Jointness: Single Point Defence Agenda for Modi Government Rahul Bhonsle Jun 5, 2014 Absolute majority of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by Mr Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha elections for the first time in many decades has raised expectations particularly in the field of defence and security. The BJP is known to follow a more robust defence policy and given parliamentary mass will have greater degree of freedom to implement programmes of choice. There are a number of suggestions that have been put forth of what the government should do to enhance India’s defence preparedness. These range from making up hollowness in basic necessities for war fighting such as ammunition and night fighting aids to induction of state of the art military equipment, indigenization, public private partnership, enhancement in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and meeting aspirations of ex-servicemen. The list is endless. So what is one issue on which the Modi government should earmark as a Key Result Area (KRA) in the field of defence and security? This can be unequivocally stated as JOINTNESS to bring the three armed forces under one umbrella effectively integrating silos functioning separately. A joint force is a model fourth generation structure fielded by advanced militaries as the United States, UK and France with Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rapidly following by establishing Military Area Commands in place of Military Regions. Indian Armed Forces today are woefully short of integration much less jointness. Thus while the three services HQs are nominally Integrated HQs of Ministry of Defence Army, Navy and Air Force as the case may be, the single joint HQs, HQ Integrated Defence Staff (HQ IDS) remains stunted with functions restricted to coordination of disaster management. Services continue to operate their own schools of instructions, conduct exercises and prepare for war under the respective Chiefs. At the theater level where maximum coordination is essential, there is frequent interaction but level of jointness achieved is an unknown factor. More over sheer difference in location of HQs militates against jointness. For instance HQs Eastern Command of the Indian Army and the Air Force responsible for the all important China border are located in Kolkata and Shillong respectively. While it is frequently argued that there has been excellent synergy during operations with surfeit examples quoted of 1971 War in Bangladesh and the 1999 Kargil operations, these were mainly third generation wars fought with legacy tactics under atypical circumstances that are unlikely to be obtained on the battlefield today. More over synergy of resources with the networked enabled warfare doctrine being practiced by the armed forces to achieve maximum effect can be achieved only through jointness. Given stiff resistance to jointness amongst the services, it is well established that jointness is achieved either through an Act of Parliament or the bitter experience of systems dysfunction in war. The United States armed forces undertook the process of jointness through legislation known as the Goldwater–Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. Today US fields the most modern armed forces in history where capacity building has been a function of joint thinking leading to success in two major conventional wars Iraq 1991 and 2003 the jury is still out on the long counter insurgency campaigns that followed. Other modern armed forces as France recognized significance of jointness after the experiences in Gulf War 1991. Jointness can achieve economy and efficiency through synergy of resources, it will overcome the budgetary constraints that are inevitable in the armed forces in the future, more importantly it will also come through an act of parliament. With a majority in the Lok Sabha and proactive approach to defence as well as development an Act to integrate command structure of the armed forces to bring in synergy could be the most important KRA for the Modi government.
Posted on: Mon, 09 Jun 2014 18:53:57 +0000
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