Rohingyas have been migrating to Bangladesh intermittently. But in August 2017, a mass exodus of Rohingyas took place, after Rohingya Arsa militants launched deadly attacks on more than 30 police posts in Myanmar.1 The migrants joined around 3,00,000 people who were already in Bangladesh from previous waves of displacement. According to an assessment done by UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund), by September 2019, around 12,95,000 people needed assistance. By the end of 2020, the Cox’s Bazar District in Bangladesh was still hosting more than 8,60,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.2 In December 2020, the Bangladesh government moved nearly 20,000 Rohingya refugees to Bhasan Char, a remote silt island in the Bay of Bengal, amidst international uproar. Countries like Bangladesh have alleged that Rohingyas were driven out by the Myanmar Army as part of ethnic cleansing. On the other hand, the Myanmar Army, also known as Tatmadaw, stated that a large number of Rohingyas were indulging in terror activities and therefore the army had taken steps necessary for law enforcement. Whatever may be the truth, the Rohingya migrants in Bangladesh effectively form the world’s largest refugee camp.
Although Bangladesh is sympathetic towards Rohingya refugees who are predominantly Muslim, it wants them to go back to Myanmar. Bangladesh is a densely populated country, and large numbers of Bangladeshis themselves have been legally or illegally migrating to other countries. In such circumstances, it is difficult for Bangladesh, a lower-middle income country, to accept Rohingya refugees in large numbers. Though it has been getting international help for the upkeep of these refugees, the pressure on land has been significant. Moreover, many Rohingyas have also created law and order problems.3 Hence, Bangladesh has been trying to persuade Myanmar to take back these refugees. It has also approached major Western powers and international institutions to put pressure on Myanmar.
To resolve the crisis, Bangladesh had earlier undertaken a tri-lateral initiative with China and Myanmar which began in 2019. A series of meetings at ministerial, secretary and high official levels took place, after which Naypyidaw hinted that it would start taking back Rohingyas from the second quarter of 2021. However, the military coup in Myanmar in February 2021 completely stalled this process.
The coup in Myanmar has resulted in huge pro-democracy protests, making the domestic political situation tumultuous. The protests have also brought in their wake Western pressure on Myanmar, asking the military junta to restore democracy. At the same time, Myanmar has reinvigorated some of its old relationships, prominent among them is its relationship with Russia.
Myanmar's junta leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing visited Russia in June 2021. Following this, Alexander Mikheev, the head of Russia's state arms exporter Rosoboronexport, stated that Moscow was cooperating closely with Myanmar's junta to supply military hardware including aircraft.4
In the past, Myanmar largely depended on China for political, military and economic help. China also greatly benefitted from this relationship, as it got one more route to get oil from Gulf countries. However, China has also engaged in certain activities that have created problems for Myanmar. Myanmar suspects that China is helping rebels in bordering areas. Last year, Myanmar’s Senior General Min Aung Hlaing openly complained about “strong forces” backing some of the rebels.5 Myanmar has tried to deal with this rebellion with the help of Russian arms.
Myanmar now wants to reduce its dependence on China. Moreover, it is also facing great international pressure to restore democracy. In these difficult times, made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia has emerged as an important support.6
Before 1991, Soviet Union was an important player in Southeast Asia. However, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the situation changed. Russia, its successor state, is now trying to recover some of the lost ground. Russia also wants its presence felt in the Indian Ocean. It is looking towards Myanmar as an important ally, where Russian ships visiting the Indian Ocean can dock.
The Russia–Myanmar relationship is gathering strength. Bangladesh now wants to use this increasing bonhomie between Russia and Myanmar for its own benefit. Bangladesh wants Russia to start a tri-lateral process with Myanmar to reach an amicable solution to the Rohingya refugee crisis.7 In this regard, Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen made a request to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov during their recent meeting in July 2021 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on the sidelines of an international conference on connectivity. However, the Russian foreign minister Lavrov didn’t make any commitment straightaway.8
Bangladesh has imported weapons from China on a large scale in the past, however, in the last one decade or so, Russia has also emerged as an important supplier. Besides, Russia is building the Rooppur nuclear power plant in Bangladesh. Though Russia has an interest both in Bangladesh and Myanmar, it is not going to be easy for Moscow to take a stand on the Rohingya issue. It is hardly surprising that Russia has been careful not to take sides and has encouraged Myanmar to tackle the issue bilaterally.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
The Ministry of Defence has taken significant steps in recent times to boost domestic defence manufacturing and increase the role of the private sector to reduce dependence on imports and achieve self-reliance.
In the defence sector, India has long sought self-reliance, but efforts have yielded few results. India built up its domestic defence production capacity with assistance from countries like the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly through assembly under licence.
While India imported platforms and equipment, it did embark on indigenously developing key equipment like missile systems. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in 1982-83 started the development of indigenous missile systems under the leadership of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. These included the short-range surface-to-air missiles like the ‘Prithvi’, ‘Akash’ and the anti-tank guided missiles like ‘Nag’.1 The Prithvi missile system was inducted in 1994 while the Akash missile system was inducted in 2014 in the Indian Air Force and in the Indian Army the following year.2 The user trial of the third-generation Nag was carried out in October 2020 and the system is in the final stages of induction.
Apart from making efforts to develop indigenous missile systems, India also entered into an agreement with Russia in 1998 to develop a supersonic cruise missile system, the ‘Brahmos’. This is the fastest supersonic cruise missile in the world, which can be launched from submarines, ships, or aircraft. Brahmos was successfully inducted in 2006.
In the light of the economy hit by the pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 12 May 2020, launched the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan. The phrase can be translated as self-reliance and self-sufficiency, and it highlights the importance of reducing external dependence in the economic sector. The term ‘Vocal for Local’ was also introduced to encourage the purchase of indigenous products so that the local industry can flourish. The Aatmanirbhar Bharat as an umbrella concept aims to achieve a technology-driven economy, build cutting-edge infrastructure and utilise the strength of the country’s demographic profile to generate economic growth.
The defence sector was recognised as an important area in which there is a lot of scope for being Aatmanirbhar or self-reliant. The defence sector is one of the strategic sectors of the Indian economy that has the potential for tremendous growth because of the large talented pool of skill sets in terms of human resources and large-scale modernisation requirements of the armed forces. The sector will help in strengthening the economy by creating employment opportunities and reducing the import burden.
India’s arms import during 2015-19, for instance, accounted for nearly 10 per cent of the world’s total. India’s arms import though decreased by 33 per cent between 2011–15 and 2016–20.3 Self-reliance in defence and security needs is critical to reducing India’s dependence on other countries for urgent procurement in times of exigency.
Recent border tensions with China highlighted the reality of procurement done on short notice, to enhance combative effectiveness. During the stand-off, reports flagged that the Indian Army lacked terrain-specific weapons like combat vehicles, among others. To overcome these gaps in weaponry pertaining to high-altitude warfare, the Indian armed forces were provided with emergency financial powers for capital and revenue procurements.4 Such procurement, though, will be invariably expensive.
Even as this dependence on importing defence products needs to be reduced, indigenous defence procurement needs to be encouraged. It is noteworthy that under the provisions of the emergency procurement, the Indian Army also placed orders for indigenous products like the M4 armoured vehicles from the Pune-based defence company, Bharat Forge of the Kalyani Group.5
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has taken other important steps to boost the ‘Make in India’ policy in defence manufacturing. The limits on foreign direct investment (FDI) in the defence sector have been raised to 74 per cent, from the earlier limits of 49 per cent (in May 2020). Out of the total capital acquisition budget for the year 2021-22, over 60 per cent has been earmarked for domestic capital procurement. Defence capital outlay has been increased by 18.75 per cent in the budget of 2021–22. The Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 has been revised as the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) 2020, with stress on achieving self-reliance in the defence sector.6
To enable the domestic industry to manufacture high-technology weapons and equipment, the government is aggressively promoting the role of the private sector in defence acquisition.7 The Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) awards, instituted by the MoD in April 2018, are an essential step towards creating an ecosystem to foster innovation, research and technology development. iDEX has provided opportunities to MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises), start-ups, research and academic institutions as well as individuals to provide innovative solutions to pressing problem areas of the armed forces.8
Further, the MoD has undertaken important steps to facilitate and encourage exports. The Export Promotion Cell (EPC) in the Department of Defence Production (DDP) has been created for the purpose. India has achieved considerable growth in exporting defence equipment. During 2015-20, India’s defence exports grew from around Rs 2,000 crore to Rs 9,000 crore.9 Exports of globally competitive Indian defence products will no doubt help achieve economies of scale and spur qualitative improvements in indigenous defence production.
SRIJAN, the indigenisation portal, was launched in August 2020 for the benefit of defence public sector units (DPSUs) and ordnance factories to provide development support to MSMEs/start-ups/industry for import substitution. A ‘positive indigenisation list’ consisting of more than 200 items that will be manufactured within India is a huge opportunity to add volumes to the domestic defence industry using their own design and development capabilities.
These steps cumulatively are expected to make use of the large, available skill pool to introduce fresh energy in the defence sector by developing innovative, niche, and cutting-edge technologies for the military. A robust domestic defence manufacturing sector can transform India’s military capabilities and help achieve self-reliance in its defence requirements.
Ms Richa Tokas is an Intern in Defence Economics and Industry Centre at Manohar Parrikar IDSA, New Delhi
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Defence of India is a multi-dimensional responsibility involving coordination with not only organisations within MoD, but also several external departments and agencies. Irrespective of whether the subject of defence of India is assigned to DoD or DMA, it is the defence minister who is responsible for the subjects allocated to the ministry.
The creation of the Department of Military Affairs (DMA) as the fifth department of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) last year, with Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Bipin Rawat concurrently being designated as its secretary, has revived an old debate about the propriety of the defence secretary being assigned the responsibility for defence of India. Most defence analysts are dismayed that this responsibility has not been transferred to the CDS who, among other things, is the sole military advisor to the government.
The argument revolves around an entry – amended on 30 December 2019 – in the Government of India (Allocation of Business Rules), 1961 (AoB Rules) which assigns the subject of ‘Defence of India and every part thereof including defence policy and preparation for defence and all such acts as may be conducive in times of war to its prosecution and after its termination to effective demobilisation’ to the Department of Defence (DoD).1
It must be noted that the said rules do not assign the responsibility to the defence secretary, but to the DoD. In fact, the word ‘secretary’ does not appear in these rules even once. Since, however, the DoD is headed by the defence secretary, analysts argue that, by implication, he/she becomes responsible for the defence of India. This argument is specious.
The AoB Rules are one of the two sets of rules – the other one being the Government of India (Transaction of Business) Rules, 1961 (ToB Rules)2 – that were notified under Clause 3 of Article 77 of the Constitution of India3 which empowers the President of India to make rules for allocation of the business of the Government of India (GoI) among various ministries, or departments, and for ‘more convenient’ transaction of such business by them, respectively.
The ToB Rules lay down the procedure for inter-departmental consultations, functions of various cabinet committees like the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) and the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), submission of cases and papers to the cabinet, prime minister and the President for approval or information, and a host of analogous functions.
According to Rule 11 of the ToB Rules, the departmental secretaries, are the ‘administrative heads’ of their department, ‘responsible for the proper transaction of business and the careful observance of these rules in that department’. This description does not lend itself to the inference that the defence secretary is responsible for the defence of India as Rule 3 of the ToB Rules also clearly states that all business allotted to a department under the AoB Rules shall be disposed of by, or under the general or special directions of, the minister-in-charge.
In view of the express provisions in these rules, the defence analysts’ dismay at the defence secretary being entrusted with the responsibility for defence of India is unfounded. When confronted with these facts, they argue that the logic of appointing the CDS demands that the responsibility for the defence of India should also be passed on to the DMA. This argument sounds valid but fails to explain the necessity for, or the advantage of, transferring the subject to the DMA.
As pointed out earlier, it is the minister-in-charge and not any of the secretaries working under him, who is responsible for the subjects allocated to his or her ministry. Therefore, irrespective of whether the subject of defence of India is assigned to the DoD or the DMA, the responsibility would be that of the defence minister.
Defence of India is a multi-dimensional responsibility involving coordination with not only other organisations within the MoD such as the Border Roads and Coast Guard, but also several external departments and agencies such as the home, finance and external affairs ministries, cabinet secretariat, and the prime minister’s office. There seems to be no demonstrable advantage in saddling the DMA with all these responsibilities.
In a democratic set up, the armed forces must function under the civilian political control. The defence minister can exercise such control only through a civilian department like the DoD and not through DMA which is a predominantly military department. It must be remembered that one of the objectives of the United States’ Goldwater-Nichols Act – considered by the Indian defence analysts as a template worth emulating – was to reorganise the department of defence to strengthen civilian control.4
Above all, it remains unclear what is it that the CDS, in his capacity as the DMA Secretary, will be able to do, which he cannot presently do if the ‘defence of India’ is allocated to his department. The decision to maintain the status quo or to reallocate this responsibility, fully or in part, to the DMA should be based on consideration of these and other substantive issues and not on misapprehensions about the role of departmental secretaries.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Prime Minister’s Outreach to Political Leaders of Jammu and Kashmir
Nazir Ahmad Mir
July 22, 2021
Taking positive measures to address the core issues of misgovernance and corruption and ensuring fair and rightful distribution of resources will help in the revival of the political process in Jammu and Kashmir.
On 24 June 2021, 14 mainstream political leaders from Jammu and Kashmir met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.1 The meeting was called by the prime minister and it was the first of its kind ever since the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill was passed on 5 August 2019. Among various factors that might have led to the meeting, the following have been discussed widely in the media: the back-channel talks with Pakistan; external pressure; the China factor, post-Galwan; the need for initiating a political process; and the worsening situation in Afghanistan.2 The fact that the separatist Hurriyat leaders were kept out of the purview of any such engagement signalled that the days of appeasement of such constituency were over.
The meeting was the first political outreach from New Delhi to the mainstream political leaders who had been waiting for such interaction for almost two years.3 Given the political vacuum that existed in the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir since the fall of the coalition government in June 2018, which has had a debilitating impact on local politics and led to a lot of speculation, it was the need of the hour to engage the local leadership in a bid to acquaint them with the thought process in New Delhi and to resume political activities in the UT. As one government official had said, prior to the meeting, it was an attempt to “open a line of communication with the mainstream leaders” of the UT.4 The situation was fast reaching the point of a mutually hurting stalemate. The Centre needed to act on its promise to normalise the local political process as much as the political leadership from the state wanted restoration of the democratic process to ensure representative governance in the UT.
The meeting was not meant to initiate a one-way communication from the Centre. It was held in a cordial environment, with members of the delegation raising their issues and expressing their concerns to the prime minister, while the latter apprised them of the developmental steps being taken by the government in the UT. Immediately after the conclusion of the meeting, the delegation, including four former chief ministers of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, said that the meeting was a positive step towards reviving political activities and emphasised that certain concrete measures and follow-ups were necessary before the political process can be restarted.
Prime Minister Modi acknowledged that some measures need to be taken to remove “Delhi ki Doori” (distance from Delhi) as well as “Dil ki Doori” (distance between hearts). The message sought to strike an emotional chord with members of the delegation, who had complained about their being put under arrest at the time of tabling of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill in August 2019. He assured them further that he is committed to reviving the democratic process in the UT.5
Home Minister Amit Shah too told the delegation that after the completion of the ongoing delimitation exercise, assembly elections would follow and “at an appropriate time” the statehood would be restored.6
The members of the delegation were of the view that it was necessary to regain the trust of the people and the first step in that direction should be the restoration of the statehood7, after the delimitation exercise. The assembly elections should follow the grant of statehood to the UT. While speaking on behalf of 14 leaders belonging to eight parties, former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Ghulam Nabi Azad put forward five demands: restoration of statehood, protection of land and job rights for the locals, rehabilitation of the Kashmiri Pundits, release of political prisoners, and holding of the assembly elections.
The main challenge for the local political leadership is to regain the trust of their respective political constituencies. It is for this purpose that the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) came into existence on 4 August 2019, which in its second declaration sought “to assure the people that all [their] political activities [would] be subservient to the sacred goal of reverting to the status of J&K as it existed on 4th August 2019.”8 After almost a year and 10 months, the PAGD leadership appears to be pragmatic enough to settle for statehood for the UT of Jammu and Kashmir; whether it goes down well with the people remains to be seen.
There is no denying the fact that the political vacuum in the UT has created a “legitimacy crisis” for the mainstream political leaders, who would now like to make their respective constituencies believe that they could still fight and secure some concessions from New Delhi. They might, thus, be looking for some face-saving political guarantees to this effect. That is perhaps the reason why Omar Abdullah has said that he would not fight elections unless the statehood is restored and Mehbooba Mufti has even emphasised the restoration of “special status”. It appears that restoration of the statehood and the assurance of protection of land rights and jobs for the locals would be a good start to give a sense of relief and political entitlement to the local people. This could be based on the model that already exists in some other states in the country, as per the Constitution of India.
On the economic front too, the government needs to keep investing in creating more jobs to enable the local aspiring youth to earn a dignified livelihood. This can help wean them away from militancy. The new economic policy of the UT is already making such commitments. By December 2020, the investment proposals received by the UT were worth ₹3,325 crores, mainly in the healthcare and medical education sectors9, which have tremendous employment potential. Lieutenant Governor (LG) Manoj Sinha has recently announced a new Industrial Development Scheme (IDS) after long deliberations in January 2021 with a total outlay cost of ₹28,400 crores10, aimed at taking development to the block level and creating employment opportunities for 4.5 lakh people. The LG also said in New Delhi on 2 January 2021 that the UT government was looking for an investment worth $4 billion in the next two to three years. For setting up new industries, the government is identifying 6,000 acres of land across the UT.11 While taking up such a development policy, the government would also need to ensure the environmental sustainability of such projects, given the sensitive ecology of the UT.
To sum up, the meeting on 24 June was the first step towards reviving the political process in Jammu and Kashmir. It will now require follow-up action from the government to regain the trust of the mainstream political leaders, who are struggling to address the issue of alienation among some sections of the local population, especially in Kashmir. This would require efforts at both political and economic fronts. Given the fact that the erstwhile state had a “special status”, upgrading the status of Jammu and Kashmir from that of a UT to a full state, much like other states of the Indian Union, might address the issue of alienation to some extent. At the same time, some provisions for job and land rights for the locals, as demanded by many across the UT, as well as taking positive measures to address the core issues of misgovernance and corruption and ensuring fair and rightful distribution of resources, will certainly help in the revival of the political process in Jammu and Kashmir. An elected local government will be most suitable to handle such matters effectively.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
1. The leaders were from eight political parties including the Indian National Congress (INC), National Conference (NC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party (JKAP), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI (M), National Panthers Party (NPP), and the Peoples Conference (PC).
7. Former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah said that restoration of statehood should be the first step towards restoring trust. See Umar Sofi, “What J&K Leaders Said After Meeting PM Modi”, Hindustan Times, 25 June 2021.
Israeli Foreign Minister’s Visit to UAE: Taking Abraham Accords Forward
Prasanta Kumar Pradhan
July 12, 2021
Israel and UAE have laid a strong foundation for their relationship by signing the Abraham Accords. While both are prioritising economic cooperation and exploring opportunities in other key sectors, how they build convergences over complex regional issues remains to be seen.
In a span of ten months, since the signing of the Abraham Accords in September 2020, Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have made significant strides in laying a strong foundation for their relationship. They have opened embassies, exchanged diplomats, started trade and investments, opened direct flights, agreed to cooperate in the fields of security, infrastructure, healthcare, agriculture, and so on, as mentioned in the Abraham Accords. They are also making efforts to find convergences on regional security and strategic issues. On 29 June 2021, Yair Lapid became the first Israeli Foreign Minister to visit the UAE since the normalisation of their relationship. His visit was intended to further strengthen the relationship between the two countries in light of the Abraham Accords.
Both the countries have laid emphasis on strengthening bilateral trade and commerce. Since the signing of the Abraham Accords, the total trade between the two countries has reached US$ 675.22 million.1 In order to help promote business, Israel and the UAE have signed a tax treaty and a double taxation avoidance treaty. In March this year, the UAE announced an investment of US$ 10 billion in several sectors in Israel, such as energy, agriculture, infrastructure, and healthcare, among others.2 Clearly, there is a growing convergence of interests between the two leading economies in the region. During Lapid’s recent visit to the UAE, both countries signed an agreement on economic cooperation
Cooperation in several key sectors has been established by both countries. In the field of defence technology, Israel and the UAE have joined hands to build an anti-drone system to intercept threats from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).3 Both countries have signed an agreement to cooperate on research and development on coronavirus.4 In October 2020, an Emirati delegation visited Israel and signed four MoUs related to cooperation in the field of agriculture.5
Establishing peace and stability in the region is a crucial component of the Abraham Accords. But building convergences over complex regional security and geopolitical issues is challenging for both. The Palestine question would remain the most challenging issue for the relationship between Israel and the UAE. The recent clashes between Israel and Hamas in May 2021, which led to a number of casualties on both sides, was probably the first major test for the Israel–UAE relationship, which both countries navigated successfully. Though the UAE condemned the Israeli action on the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, its reaction to the Israel-Hamas fighting was mute. Both countries kept the newly-built relationship insulated from international hue and cry, especially over the Israel–Hamas clashes.
The domestic political stalemate and the change of government in Israel had raised doubts about the future direction of Israel’s foreign policy towards the Arab world. The newly formed eight-party coalition government led by Naftali Bennett now includes right-wing, centrist, and left-wing parties and also an Arab political party. The foreign policy of the government, particularly towards Palestine and the Arab countries, was therefore unclear. With the visit of Foreign Minister Lapid to the UAE, it is clear that the Bennett government intends to take the Abraham Accords forward.
Both Israel and the UAE perceive Iran as a threat to their national security. Iran’s support for the Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah and the Bashar Al Assad regime in Syria are key security challenges for Israel. Engaging with the Gulf Arabs strengthens Israel’s position vis-à-vis Iran. For the UAE, Iran’s nuclear programme, dispute with Iran over the islands in the Gulf waters, and Iran’s support for the Houthis in Yemen and the Assad regime in Syria are of serious concern.
Further, as mentioned in the Abraham Accords, both countries are committed to fighting terrorism. Though no substantial cooperation has taken place so far, it remains a potential area of cooperation. Both countries strongly condemn the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in the region as they perceive it as a grave threat to national and regional security.
Despite growing bilateral cooperation, the Palestine issue would remain a potentially destabilising factor in the Israel–UAE relationship. The recurring tensions between Israel and Palestine would continue to question the UAE’s pragmatism in joining hands with Israel and also elicit criticism from some of the fellow Muslim countries. The signing of the Abraham Accords was met with a sense of betrayal by the Palestinians. However, the UAE has assured Palestine of its support while stating that “the pace and scope of normalisation won't be disconnected from progress on Palestinian statehood and rights.”6 The UAE would, therefore, tread cautiously—maintaining its newly built ties with Israel, and at the same time, upholding its commitment and support to the Palestinian people. But the fact remains that the UAE has taken a conscious decision to engage with Israel, and the pace of bilateral engagement indicates that it has no intention of looking back in its relationship with Israel.
Israel portrays the newly built relationship with the UAE as an ideal model of future cooperation and engagement with the other Arab countries. By building strong economic ties and committing to cooperate in other major sectors as well, Israel is conveying a point to the Arab countries that it is not only economically beneficial but also conducive for regional peace and stability if they join hands with Israel.
Both the UAE and Israel have considerably reoriented their approaches since the signing of the Abraham Accords in September last year, leading to a rapid acceleration of bilateral engagements. The strategy adopted by the two countries is to prioritise economic cooperation and explore opportunities in other key sectors as well. Although cooperation on regional issues would be challenging for both given the complex nature of politics in West Asia, Lapid’s visit to the UAE strengthens the foundation of the newly built relationship and the spirit of the Abraham Accords.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Unless the armed forces and the security establishment take a singular approach to warfighting, which includes evolving a singular concept of warfighting, identifying threats and challenges, and medium and long-term capability development goals, differences that make headlines will continue to recur time and again.
The recent past has witnessed yet another public difference of opinion regarding the nature and contours of ongoing efforts at integrating the armed forces. While debate and deliberations on major decisions, including the military, are welcome, the acerbic point and counterpoint that accompanied a flurry of articles thereafter, seemed to go beyond such deliberations. Is the air force a supporting arm like artillery? Is there a problem with how the army views the air force and vice versa? Does the army even understand air power? What is wrong with the provision of providing support to the army in war? And the list goes on.
Several attempts have been made to answer these questions, often accompanied by innuendoes. However, none of them provides an answer to the question that leads to simmering exchanges both in private and public. The question is: Why have the proposed structural changes led to deep-seated and deep-rooted anguish within the three services? While turf wars may immediately come to mind, it is more important to discuss a more fundamental issue that involves not only the armed forces but also the decision-making authorities.
On 15 August 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the profound decision of creating the post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). It would be stating the obvious that it did come as a surprise to most strategic analysts, who expected, at best, the appointment of a Permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, given the lack of “political consensus” in the past and differences between and amongst the bureaucracy and services. The government’s intention was quite clear. They were no longer willing to accept single service turfs being protected, often at the cost of efficiency and under the shadow of sub-optimal delivery. Since the services had themselves failed to take adequate steps in this direction, the decision, as many had recommended, had to come from the political leadership.
The transformative initiative did not end there. Yet again, much to the surprise of most if not all, by the end of the year, it was announced that the Department of Military Affairs would be created with the CDS as its head, in the appointment of Secretary, Government of India.
Amongst the responsibilities assigned to the CDS is to bring about greater integration and, more specifically, the creation of theatre commands. However, as events seem to suggest, there are fundamental differences amongst stakeholders on the role and structure of these commands. The reasons are not difficult to discern. And they go beyond guarding service-specific turfs.
The effectiveness of structures remains critical to the fulfilment of an assigned mandate. However, it is more important to have a singular thought process. In this particular case, the thought that drives future warfighting doctrines and strategies. A brief look at the three doctrines/strategies released by each of the services over the last decade suggests service-specific clarity, but little in terms of joint warfighting synergy. As an illustration, does the air force share the army’s perception of hybrid wars and their changing character? Similarly, does the army share the perception of shaping the war zone as envisaged by the air force? And finally, are the army and air force clear about their respective roles in how the navy will pursue its strategy in the Indian Ocean Region or for that matter the Indo-Pacific? At least the joint doctrine does not suggest so, nor do the publicly available service-specific documents.
Unless the armed forces and the security establishment in India take a singular approach to warfighting, which includes evolving a singular concept of warfighting, identifying threats and challenges, and medium and long-term capability development goals, differences that make headlines will continue to recur time and again.
The Kargil conflict of 1999 and its aftermath also witnessed a similar back and forth between the army and the air force. It is futile to get into the merits of the arguments on both sides. However, it is certainly pertinent to seek reasons for the same, and these were exactly the same 22 years ago as they are now—a glaring disparity in how warfighting is perceived by individual services and unless pushed by circumstances, preferring to go it alone. Unfortunately, none of them is willing to concede that more often than not, service interests overshadow the interests of warfighting as a collective national endeavour. This is not peculiar to Indian conditions. Since 1946, when Harry Truman ordered the creation of seven unified commands, the US armed forces have squabbled amongst themselves, often leading to disastrous results. Resultantly, from the 1986 Goldwater–Nichols Act in the US to the Levene Committee recommendations in the UK, major changes have come often against the wishes of the armed forces.
However, structural changes, despite all impediments in the past are still easy to implement. It is more difficult to ensure that these follow a single warfighting thought process rather than multiple ones stitched together. This must emanate not only from the highest levels of the armed forces in their avatar as the senior-most professional military soldiers but also from those responsible for the defence of the country, i.e., the policymakers. In the absence of a single thought process, the public display of fundamental differences is bound to happen.
This is not to say that professional differences are not possible or welcome in any discussion. Quite the contrary, these are bound to enrich the final decision-making ability of policymakers. However, such debates must precede a decision as momentous as the creation of theatre commands. Once the decision is taken and the services are on board, every constituent of the government must work together to make it a success.
The fact remains that despite the concept of integration and theatre commands being analysed for years, there was little effort to debate its implementation amongst the three services. The strong positions taken on the subject, rarely allowed for more light than heat to be generated. The decision has since been taken. However, considering the present circumstances, it would still be prudent to evolve a concept of war to facilitate ironing out existing and, if one may add, passionately held positions.
It is often said that there is nothing that India can learn from the example of the US integration process, given the stark differences in resources and capabilities. Nothing could be further from reality. One can learn about the cost of committing the same mistakes that the US made when decision-making was dogged by inter-service rivalry and attempts to guard sacred turfs. It can also be learnt that there is value in singular strategic guidance and joint doctrinal thought. While this may not be a guarantee against errors, it can serve the purpose of limiting them. What can certainly happen as a result of well-intentioned mistakes and constraints of understanding, must not be compounded by procedural weaknesses and limitations. Having a single perspective of warfighting is one such urgent need that must be met sooner rather than later. In its absence, structures will remain structures, without the indispensable thought that guide them.
And finally, how much time do the services need to seek consensus on this issue? A broad strategic guidance must be finalised within three months in conjunction with political inputs and the underpinnings must thereafter be converted into a single military strategy within one year. While the first stage will provide the basis for taking forward joint structures, the latter will facilitate the creation of integrated operational directives thereafter. These directives will provide the direction for theatres to subsequently undertake a follow-up of the same at their level. The ongoing debate yet again reinforces the need for a National Security Strategy and a Defence Strategy, which must become the basis for military strategy to evolve. However, given the present circumstances, the services cannot use its absence as an alibi for stalling the ongoing reform process.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Armed Forces, Jointmanship, Military Affairs, Strategic Thinking
There is a need to formulate a composite policy that focuses on indigenisation in high priority technology areas, shedding the notion that it must necessarily result in savings. A more modest and focussed mission-mode approach to indigenisation can produce better results.
India has been striving for indigenisation of defence production for close to three decades. To give impetus to the efforts, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had constituted a committee in the early 1990s under Prof APJ Abdul Kalam. The committee suggested a 10-year roadmap to increase the indigenous component in the total expenditure on capital procurement from 30 per cent in 1992-93 to 70 per cent by 2005. This goal could not be achieved and there continues to be some confusion about the present state of indigenisation.
Present State of Indigenisation
Several steps have been taken in the last 20 years, but the outcome of these efforts remains a matter of debate as the available data on indigenisation is confusing. According to a recent report of the Standing Committee on Defence (SCoD), only 93 of the 213 contracts worth about Rs 1,76,569 crore were awarded to foreign vendors of the USA, Russia, Israel, France, and some other countries between the financial years (FYs) 2016-17 and 2019-20.1
The same report shows that the proportion of expenditure on imported defence equipment in the total expenditure went up from 30.41 per cent in the FY 2010-11 to 43.22 in the FY 2019-20, and though in the first three quarters of the following year (FY 2020-21), it plummeted to 32.39 per cent,2 it is possible that the percentage jumped up again by the end of the year. These figures give the impression that the goal set by the APJ Abdul Kalam Committee has largely been met. However, this is not borne out by other empirical evidence.
In the last five years alone, several contracts have been awarded to the foreign vendors for an assortment of platforms like Dassault’s twin-engine Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA), Boeing’s multi-role combat AH-64E Apache and vertical-lift Chinook helicopters, Lockheed Martin’s C-130J Super Hercules four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft, and Russian Almaz-Antey’s S-400 Triumf Air Defence System.
The Strategic Partnership Model adopted in 2016, which envisages manufacturing of foreign-origin platforms by the Indian companies with the transfer of technology from the former, is another indication that presently India does not have the capability to design and develop state-of-the-art fighter aircraft, helicopters, submarines, and armoured fighting vehicles/main battle tanks. But, above all, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), India was the second-largest importer of arms in 2016-20 after Saudi Arabia.3
Indigenisation in High-Technology Areas Lagging Behind
The best explanation for these contradictory sets of facts is that while the Indian industry has done reasonably well in manufacturing foreign-origin equipment with the help of technology transfer from the foreign Original Equipment Manufacturers and in indigenising components, it still lacks the capability to indigenously design and develop major platforms, with a few exceptions like the Light Combat Aircraft Tejas, which is what indigenisation should be all about.
Even in respect of components and assemblies, no data/information is available to show whether these are critical parts of the equipment/platforms in which these are used. This is important because the extent of indigenisation of a product matters little if a critical part, even if it constitutes a miniscule percentage of the overall product, is not indigenised. In hostile circumstances, the OEM or the country of its origin could deny the export of such items and paralyse production in India.
Seen in this perspective, the level of indigenisation of defence production in India is quite low. Broadly, there are four reasons for this.
Absence of an Overarching Policy Framework
The primary reason is the absence of a pragmatic overarching indigenisation policy. What comes closest to it is a notification issued by the Department of Defence Production (DDP) in 2019.4 It cannot be the guiding document for a concerted effort as it only contains the policy for indigenisation of components and spare parts used by the Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) and the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) in the manufacturing process.
Be that as it may, this document too suffers from many conceptual and procedural inadequacies. For example, the stipulation that the ‘indigenised product should invariably be cheaper and meet all technical and functional specifications of the imported component which it seeks to replace’5, makes it unrealistic and unworkable as the indigenised products are not always cheaper.
No wonder then that the focus of the DPSUs/OFB has been mainly on the indigenisation of items that can be manufactured in India at a cheaper cost vis-à-vis the cost of importing them. Such items do not generally account for a substantial proportion of the technologies that go into the making of a high-technology product and, therefore, the extent of indigenisation of critical components in various defence products continues to be low.
Absence of an Overarching Organisation
The second reason is the absence of an overarching organisation to channelise the efforts being made by several agencies towards a pre-defined goal. Besides DPSUs and the OFB, other agencies presently involved in indigenisation efforts include the Indigenisation Directorates of the Services, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), and the Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO).6 The efforts being made by these agencies are largely disjointed and lack synergy, and no mechanism is in place to facilitate their interaction with the armed forces which are the primary stakeholders in the indigenisation efforts.
Procedural Complexities and Financial Viability
Procedural complexities are the third reason for the slow pace of indigenisation. Though some efforts have been made in recent years to smoothen the process, agencies involved in indigenisation continue to follow their own procedures and norms.
A typical example is the process of selection of partners from, and giving assurance of orders to, the private sector industry, especially the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), who play a critical role in developing niche technologies and providing solutions that are critical for indigenisation. Besides, no satisfactory system is in place to address the issue of Intellectual Property Rights violations that are bound to arise if import substitutes are to be designed and developed in India.
Budgetary Constraints
Lastly, there is a severe budgetary constraint, making it difficult to earmark substantial sums of money to undertake large-scale efforts, especially for indigenous design, development and production of futuristic equipment, platforms, and weapon systems, which is essential for achieving self-reliance.
Indigenisation depends heavily on research and development (R&D), on which the public spending in India has consistently been quite low. Barring a few notable exceptions, even the private sector has been reluctant to make heavy investments in R&D because of the uncertainty that the MoD will procure the indigenously developed product.
What Can be Done
As the first step, the MoD needs to formulate a composite policy that focuses on indigenisation in high priority technology areas, shedding the notion that it must necessarily result in savings. The commercial viability of the identified projects and institutional arrangement for financing them, apart from a mechanism to accommodate the cost of failed efforts, must form the bedrock of the policy.
As a matter of policy, a distinction needs to be made between indigenisation of major systems-equipment, weapons, and assorted platforms – that of components, assemblies, and sub-assemblies. This is important because the challenges faced in the indigenisation of these two categories of defence materiel are different. The approach to indigenisation in these two distinct areas will have to be different.
Secondly, there must be an overarching organisation to coordinate indigenisation efforts currently being made almost independently by several institutions mentioned above. This organisation will have to work out a system for ensuring deeper involvement of the private sector in the indigenisation effort, apart from engagement with other scientific institutions, innovators, foreign entities, and academia.
The private sector, especially the MSMEs, and Start-ups, can play a major role in achieving the intended results. However, funding is a major issue for them, as also the assurance of the follow-on orders being placed on them. These issues will require to be addressed.
Thirdly, procedural issues need to be resolved to ensure that the testing, quality assurance and certification agencies work more as a part of the team engaged in indigenisation rather than as external technology audit entities. This may also require the quality assurance personnel to acquire and upgrade their domain expertise, as well as test procedures, equipment and methodologies.
This is just an example of the procedural tangles besetting indigenisation. Many other issues, such as the setting of extremely stringent specifications by the services and lack of clarity about the aggregated long-term demand for the indigenised product – for special alloys, for example – also slow down indigenisation as action cannot be taken in such cases in the absence of economy of scales.
Fourth, legal issues that often come in the way of indigenisation of products need to be tackled. This is more relevant in the case of substitution of parts and assemblies fitted in the imported equipment through indigenisation efforts which pose a problem because of the legal constraints imposed by the warranty/guarantee clauses in the contracts awarded by the MoD/Services to the technology provider concerned.
Lastly, indigenisation is driven by commercial considerations. No seller will opt for indigenisation if it involves the risk of conceding a competitive edge to another seller because of the additional cost of indigenisation, or if the delivery schedule is inflexible allowing no room for indulging in time-taking indigenisation efforts, or there is uncertainty about the MoD’s ability to place follow-on orders for indigenised products because of the enduring financial constraints it has been facing for long.
A more modest and focussed mission-mode approach to indigenisation can produce better results.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
The formation of a new coalition government may have ended the two-year-long stalemate in Israeli politics, but considering its razor-thin majority in the parliament and notable differences of opinion among various constituent parties, its sustainability remains to be seen.
On 14 June 2021, after a historic voting session in the Knesset, Israel’s unicameral parliament, a new coalition government was elected. It finally ended a more than two-year-long political stalemate in Israeli politics, which began with then Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman leaving the Likud-led government in November 2018 over the issue of ceasefire with Hamas and conscription law for the ultra-Orthodox youth. Since then, the country has witnessed four back-to-back elections in a short period of two years, all ending with inconclusive results. On 2 June 2021, following various rounds of negotiations and discussions, Naftali Bennett (Yemina) and Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) reached an agreement to form a rotational unity government, ending Benjamin Netanyahu’s more than a decade-long premiership.1 According to the agreement, Bennett will serve as prime minister for the first two years, followed by Lapid for the remaining two years.
The new coalition government comprises eight political parties, including Yesh Atid (17), Yemina (7), Blue and White (8), Israeli Labor Party (7), Meretz (6), Ra’am (4), New Hope (6) and Yisrael Beitenu (7).2 These parties majorly differ on issues of annexation, settlement and the two-state solution. The ones that do not support the two-state solution and favour annexation of the West Bank are Yemina, Blue and White, and New Hope. On the other hand, major coalition partners such as Yesh Atid, Israeli Labor Party, Meretz and Ra’am support the two-state solution.
An outstanding feature of the new coalition is the presence of an Arab party (Ra’am). It is for the first time that an Arab party has joined a ruling coalition in Israel.3 This can be seen as a positive outcome of the political deadlock that pushed the major parties to negotiate with the Arab political parties, considered taboo earlier. Though some scholars are of the view that this government will be more democratic than the previous government, a large section of Israeli Arabs, particularly the Palestinians, feel that this government will not be any different from the Likud-led government as Bennett seems to be more hawkish than Netanyahu.
However, the issue of sustainability is a major challenge for the new government. It is a fragile coalition with a very “thin majority” in the Knesset.4 During the Knesset vote on 14 June, out of 120 Members of Knesset (MKs), only 60 favoured the government while 59 voted against it, and one abstained.
This coalition might not be able to sustain itself for long due to a few obvious reasons, the first one being the ideological positions of these eight parties belonging to the centre, hard right, centre-left and Arab bloc. Though these parties have said that their focus is on economic recovery, they may not be able to fully focus on the same given their divergent ideological leanings.
Similarly, their different positions with regard to the West Bank settlement, annexation and two-state solution would make it difficult for them to forge a consensus on major issues. Even a small trigger related to the Palestinian issue could unravel the coalition. For example, the latest discussion on extending the 2003 law, which bars granting citizenship to Palestinians who marry Israeli citizens, has already sparked differences among the right-wing parties and Ra’am.
Another problem is the nature of the new government, which is a “rotational government”. Israel has been unsuccessful in sustaining such a form of government, as seen in the case of the previous rotational unity government, which only survived for eight months5. Therefore, as of now, the stalemate may have ended, but any small difference of opinion can shake the foundation of the government. Moreover, the coalition has been formed mainly to drive Netanyahu out of power, which is not enough to keep it together.
Dealing with the Iranian threat remains a huge security challenge for Israel. The decision of the Joseph Biden administration to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or the Iranian nuclear deal, and the ongoing indirect US–Iran negotiations, has unsettled Israel. It was reflected in Bennett’s 14 June Knesset speech, where he referred to the Iranian nuclear programme as a great challenge.6 Bennett’s opposition to the US–Iran negotiation and the Iranian nuclear programme suggests that “some continuity inIsrael's staunch anti-Iran policy can be expected”.7 Similarly, the new government’s strategy towards Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, which are considered prime security threats to Israel, is also unlikely to change.
As aptly stated by Dr Yaniv Voller, Senior Lecturer at Kent University, “the government will primarily be preoccupied with preventing a nuclear Iran amid growing international fatigue on this subject.” He added, “Netanyahu’s relations with the US President, Joe Biden, were frosty. Bennett may wish to recover relations with the Democratic administration. But his unwavering support of the settlements might complicate Bennett’s rapprochement efforts”.8
Apart from this, the recent clashes between Jewish and Arab communities within Israel have once again brought out the divide between the two communities, posing another internal security challenge to the new government. Furthermore, under the previous government, there was notable progress in normalising relations with the Arab countries, namely, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. How the new government will take the normalisation process further with the other Arab countries, mainly Oman and Saudi Arabia, remains to be seen.9
To sum up, the formation of a new coalition government may have put an end to the two-year-long stalemate in Israeli politics, but considering the fragility of the coalition government, given its razor-thin majority in the parliament and notable differences of opinion among various constituent parties, its sustainability remains to be seen.
The new government will face a major foreign policy challenge in the form of the Biden administration’s position on Iran, in contrast to Donald Trump’s more hostile position that made it relatively favourable to Israel. In addition, furthering the normalisation process with Arab countries will be another challenge the new government will have to address.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
The Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has not succeeded in adding any additional universal stigma to nuclear weapons. It lacks the support base needed for replacing the Cold War vintage “Mutual Assured Destruction” with “Mutual Assured Abstinence”. The nuclear weapon countries’ faith in the deterrence logic remains intact.
The world once again bowed its head in shame and paid tribute to the victims on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki days on 6 August and 9 August, respectively. The comity of nations wrestled with the guilty conscience on the 76th anniversary of both days. Quite ritually, the future of nuclear weapons or nuclear disarmament came up for discussions during many of the prayer meets.
A section of the international community strongly believes that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), popularly known as the Ban Treaty, could help in realising the idea of nuclear disarmament, and has therefore urged the international community, especially the nuclear weapon states to sign the treaty. In fact, the Mayor of Hiroshima appealed to the Japanese government to sign the treaty a few days before the Hiroshima Day. Japan is one of the important countries, which has not signed the treaty as yet. The treaty, at present, has 86 signatories.
Is nuclear disarmament going to become a reality soon? The idea of nuclear disarmament has somewhat gathered momentum after the Ban Treaty came into force, i.e., became operational after 90 days of ratification by the 50th member on 22 January 2021. The treaty now is generating curiosity as well as hope.
The oft-repeated question is: Is this a treaty for nuclear disarmament? Is it similar to The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) or the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)? The BTWC and the CWC are the disarmament treaties for the other two categories of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). A large number of nuclear disarmament enthusiasts belonging to civil society along with some non-nuclear weapon countries want the world to believe that TPNW, or the Ban Treaty, is nuclear equivalent to the BTWC or the CWC.
In fact, like the other two WMD treaties, the Ban Treaty, too, has comprehensive prohibition measures. The treaty bans development, testing, production, manufacturing, acquisition, transfer, use, threat to use, and so on. However, the most interesting provision of the treaty is the ban on “stationing, installation or deployment of any nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices” in the territory or at any place under the jurisdiction or control of a member country.1
The treaty has indeed regenerated hope and optimism for nuclear disarmament in the international community. Although President Barack Obama did not deliver the promised nuclear disarmament for which he had received the Nobel Peace Prize in advance, yet his promise at least did not weaken the nuclear taboo or norm against the use of nuclear weapons existing since the first and last use in 1945. The Ban Treaty is credited to have assembled support for the nuclear disarmament narrative in the Donald Trump era.
Nuclear disarmament did not enthuse President Trump much. Even other dominant nuclear weapon powers did not go beyond some inconsequential resolutions in the United Nations (UN) for nuclear disarmament. The Ban Treaty consolidated the momentum of humanitarian initiatives. The treaty, in its preamble, has maintained the essence of the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons. In fact, the treaty was adopted and opened for signature in 2017 in an adverse situation, for nuclear disarmament.
However, the treaty has not succeeded in adding any additional universal stigma to nuclear weapons. In fact, it lacks the support base needed for replacing the Cold War vintage “Mutual Assured Destruction” with “Mutual Assured Abstinence”. The nuclear weapon countries’ faith in the deterrence logic remains intact. Nuclear deterrence, even though the most sanitised narrative, requires a continuance of nuclear weapons.
None of the nuclear weapon countries participated in the negotiation process for the treaty. All had different arguments, logic and rationale for abstaining from negotiations for the treaty. Some of the reasons could be valid but in general, the reliance on the salience of nuclear weapons has put a spanner in the participation for the treaty. Moreover, carving a new treaty by sidestepping the crisis-ridden Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which has a larger base, including all old nuclear weapon countries, has not gone down well with many countries and writers. A major section believes that the non-nuclear member countries should have forced member countries possessing nuclear weapons to implement Article 6 of the NPT.
Interestingly, not only nuclear weapon countries but also as discussed, the nuclear umbrella holding countries like Japan have stayed away from negotiations. Of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members, only the Netherlands participated in negotiations but cast the only negative vote against the treaty. All the NATO countries, including the Netherlands, are still desisting from the treaty.
The treaty exhibited an intriguing response pattern of some peace activist nations. Sweden participated in negotiations but has not signed the treaty as yet. Norway, which has been at the forefront of funding various peace, humanitarian and disarmament initiatives, too, skirted negotiations and of course, the signing of the treaty. A former nuclear umbrella holding country, New Zealand, has signed, ratified and submitted the declaration that it does not possess or station any nuclear weapon on its territory.
Over the years, the institutions for disarmament have evolved. The Special Sessions of the UN General Assembly devoted to Disarmament have been of immense help. The United Nations Disarmament Commission and the Conference on Disarmament (CD) have played an important role in shaping the disarmament initiatives. Admittedly, these institutions are turning non-functional. For instance, the CD has not succeeded in delivering a treaty in years because of the principle of consensus. However, escaping the negotiating body is not a solution. The challenge lies in building a consensus over the provisions for a disarmament treaty and galvanising public opinion in its favour.
Quite significantly, even the provisions of the Ban Treaty are blocking the path of many countries joining it. The treaty merely mentions the need for bearing the cost for verification but any disarmament treaty needs an elaborate verification and inspection machinery and infrastructure to build confidence among the members and the global community. The verification deficit indicates the ad hoc nature of the treaty.
At the time of negotiations, many accused that some dominant forces pushed a readymade text and that the entire process of negotiations was merely a façade. The treaty does not have a roadmap for nuclear weapons disarmament/dismantlement. The next meeting may set a deadline but the absence of nuclear weapon countries will make it futile.
Several countries have complained that through the Ban Treaty the longstanding principle of sovereign consent prevalent in international law is damaged. Proponents of the Ban Treaty are advised to read the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties in letter and spirit.
India, too, has stayed away from the treaty. It has neither participated in negotiations nor signed the treaty. India wants a treaty to be negotiated in the CD for universal, non-discriminatory and verifiable nuclear disarmament. The Indian government observes that the Ban Treaty “does not constitute or contribute to the development of customary international law; nor does it set any new standards or norms.”2
In the absence of other nuclear weapon countries, India joining the treaty may amount to opting for unilateral nuclear disarmament. This cannot be recommended to a country, which is surrounded by two hostile nuclear neighbours. However, the Ban Treaty needs to be seen as a transitional initiative of a creative new disarmament politics. The oft-repeated idea—a feasible, comprehensive, verifiable and enforceable nuclear disarmament regime—could become a reality only by a genuine commitment of nuclear weapon countries to a Nuclear Weapons Convention negotiated in the CD.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
If existing procurement procedures are a hindrance in acquiring state-of-the-art defence materiel expeditiously, a case needs to be made out, based on demonstrable drawbacks of the existing system for a detailed blueprint of what system should replace it.
The Army Chief MM Naravane recently criticised the current process of procurement of defence materiel for the armed forces in no uncertain terms. Speaking at an event organised by the Delhi-based United Service Institution, he said the process had not kept pace with time and the need of the hour was a revolution in bureaucratic affairs.1
He added that many procedural lacunae had crept into the acquisition process due to the overbearing nature of rules and regulations, leading to a ‘Zero Error Syndrome’ and that the focus must be on faster decision making. Calling for a systemic metamorphosis, he suggested that perhaps the concept of L1 (lowest bidder) should be done away with altogether.2
Most of what the Army Chief said is valid, but it begs the question why the procedural lacunae – none of them new – could not be addressed while revising the Defence Procurement Procedure 2016 (DPP 2016). It was only last October that, after extensive consultations with all the stakeholders, including the industry and think tanks, DPP 2016 was replaced by the Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020 (DAP 2020).
The Services were an integral part of this exercise, which was overseen by an 11-member committee constituted by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in August 2019 under the stewardship of the Director General (Acquisition) with the following terms of reference,3 which subsume the concerns expressed by the Army Chief:
In turn, this MoD committee set up many sub-committees to examine various aspects of the procedure laid down in DPP 2016 and DPM 2009 and after more than a year of deliberations – during which a draft manual was also released inviting comments from the interested parties – the final 681-page document was approved by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) and released by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. All Service Chiefs, Chief of Defence Staff, and Secretaries of various MoD departments are members of the DAC.
In the foreword to DAP 2020, the Defence Minister claimed that it “introduces a slew of conceptual, structural and procedural reforms in the acquisition procedure to create a climate in which the industry can thrive while meeting the security and operational needs of the Services” and that the document’s focus is on “ensuring that contemporary technology based equipment is made available to the Services in a time bound manner, to further expedite the modernisation of the armed forces”.5
It is difficult to imagine what constraints the committee might have faced in making procedural improvements to address the problems that the Army Chief mentioned in his address. The fact is that within the broad principles of public procurement laid out in the General Financial Rules, 2017 (GFR 2017), the MoD is free to evolve a procedure that addresses the peculiarities of defence acquisitions.
This would be evident from a comparison of GFR 2017 and the Manual for Procurement of Goods, 2017 issued by the Ministry of Finance (MoF), and their earlier versions, with the several versions of the DPP issued between 2002 and 2016, and the latest DAP 2020. There is a marked difference between the procedure followed by the MoD and other civil ministries though the basic principles underlying the procurement architecture remains the same.
It is possible that the Army Chief was hinting at the need for changing one or more of these fundamental principles of public procurement. One gets this impression from the Army Chief’s suggestion to do away with the L1 concept altogether. Considering that a section of the strategic community has been castigating this concept for a long time, it is surprising that the MoD-appointed committee and its sub-committees either did not take up this issue or were unable to offer an alternative.
Be that as it may, four points need to be made regarding this L1 business. One, though L1 is among the fundamental principle of public buying, there are exceptions to it as in the case of single-source procurements. In fact, most of the MoD’s single-source negotiated acquisitions from the Indian vendors or under the government-to-government or inter-governmental agreements are not based on the L1 concept. Procurements made from the United States (US) through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) route are a case in point.
Two, the L1 system does not require the Services to blindly pick up the cheapest equipment. The L1 bidder is determined through a rigorous process of elimination. This process starts with the Request for Information (RfI) to gather information about the available equipment that meets the Services’ operational requirements and to formulate the Services Qualitative Requirements (SQRs).
The SQRs are formulated by the Services – at times warranting some modifications in the available equipment to meet their requirement – and approved by the Services Equipment Policy Committee (SEPC).
The detailed SQRs are mentioned in the Request for Proposal (RfP) and the bidders’ responses are technically evaluated by the Services to shortlist the vendors whose products meet their needs. The shortlisted vendors are then asked to bring their equipment for extensive field trials, wherever considered necessary. These trials constitute the second filter to shortlist the vendors based on the actual performance of the equipment.
At the last stage, the commercial offers of only those vendors, whose product fully meets the requirements of the Services, are opened and L1 determined. Conceptually, L1 is identified from among the bidders whose product is certified by the Services as being suitable for performing the intended operational role. Seen in this perspective, the L1 system seems fair and equitable, but if it is not, it should indeed be modified, if not junked altogether.
Three, it is permissible to specify Enhanced Performance Parameters (EPP) in addition to the SQRs, enabling the vendors to offer a product that is more advanced than the one based on the SQRs. The vendors meeting those EPPs get a weightage up to 10 per cent while determining L1.
In simpler words, if the price quoted by a vendor for the product meeting the EPPs mentioned in the RfP is Rs 100 and full weightage of 10 per cent is applicable as per the terms of the RfP, the quoted price is reduced to Rs 90 for the purpose of comparison with the price quoted by other vendors. And if, with reference to the depressed price, such a vendor emerges as L1, the contract is awarded to him/her at the quoted price of Rs 100. This is a departure from the conventional L1 concept.
When introduced in 2016, this feature was lauded as a progressive step that would address the real or perceived rigours of the L1 system to a considerable extent. Going by the Army Chief’s statement, however, the excitement was misplaced.
Lastly, if none of the systems mentioned above is working well and has become a hindrance in acquiring state-of-the-art defence materiel expeditiously, a case needs to be made out based on demonstrable drawbacks of the existing system and, more importantly, a detailed blueprint of what system should replace it. Prejudicial condemnation of the L1 system, or other aspects of the existing procedure, is of little help.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
The Russia–Myanmar relationship is gathering strength. Bangladesh wants to use the increasing bonhomie between Russia and Myanmar to start a tri-lateral process to reach an amicable solution to the Rohingya refugee crisis.
The issue of Rohingya refugees has turned out to be a major problem for Bangladesh in recent times, especially after the mass exodus of Rohingyas from Myanmar in August 2017. Bangladesh has tried to engage bilaterally with Myanmar and also attempted to garner international support to deal with this problem effectively. It has managed to get support not only from the Western countries and the Muslim world but also from important international organisations like the United Nations (UN). Despite this, the problem is far from resolved. In its bid to find a solution to this problem and to repatriate Rohingyas to Myanmar, Bangladesh has now sought the help of Russia as the relationship of the Myanmar junta with Russia is gathering strength.
The Rohingya crisis has existed for a long time. The first instance of migration of Rohingyas from Myanmar to Bangladesh was seen in 1977. Since then, Rohingyas have been migrating to Bangladesh intermittently. But in August 2017, a mass exodus of Rohingyas took place, after Rohingya Arsa militants launched deadly attacks on more than 30 police posts in Myanmar.1 The migrants joined around 3,00,000 people who were already in Bangladesh from previous waves of displacement. According to an assessment done by UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund), by September 2019, around 12,95,000 people needed assistance. By the end of 2020, the Cox’s Bazar District in Bangladesh was still hosting more than 8,60,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.2 In December 2020, the Bangladesh government moved nearly 20,000 Rohingya refugees to Bhasan Char, a remote silt island in the Bay of Bengal, amidst international uproar. Countries like Bangladesh have alleged that Rohingyas were driven out by the Myanmar Army as part of ethnic cleansing. On the other hand, the Myanmar Army, also known as Tatmadaw, stated that a large number of Rohingyas were indulging in terror activities and therefore the army had taken steps necessary for law enforcement. Whatever may be the truth, the Rohingya migrants in Bangladesh effectively form the world’s largest refugee camp.
Although Bangladesh is sympathetic towards Rohingya refugees who are predominantly Muslim, it wants them to go back to Myanmar. Bangladesh is a densely populated country, and large numbers of Bangladeshis themselves have been legally or illegally migrating to other countries. In such circumstances, it is difficult for Bangladesh, a lower-middle income country, to accept Rohingya refugees in large numbers. Though it has been getting international help for the upkeep of these refugees, the pressure on land has been significant. Moreover, many Rohingyas have also created law and order problems.3 Hence, Bangladesh has been trying to persuade Myanmar to take back these refugees. It has also approached major Western powers and international institutions to put pressure on Myanmar.
To resolve the crisis, Bangladesh had earlier undertaken a tri-lateral initiative with China and Myanmar which began in 2019. A series of meetings at ministerial, secretary and high official levels took place, after which Naypyidaw hinted that it would start taking back Rohingyas from the second quarter of 2021. However, the military coup in Myanmar in February 2021 completely stalled this process.
The coup in Myanmar has resulted in huge pro-democracy protests, making the domestic political situation tumultuous. The protests have also brought in their wake Western pressure on Myanmar, asking the military junta to restore democracy. At the same time, Myanmar has reinvigorated some of its old relationships, prominent among them is its relationship with Russia.
Myanmar's junta leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing visited Russia in June 2021. Following this, Alexander Mikheev, the head of Russia's state arms exporter Rosoboronexport, stated that Moscow was cooperating closely with Myanmar's junta to supply military hardware including aircraft.4
In the past, Myanmar largely depended on China for political, military and economic help. China also greatly benefitted from this relationship, as it got one more route to get oil from Gulf countries. However, China has also engaged in certain activities that have created problems for Myanmar. Myanmar suspects that China is helping rebels in bordering areas. Last year, Myanmar’s Senior General Min Aung Hlaing openly complained about “strong forces” backing some of the rebels.5 Myanmar has tried to deal with this rebellion with the help of Russian arms.
Myanmar now wants to reduce its dependence on China. Moreover, it is also facing great international pressure to restore democracy. In these difficult times, made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia has emerged as an important support.6
Before 1991, Soviet Union was an important player in Southeast Asia. However, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the situation changed. Russia, its successor state, is now trying to recover some of the lost ground. Russia also wants its presence felt in the Indian Ocean. It is looking towards Myanmar as an important ally, where Russian ships visiting the Indian Ocean can dock.
The Russia–Myanmar relationship is gathering strength. Bangladesh now wants to use this increasing bonhomie between Russia and Myanmar for its own benefit. Bangladesh wants Russia to start a tri-lateral process with Myanmar to reach an amicable solution to the Rohingya refugee crisis.7 In this regard, Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen made a request to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov during their recent meeting in July 2021 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on the sidelines of an international conference on connectivity. However, the Russian foreign minister Lavrov didn’t make any commitment straightaway.8
Bangladesh has imported weapons from China on a large scale in the past, however, in the last one decade or so, Russia has also emerged as an important supplier. Besides, Russia is building the Rooppur nuclear power plant in Bangladesh. Though Russia has an interest both in Bangladesh and Myanmar, it is not going to be easy for Moscow to take a stand on the Rohingya issue. It is hardly surprising that Russia has been careful not to take sides and has encouraged Myanmar to tackle the issue bilaterally.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
The Ministry of Defence has taken significant steps in recent times to boost domestic defence manufacturing and increase the role of the private sector to reduce dependence on imports and achieve self-reliance.
In the defence sector, India has long sought self-reliance, but efforts have yielded few results. India built up its domestic defence production capacity with assistance from countries like the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly through assembly under licence.
While India imported platforms and equipment, it did embark on indigenously developing key equipment like missile systems. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in 1982-83 started the development of indigenous missile systems under the leadership of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. These included the short-range surface-to-air missiles like the ‘Prithvi’, ‘Akash’ and the anti-tank guided missiles like ‘Nag’.1 The Prithvi missile system was inducted in 1994 while the Akash missile system was inducted in 2014 in the Indian Air Force and in the Indian Army the following year.2 The user trial of the third-generation Nag was carried out in October 2020 and the system is in the final stages of induction.
Apart from making efforts to develop indigenous missile systems, India also entered into an agreement with Russia in 1998 to develop a supersonic cruise missile system, the ‘Brahmos’. This is the fastest supersonic cruise missile in the world, which can be launched from submarines, ships, or aircraft. Brahmos was successfully inducted in 2006.
In the light of the economy hit by the pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 12 May 2020, launched the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan. The phrase can be translated as self-reliance and self-sufficiency, and it highlights the importance of reducing external dependence in the economic sector. The term ‘Vocal for Local’ was also introduced to encourage the purchase of indigenous products so that the local industry can flourish. The Aatmanirbhar Bharat as an umbrella concept aims to achieve a technology-driven economy, build cutting-edge infrastructure and utilise the strength of the country’s demographic profile to generate economic growth.
The defence sector was recognised as an important area in which there is a lot of scope for being Aatmanirbhar or self-reliant. The defence sector is one of the strategic sectors of the Indian economy that has the potential for tremendous growth because of the large talented pool of skill sets in terms of human resources and large-scale modernisation requirements of the armed forces. The sector will help in strengthening the economy by creating employment opportunities and reducing the import burden.
India’s arms import during 2015-19, for instance, accounted for nearly 10 per cent of the world’s total. India’s arms import though decreased by 33 per cent between 2011–15 and 2016–20.3 Self-reliance in defence and security needs is critical to reducing India’s dependence on other countries for urgent procurement in times of exigency.
Recent border tensions with China highlighted the reality of procurement done on short notice, to enhance combative effectiveness. During the stand-off, reports flagged that the Indian Army lacked terrain-specific weapons like combat vehicles, among others. To overcome these gaps in weaponry pertaining to high-altitude warfare, the Indian armed forces were provided with emergency financial powers for capital and revenue procurements.4 Such procurement, though, will be invariably expensive.
Even as this dependence on importing defence products needs to be reduced, indigenous defence procurement needs to be encouraged. It is noteworthy that under the provisions of the emergency procurement, the Indian Army also placed orders for indigenous products like the M4 armoured vehicles from the Pune-based defence company, Bharat Forge of the Kalyani Group.5
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has taken other important steps to boost the ‘Make in India’ policy in defence manufacturing. The limits on foreign direct investment (FDI) in the defence sector have been raised to 74 per cent, from the earlier limits of 49 per cent (in May 2020). Out of the total capital acquisition budget for the year 2021-22, over 60 per cent has been earmarked for domestic capital procurement. Defence capital outlay has been increased by 18.75 per cent in the budget of 2021–22. The Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 has been revised as the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) 2020, with stress on achieving self-reliance in the defence sector.6
To enable the domestic industry to manufacture high-technology weapons and equipment, the government is aggressively promoting the role of the private sector in defence acquisition.7 The Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) awards, instituted by the MoD in April 2018, are an essential step towards creating an ecosystem to foster innovation, research and technology development. iDEX has provided opportunities to MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises), start-ups, research and academic institutions as well as individuals to provide innovative solutions to pressing problem areas of the armed forces.8
Further, the MoD has undertaken important steps to facilitate and encourage exports. The Export Promotion Cell (EPC) in the Department of Defence Production (DDP) has been created for the purpose. India has achieved considerable growth in exporting defence equipment. During 2015-20, India’s defence exports grew from around Rs 2,000 crore to Rs 9,000 crore.9 Exports of globally competitive Indian defence products will no doubt help achieve economies of scale and spur qualitative improvements in indigenous defence production.
SRIJAN, the indigenisation portal, was launched in August 2020 for the benefit of defence public sector units (DPSUs) and ordnance factories to provide development support to MSMEs/start-ups/industry for import substitution. A ‘positive indigenisation list’ consisting of more than 200 items that will be manufactured within India is a huge opportunity to add volumes to the domestic defence industry using their own design and development capabilities.
These steps cumulatively are expected to make use of the large, available skill pool to introduce fresh energy in the defence sector by developing innovative, niche, and cutting-edge technologies for the military. A robust domestic defence manufacturing sector can transform India’s military capabilities and help achieve self-reliance in its defence requirements.
Ms Richa Tokas is an Intern in Defence Economics and Industry Centre at Manohar Parrikar IDSA, New Delhi
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Defence of India is a multi-dimensional responsibility involving coordination with not only organisations within MoD, but also several external departments and agencies. Irrespective of whether the subject of defence of India is assigned to DoD or DMA, it is the defence minister who is responsible for the subjects allocated to the ministry.
The creation of the Department of Military Affairs (DMA) as the fifth department of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) last year, with Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Bipin Rawat concurrently being designated as its secretary, has revived an old debate about the propriety of the defence secretary being assigned the responsibility for defence of India. Most defence analysts are dismayed that this responsibility has not been transferred to the CDS who, among other things, is the sole military advisor to the government.
The argument revolves around an entry – amended on 30 December 2019 – in the Government of India (Allocation of Business Rules), 1961 (AoB Rules) which assigns the subject of ‘Defence of India and every part thereof including defence policy and preparation for defence and all such acts as may be conducive in times of war to its prosecution and after its termination to effective demobilisation’ to the Department of Defence (DoD).1
It must be noted that the said rules do not assign the responsibility to the defence secretary, but to the DoD. In fact, the word ‘secretary’ does not appear in these rules even once. Since, however, the DoD is headed by the defence secretary, analysts argue that, by implication, he/she becomes responsible for the defence of India. This argument is specious.
The AoB Rules are one of the two sets of rules – the other one being the Government of India (Transaction of Business) Rules, 1961 (ToB Rules)2 – that were notified under Clause 3 of Article 77 of the Constitution of India3 which empowers the President of India to make rules for allocation of the business of the Government of India (GoI) among various ministries, or departments, and for ‘more convenient’ transaction of such business by them, respectively.
The ToB Rules lay down the procedure for inter-departmental consultations, functions of various cabinet committees like the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) and the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), submission of cases and papers to the cabinet, prime minister and the President for approval or information, and a host of analogous functions.
According to Rule 11 of the ToB Rules, the departmental secretaries, are the ‘administrative heads’ of their department, ‘responsible for the proper transaction of business and the careful observance of these rules in that department’. This description does not lend itself to the inference that the defence secretary is responsible for the defence of India as Rule 3 of the ToB Rules also clearly states that all business allotted to a department under the AoB Rules shall be disposed of by, or under the general or special directions of, the minister-in-charge.
In view of the express provisions in these rules, the defence analysts’ dismay at the defence secretary being entrusted with the responsibility for defence of India is unfounded. When confronted with these facts, they argue that the logic of appointing the CDS demands that the responsibility for the defence of India should also be passed on to the DMA. This argument sounds valid but fails to explain the necessity for, or the advantage of, transferring the subject to the DMA.
As pointed out earlier, it is the minister-in-charge and not any of the secretaries working under him, who is responsible for the subjects allocated to his or her ministry. Therefore, irrespective of whether the subject of defence of India is assigned to the DoD or the DMA, the responsibility would be that of the defence minister.
Defence of India is a multi-dimensional responsibility involving coordination with not only other organisations within the MoD such as the Border Roads and Coast Guard, but also several external departments and agencies such as the home, finance and external affairs ministries, cabinet secretariat, and the prime minister’s office. There seems to be no demonstrable advantage in saddling the DMA with all these responsibilities.
In a democratic set up, the armed forces must function under the civilian political control. The defence minister can exercise such control only through a civilian department like the DoD and not through DMA which is a predominantly military department. It must be remembered that one of the objectives of the United States’ Goldwater-Nichols Act – considered by the Indian defence analysts as a template worth emulating – was to reorganise the department of defence to strengthen civilian control.4
Above all, it remains unclear what is it that the CDS, in his capacity as the DMA Secretary, will be able to do, which he cannot presently do if the ‘defence of India’ is allocated to his department. The decision to maintain the status quo or to reallocate this responsibility, fully or in part, to the DMA should be based on consideration of these and other substantive issues and not on misapprehensions about the role of departmental secretaries.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Taking positive measures to address the core issues of misgovernance and corruption and ensuring fair and rightful distribution of resources will help in the revival of the political process in Jammu and Kashmir.
On 24 June 2021, 14 mainstream political leaders from Jammu and Kashmir met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.1 The meeting was called by the prime minister and it was the first of its kind ever since the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill was passed on 5 August 2019. Among various factors that might have led to the meeting, the following have been discussed widely in the media: the back-channel talks with Pakistan; external pressure; the China factor, post-Galwan; the need for initiating a political process; and the worsening situation in Afghanistan.2 The fact that the separatist Hurriyat leaders were kept out of the purview of any such engagement signalled that the days of appeasement of such constituency were over.
The meeting was the first political outreach from New Delhi to the mainstream political leaders who had been waiting for such interaction for almost two years.3 Given the political vacuum that existed in the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir since the fall of the coalition government in June 2018, which has had a debilitating impact on local politics and led to a lot of speculation, it was the need of the hour to engage the local leadership in a bid to acquaint them with the thought process in New Delhi and to resume political activities in the UT. As one government official had said, prior to the meeting, it was an attempt to “open a line of communication with the mainstream leaders” of the UT.4 The situation was fast reaching the point of a mutually hurting stalemate. The Centre needed to act on its promise to normalise the local political process as much as the political leadership from the state wanted restoration of the democratic process to ensure representative governance in the UT.
The meeting was not meant to initiate a one-way communication from the Centre. It was held in a cordial environment, with members of the delegation raising their issues and expressing their concerns to the prime minister, while the latter apprised them of the developmental steps being taken by the government in the UT. Immediately after the conclusion of the meeting, the delegation, including four former chief ministers of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, said that the meeting was a positive step towards reviving political activities and emphasised that certain concrete measures and follow-ups were necessary before the political process can be restarted.
Prime Minister Modi acknowledged that some measures need to be taken to remove “Delhi ki Doori” (distance from Delhi) as well as “Dil ki Doori” (distance between hearts). The message sought to strike an emotional chord with members of the delegation, who had complained about their being put under arrest at the time of tabling of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill in August 2019. He assured them further that he is committed to reviving the democratic process in the UT.5
Home Minister Amit Shah too told the delegation that after the completion of the ongoing delimitation exercise, assembly elections would follow and “at an appropriate time” the statehood would be restored.6
The members of the delegation were of the view that it was necessary to regain the trust of the people and the first step in that direction should be the restoration of the statehood7 , after the delimitation exercise. The assembly elections should follow the grant of statehood to the UT. While speaking on behalf of 14 leaders belonging to eight parties, former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Ghulam Nabi Azad put forward five demands: restoration of statehood, protection of land and job rights for the locals, rehabilitation of the Kashmiri Pundits, release of political prisoners, and holding of the assembly elections.
The main challenge for the local political leadership is to regain the trust of their respective political constituencies. It is for this purpose that the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) came into existence on 4 August 2019, which in its second declaration sought “to assure the people that all [their] political activities [would] be subservient to the sacred goal of reverting to the status of J&K as it existed on 4th August 2019.”8 After almost a year and 10 months, the PAGD leadership appears to be pragmatic enough to settle for statehood for the UT of Jammu and Kashmir; whether it goes down well with the people remains to be seen.
There is no denying the fact that the political vacuum in the UT has created a “legitimacy crisis” for the mainstream political leaders, who would now like to make their respective constituencies believe that they could still fight and secure some concessions from New Delhi. They might, thus, be looking for some face-saving political guarantees to this effect. That is perhaps the reason why Omar Abdullah has said that he would not fight elections unless the statehood is restored and Mehbooba Mufti has even emphasised the restoration of “special status”. It appears that restoration of the statehood and the assurance of protection of land rights and jobs for the locals would be a good start to give a sense of relief and political entitlement to the local people. This could be based on the model that already exists in some other states in the country, as per the Constitution of India.
On the economic front too, the government needs to keep investing in creating more jobs to enable the local aspiring youth to earn a dignified livelihood. This can help wean them away from militancy. The new economic policy of the UT is already making such commitments. By December 2020, the investment proposals received by the UT were worth ₹3,325 crores, mainly in the healthcare and medical education sectors9 , which have tremendous employment potential. Lieutenant Governor (LG) Manoj Sinha has recently announced a new Industrial Development Scheme (IDS) after long deliberations in January 2021 with a total outlay cost of ₹28,400 crores10 , aimed at taking development to the block level and creating employment opportunities for 4.5 lakh people. The LG also said in New Delhi on 2 January 2021 that the UT government was looking for an investment worth $4 billion in the next two to three years. For setting up new industries, the government is identifying 6,000 acres of land across the UT.11 While taking up such a development policy, the government would also need to ensure the environmental sustainability of such projects, given the sensitive ecology of the UT.
To sum up, the meeting on 24 June was the first step towards reviving the political process in Jammu and Kashmir. It will now require follow-up action from the government to regain the trust of the mainstream political leaders, who are struggling to address the issue of alienation among some sections of the local population, especially in Kashmir. This would require efforts at both political and economic fronts. Given the fact that the erstwhile state had a “special status”, upgrading the status of Jammu and Kashmir from that of a UT to a full state, much like other states of the Indian Union, might address the issue of alienation to some extent. At the same time, some provisions for job and land rights for the locals, as demanded by many across the UT, as well as taking positive measures to address the core issues of misgovernance and corruption and ensuring fair and rightful distribution of resources, will certainly help in the revival of the political process in Jammu and Kashmir. An elected local government will be most suitable to handle such matters effectively.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Israel and UAE have laid a strong foundation for their relationship by signing the Abraham Accords. While both are prioritising economic cooperation and exploring opportunities in other key sectors, how they build convergences over complex regional issues remains to be seen.
In a span of ten months, since the signing of the Abraham Accords in September 2020, Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have made significant strides in laying a strong foundation for their relationship. They have opened embassies, exchanged diplomats, started trade and investments, opened direct flights, agreed to cooperate in the fields of security, infrastructure, healthcare, agriculture, and so on, as mentioned in the Abraham Accords. They are also making efforts to find convergences on regional security and strategic issues. On 29 June 2021, Yair Lapid became the first Israeli Foreign Minister to visit the UAE since the normalisation of their relationship. His visit was intended to further strengthen the relationship between the two countries in light of the Abraham Accords.
Both the countries have laid emphasis on strengthening bilateral trade and commerce. Since the signing of the Abraham Accords, the total trade between the two countries has reached US$ 675.22 million.1 In order to help promote business, Israel and the UAE have signed a tax treaty and a double taxation avoidance treaty. In March this year, the UAE announced an investment of US$ 10 billion in several sectors in Israel, such as energy, agriculture, infrastructure, and healthcare, among others.2 Clearly, there is a growing convergence of interests between the two leading economies in the region. During Lapid’s recent visit to the UAE, both countries signed an agreement on economic cooperation
Cooperation in several key sectors has been established by both countries. In the field of defence technology, Israel and the UAE have joined hands to build an anti-drone system to intercept threats from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).3 Both countries have signed an agreement to cooperate on research and development on coronavirus.4 In October 2020, an Emirati delegation visited Israel and signed four MoUs related to cooperation in the field of agriculture.5
Establishing peace and stability in the region is a crucial component of the Abraham Accords. But building convergences over complex regional security and geopolitical issues is challenging for both. The Palestine question would remain the most challenging issue for the relationship between Israel and the UAE. The recent clashes between Israel and Hamas in May 2021, which led to a number of casualties on both sides, was probably the first major test for the Israel–UAE relationship, which both countries navigated successfully. Though the UAE condemned the Israeli action on the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, its reaction to the Israel-Hamas fighting was mute. Both countries kept the newly-built relationship insulated from international hue and cry, especially over the Israel–Hamas clashes.
The domestic political stalemate and the change of government in Israel had raised doubts about the future direction of Israel’s foreign policy towards the Arab world. The newly formed eight-party coalition government led by Naftali Bennett now includes right-wing, centrist, and left-wing parties and also an Arab political party. The foreign policy of the government, particularly towards Palestine and the Arab countries, was therefore unclear. With the visit of Foreign Minister Lapid to the UAE, it is clear that the Bennett government intends to take the Abraham Accords forward.
Both Israel and the UAE perceive Iran as a threat to their national security. Iran’s support for the Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah and the Bashar Al Assad regime in Syria are key security challenges for Israel. Engaging with the Gulf Arabs strengthens Israel’s position vis-à-vis Iran. For the UAE, Iran’s nuclear programme, dispute with Iran over the islands in the Gulf waters, and Iran’s support for the Houthis in Yemen and the Assad regime in Syria are of serious concern.
Further, as mentioned in the Abraham Accords, both countries are committed to fighting terrorism. Though no substantial cooperation has taken place so far, it remains a potential area of cooperation. Both countries strongly condemn the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in the region as they perceive it as a grave threat to national and regional security.
Despite growing bilateral cooperation, the Palestine issue would remain a potentially destabilising factor in the Israel–UAE relationship. The recurring tensions between Israel and Palestine would continue to question the UAE’s pragmatism in joining hands with Israel and also elicit criticism from some of the fellow Muslim countries. The signing of the Abraham Accords was met with a sense of betrayal by the Palestinians. However, the UAE has assured Palestine of its support while stating that “the pace and scope of normalisation won't be disconnected from progress on Palestinian statehood and rights.”6 The UAE would, therefore, tread cautiously—maintaining its newly built ties with Israel, and at the same time, upholding its commitment and support to the Palestinian people. But the fact remains that the UAE has taken a conscious decision to engage with Israel, and the pace of bilateral engagement indicates that it has no intention of looking back in its relationship with Israel.
Israel portrays the newly built relationship with the UAE as an ideal model of future cooperation and engagement with the other Arab countries. By building strong economic ties and committing to cooperate in other major sectors as well, Israel is conveying a point to the Arab countries that it is not only economically beneficial but also conducive for regional peace and stability if they join hands with Israel.
Both the UAE and Israel have considerably reoriented their approaches since the signing of the Abraham Accords in September last year, leading to a rapid acceleration of bilateral engagements. The strategy adopted by the two countries is to prioritise economic cooperation and explore opportunities in other key sectors as well. Although cooperation on regional issues would be challenging for both given the complex nature of politics in West Asia, Lapid’s visit to the UAE strengthens the foundation of the newly built relationship and the spirit of the Abraham Accords.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Unless the armed forces and the security establishment take a singular approach to warfighting, which includes evolving a singular concept of warfighting, identifying threats and challenges, and medium and long-term capability development goals, differences that make headlines will continue to recur time and again.
The recent past has witnessed yet another public difference of opinion regarding the nature and contours of ongoing efforts at integrating the armed forces. While debate and deliberations on major decisions, including the military, are welcome, the acerbic point and counterpoint that accompanied a flurry of articles thereafter, seemed to go beyond such deliberations. Is the air force a supporting arm like artillery? Is there a problem with how the army views the air force and vice versa? Does the army even understand air power? What is wrong with the provision of providing support to the army in war? And the list goes on.
Several attempts have been made to answer these questions, often accompanied by innuendoes. However, none of them provides an answer to the question that leads to simmering exchanges both in private and public. The question is: Why have the proposed structural changes led to deep-seated and deep-rooted anguish within the three services? While turf wars may immediately come to mind, it is more important to discuss a more fundamental issue that involves not only the armed forces but also the decision-making authorities.
On 15 August 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the profound decision of creating the post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). It would be stating the obvious that it did come as a surprise to most strategic analysts, who expected, at best, the appointment of a Permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, given the lack of “political consensus” in the past and differences between and amongst the bureaucracy and services. The government’s intention was quite clear. They were no longer willing to accept single service turfs being protected, often at the cost of efficiency and under the shadow of sub-optimal delivery. Since the services had themselves failed to take adequate steps in this direction, the decision, as many had recommended, had to come from the political leadership.
The transformative initiative did not end there. Yet again, much to the surprise of most if not all, by the end of the year, it was announced that the Department of Military Affairs would be created with the CDS as its head, in the appointment of Secretary, Government of India.
Amongst the responsibilities assigned to the CDS is to bring about greater integration and, more specifically, the creation of theatre commands. However, as events seem to suggest, there are fundamental differences amongst stakeholders on the role and structure of these commands. The reasons are not difficult to discern. And they go beyond guarding service-specific turfs.
The effectiveness of structures remains critical to the fulfilment of an assigned mandate. However, it is more important to have a singular thought process. In this particular case, the thought that drives future warfighting doctrines and strategies. A brief look at the three doctrines/strategies released by each of the services over the last decade suggests service-specific clarity, but little in terms of joint warfighting synergy. As an illustration, does the air force share the army’s perception of hybrid wars and their changing character? Similarly, does the army share the perception of shaping the war zone as envisaged by the air force? And finally, are the army and air force clear about their respective roles in how the navy will pursue its strategy in the Indian Ocean Region or for that matter the Indo-Pacific? At least the joint doctrine does not suggest so, nor do the publicly available service-specific documents.
Unless the armed forces and the security establishment in India take a singular approach to warfighting, which includes evolving a singular concept of warfighting, identifying threats and challenges, and medium and long-term capability development goals, differences that make headlines will continue to recur time and again.
The Kargil conflict of 1999 and its aftermath also witnessed a similar back and forth between the army and the air force. It is futile to get into the merits of the arguments on both sides. However, it is certainly pertinent to seek reasons for the same, and these were exactly the same 22 years ago as they are now—a glaring disparity in how warfighting is perceived by individual services and unless pushed by circumstances, preferring to go it alone. Unfortunately, none of them is willing to concede that more often than not, service interests overshadow the interests of warfighting as a collective national endeavour. This is not peculiar to Indian conditions. Since 1946, when Harry Truman ordered the creation of seven unified commands, the US armed forces have squabbled amongst themselves, often leading to disastrous results. Resultantly, from the 1986 Goldwater–Nichols Act in the US to the Levene Committee recommendations in the UK, major changes have come often against the wishes of the armed forces.
However, structural changes, despite all impediments in the past are still easy to implement. It is more difficult to ensure that these follow a single warfighting thought process rather than multiple ones stitched together. This must emanate not only from the highest levels of the armed forces in their avatar as the senior-most professional military soldiers but also from those responsible for the defence of the country, i.e., the policymakers. In the absence of a single thought process, the public display of fundamental differences is bound to happen.
This is not to say that professional differences are not possible or welcome in any discussion. Quite the contrary, these are bound to enrich the final decision-making ability of policymakers. However, such debates must precede a decision as momentous as the creation of theatre commands. Once the decision is taken and the services are on board, every constituent of the government must work together to make it a success.
The fact remains that despite the concept of integration and theatre commands being analysed for years, there was little effort to debate its implementation amongst the three services. The strong positions taken on the subject, rarely allowed for more light than heat to be generated. The decision has since been taken. However, considering the present circumstances, it would still be prudent to evolve a concept of war to facilitate ironing out existing and, if one may add, passionately held positions.
It is often said that there is nothing that India can learn from the example of the US integration process, given the stark differences in resources and capabilities. Nothing could be further from reality. One can learn about the cost of committing the same mistakes that the US made when decision-making was dogged by inter-service rivalry and attempts to guard sacred turfs. It can also be learnt that there is value in singular strategic guidance and joint doctrinal thought. While this may not be a guarantee against errors, it can serve the purpose of limiting them. What can certainly happen as a result of well-intentioned mistakes and constraints of understanding, must not be compounded by procedural weaknesses and limitations. Having a single perspective of warfighting is one such urgent need that must be met sooner rather than later. In its absence, structures will remain structures, without the indispensable thought that guide them.
And finally, how much time do the services need to seek consensus on this issue? A broad strategic guidance must be finalised within three months in conjunction with political inputs and the underpinnings must thereafter be converted into a single military strategy within one year. While the first stage will provide the basis for taking forward joint structures, the latter will facilitate the creation of integrated operational directives thereafter. These directives will provide the direction for theatres to subsequently undertake a follow-up of the same at their level. The ongoing debate yet again reinforces the need for a National Security Strategy and a Defence Strategy, which must become the basis for military strategy to evolve. However, given the present circumstances, the services cannot use its absence as an alibi for stalling the ongoing reform process.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
There is a need to formulate a composite policy that focuses on indigenisation in high priority technology areas, shedding the notion that it must necessarily result in savings. A more modest and focussed mission-mode approach to indigenisation can produce better results.
India has been striving for indigenisation of defence production for close to three decades. To give impetus to the efforts, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had constituted a committee in the early 1990s under Prof APJ Abdul Kalam. The committee suggested a 10-year roadmap to increase the indigenous component in the total expenditure on capital procurement from 30 per cent in 1992-93 to 70 per cent by 2005. This goal could not be achieved and there continues to be some confusion about the present state of indigenisation.
Present State of Indigenisation
Several steps have been taken in the last 20 years, but the outcome of these efforts remains a matter of debate as the available data on indigenisation is confusing. According to a recent report of the Standing Committee on Defence (SCoD), only 93 of the 213 contracts worth about Rs 1,76,569 crore were awarded to foreign vendors of the USA, Russia, Israel, France, and some other countries between the financial years (FYs) 2016-17 and 2019-20.1
The same report shows that the proportion of expenditure on imported defence equipment in the total expenditure went up from 30.41 per cent in the FY 2010-11 to 43.22 in the FY 2019-20, and though in the first three quarters of the following year (FY 2020-21), it plummeted to 32.39 per cent,2 it is possible that the percentage jumped up again by the end of the year. These figures give the impression that the goal set by the APJ Abdul Kalam Committee has largely been met. However, this is not borne out by other empirical evidence.
In the last five years alone, several contracts have been awarded to the foreign vendors for an assortment of platforms like Dassault’s twin-engine Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA), Boeing’s multi-role combat AH-64E Apache and vertical-lift Chinook helicopters, Lockheed Martin’s C-130J Super Hercules four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft, and Russian Almaz-Antey’s S-400 Triumf Air Defence System.
The Strategic Partnership Model adopted in 2016, which envisages manufacturing of foreign-origin platforms by the Indian companies with the transfer of technology from the former, is another indication that presently India does not have the capability to design and develop state-of-the-art fighter aircraft, helicopters, submarines, and armoured fighting vehicles/main battle tanks. But, above all, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), India was the second-largest importer of arms in 2016-20 after Saudi Arabia.3
Indigenisation in High-Technology Areas Lagging Behind
The best explanation for these contradictory sets of facts is that while the Indian industry has done reasonably well in manufacturing foreign-origin equipment with the help of technology transfer from the foreign Original Equipment Manufacturers and in indigenising components, it still lacks the capability to indigenously design and develop major platforms, with a few exceptions like the Light Combat Aircraft Tejas, which is what indigenisation should be all about.
Even in respect of components and assemblies, no data/information is available to show whether these are critical parts of the equipment/platforms in which these are used. This is important because the extent of indigenisation of a product matters little if a critical part, even if it constitutes a miniscule percentage of the overall product, is not indigenised. In hostile circumstances, the OEM or the country of its origin could deny the export of such items and paralyse production in India.
Seen in this perspective, the level of indigenisation of defence production in India is quite low. Broadly, there are four reasons for this.
Absence of an Overarching Policy Framework
The primary reason is the absence of a pragmatic overarching indigenisation policy. What comes closest to it is a notification issued by the Department of Defence Production (DDP) in 2019.4 It cannot be the guiding document for a concerted effort as it only contains the policy for indigenisation of components and spare parts used by the Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) and the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) in the manufacturing process.
Be that as it may, this document too suffers from many conceptual and procedural inadequacies. For example, the stipulation that the ‘indigenised product should invariably be cheaper and meet all technical and functional specifications of the imported component which it seeks to replace’5 , makes it unrealistic and unworkable as the indigenised products are not always cheaper.
No wonder then that the focus of the DPSUs/OFB has been mainly on the indigenisation of items that can be manufactured in India at a cheaper cost vis-à-vis the cost of importing them. Such items do not generally account for a substantial proportion of the technologies that go into the making of a high-technology product and, therefore, the extent of indigenisation of critical components in various defence products continues to be low.
Absence of an Overarching Organisation
The second reason is the absence of an overarching organisation to channelise the efforts being made by several agencies towards a pre-defined goal. Besides DPSUs and the OFB, other agencies presently involved in indigenisation efforts include the Indigenisation Directorates of the Services, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), and the Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO).6 The efforts being made by these agencies are largely disjointed and lack synergy, and no mechanism is in place to facilitate their interaction with the armed forces which are the primary stakeholders in the indigenisation efforts.
Procedural Complexities and Financial Viability
Procedural complexities are the third reason for the slow pace of indigenisation. Though some efforts have been made in recent years to smoothen the process, agencies involved in indigenisation continue to follow their own procedures and norms.
A typical example is the process of selection of partners from, and giving assurance of orders to, the private sector industry, especially the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), who play a critical role in developing niche technologies and providing solutions that are critical for indigenisation. Besides, no satisfactory system is in place to address the issue of Intellectual Property Rights violations that are bound to arise if import substitutes are to be designed and developed in India.
Budgetary Constraints
Lastly, there is a severe budgetary constraint, making it difficult to earmark substantial sums of money to undertake large-scale efforts, especially for indigenous design, development and production of futuristic equipment, platforms, and weapon systems, which is essential for achieving self-reliance.
Indigenisation depends heavily on research and development (R&D), on which the public spending in India has consistently been quite low. Barring a few notable exceptions, even the private sector has been reluctant to make heavy investments in R&D because of the uncertainty that the MoD will procure the indigenously developed product.
What Can be Done
As the first step, the MoD needs to formulate a composite policy that focuses on indigenisation in high priority technology areas, shedding the notion that it must necessarily result in savings. The commercial viability of the identified projects and institutional arrangement for financing them, apart from a mechanism to accommodate the cost of failed efforts, must form the bedrock of the policy.
As a matter of policy, a distinction needs to be made between indigenisation of major systems-equipment, weapons, and assorted platforms – that of components, assemblies, and sub-assemblies. This is important because the challenges faced in the indigenisation of these two categories of defence materiel are different. The approach to indigenisation in these two distinct areas will have to be different.
Secondly, there must be an overarching organisation to coordinate indigenisation efforts currently being made almost independently by several institutions mentioned above. This organisation will have to work out a system for ensuring deeper involvement of the private sector in the indigenisation effort, apart from engagement with other scientific institutions, innovators, foreign entities, and academia.
The private sector, especially the MSMEs, and Start-ups, can play a major role in achieving the intended results. However, funding is a major issue for them, as also the assurance of the follow-on orders being placed on them. These issues will require to be addressed.
Thirdly, procedural issues need to be resolved to ensure that the testing, quality assurance and certification agencies work more as a part of the team engaged in indigenisation rather than as external technology audit entities. This may also require the quality assurance personnel to acquire and upgrade their domain expertise, as well as test procedures, equipment and methodologies.
This is just an example of the procedural tangles besetting indigenisation. Many other issues, such as the setting of extremely stringent specifications by the services and lack of clarity about the aggregated long-term demand for the indigenised product – for special alloys, for example – also slow down indigenisation as action cannot be taken in such cases in the absence of economy of scales.
Fourth, legal issues that often come in the way of indigenisation of products need to be tackled. This is more relevant in the case of substitution of parts and assemblies fitted in the imported equipment through indigenisation efforts which pose a problem because of the legal constraints imposed by the warranty/guarantee clauses in the contracts awarded by the MoD/Services to the technology provider concerned.
Lastly, indigenisation is driven by commercial considerations. No seller will opt for indigenisation if it involves the risk of conceding a competitive edge to another seller because of the additional cost of indigenisation, or if the delivery schedule is inflexible allowing no room for indulging in time-taking indigenisation efforts, or there is uncertainty about the MoD’s ability to place follow-on orders for indigenised products because of the enduring financial constraints it has been facing for long.
A more modest and focussed mission-mode approach to indigenisation can produce better results.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
The formation of a new coalition government may have ended the two-year-long stalemate in Israeli politics, but considering its razor-thin majority in the parliament and notable differences of opinion among various constituent parties, its sustainability remains to be seen.
On 14 June 2021, after a historic voting session in the Knesset, Israel’s unicameral parliament, a new coalition government was elected. It finally ended a more than two-year-long political stalemate in Israeli politics, which began with then Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman leaving the Likud-led government in November 2018 over the issue of ceasefire with Hamas and conscription law for the ultra-Orthodox youth. Since then, the country has witnessed four back-to-back elections in a short period of two years, all ending with inconclusive results. On 2 June 2021, following various rounds of negotiations and discussions, Naftali Bennett (Yemina) and Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) reached an agreement to form a rotational unity government, ending Benjamin Netanyahu’s more than a decade-long premiership.1 According to the agreement, Bennett will serve as prime minister for the first two years, followed by Lapid for the remaining two years.
The new coalition government comprises eight political parties, including Yesh Atid (17), Yemina (7), Blue and White (8), Israeli Labor Party (7), Meretz (6), Ra’am (4), New Hope (6) and Yisrael Beitenu (7).2 These parties majorly differ on issues of annexation, settlement and the two-state solution. The ones that do not support the two-state solution and favour annexation of the West Bank are Yemina, Blue and White, and New Hope. On the other hand, major coalition partners such as Yesh Atid, Israeli Labor Party, Meretz and Ra’am support the two-state solution.
An outstanding feature of the new coalition is the presence of an Arab party (Ra’am). It is for the first time that an Arab party has joined a ruling coalition in Israel.3 This can be seen as a positive outcome of the political deadlock that pushed the major parties to negotiate with the Arab political parties, considered taboo earlier. Though some scholars are of the view that this government will be more democratic than the previous government, a large section of Israeli Arabs, particularly the Palestinians, feel that this government will not be any different from the Likud-led government as Bennett seems to be more hawkish than Netanyahu.
However, the issue of sustainability is a major challenge for the new government. It is a fragile coalition with a very “thin majority” in the Knesset.4 During the Knesset vote on 14 June, out of 120 Members of Knesset (MKs), only 60 favoured the government while 59 voted against it, and one abstained.
This coalition might not be able to sustain itself for long due to a few obvious reasons, the first one being the ideological positions of these eight parties belonging to the centre, hard right, centre-left and Arab bloc. Though these parties have said that their focus is on economic recovery, they may not be able to fully focus on the same given their divergent ideological leanings.
Similarly, their different positions with regard to the West Bank settlement, annexation and two-state solution would make it difficult for them to forge a consensus on major issues. Even a small trigger related to the Palestinian issue could unravel the coalition. For example, the latest discussion on extending the 2003 law, which bars granting citizenship to Palestinians who marry Israeli citizens, has already sparked differences among the right-wing parties and Ra’am.
Another problem is the nature of the new government, which is a “rotational government”. Israel has been unsuccessful in sustaining such a form of government, as seen in the case of the previous rotational unity government, which only survived for eight months5. Therefore, as of now, the stalemate may have ended, but any small difference of opinion can shake the foundation of the government. Moreover, the coalition has been formed mainly to drive Netanyahu out of power, which is not enough to keep it together.
Dealing with the Iranian threat remains a huge security challenge for Israel. The decision of the Joseph Biden administration to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or the Iranian nuclear deal, and the ongoing indirect US–Iran negotiations, has unsettled Israel. It was reflected in Bennett’s 14 June Knesset speech, where he referred to the Iranian nuclear programme as a great challenge.6 Bennett’s opposition to the US–Iran negotiation and the Iranian nuclear programme suggests that “some continuity in Israel's staunch anti-Iran policy can be expected”.7 Similarly, the new government’s strategy towards Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, which are considered prime security threats to Israel, is also unlikely to change.
As aptly stated by Dr Yaniv Voller, Senior Lecturer at Kent University, “the government will primarily be preoccupied with preventing a nuclear Iran amid growing international fatigue on this subject.” He added, “Netanyahu’s relations with the US President, Joe Biden, were frosty. Bennett may wish to recover relations with the Democratic administration. But his unwavering support of the settlements might complicate Bennett’s rapprochement efforts”.8
Apart from this, the recent clashes between Jewish and Arab communities within Israel have once again brought out the divide between the two communities, posing another internal security challenge to the new government. Furthermore, under the previous government, there was notable progress in normalising relations with the Arab countries, namely, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. How the new government will take the normalisation process further with the other Arab countries, mainly Oman and Saudi Arabia, remains to be seen.9
To sum up, the formation of a new coalition government may have put an end to the two-year-long stalemate in Israeli politics, but considering the fragility of the coalition government, given its razor-thin majority in the parliament and notable differences of opinion among various constituent parties, its sustainability remains to be seen.
The new government will face a major foreign policy challenge in the form of the Biden administration’s position on Iran, in contrast to Donald Trump’s more hostile position that made it relatively favourable to Israel. In addition, furthering the normalisation process with Arab countries will be another challenge the new government will have to address.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
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