India is temporarily back to the erstwhile system of a rotating chairman of the chiefs of staff committee (COSC) in which the senior most serving service chief tenanted the appointment. It’s now well over a month since General Bipin Rawat’s untimely demise in the saddle, but the new chief of defence staff (CDS) has not been appointed as yet.
It is true that the jointness initiative, largely for which General Rawat figured in the Padma awards list, was in pause at the time of his death. The services had been asked to turn in studies on how each wished to see jointness shape up. Appointed interim CCOSC, General M. M. Naravane, who is familiar with the fledgling steps taken by jointness so far, is taking it forward.
This sanguineness that the CDS will not be overly missed owes to the CDS appointment – though triple-hatted in also being secretary Department of Military Affairs – missing a vital ingredient, that of command authority. His command authority is restricted to ‘Tri-service agencies/organisations/commands related to cyber and space.’
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Overlooked in the delay is that the CDS, in his capacity of permanent chairman of the COSC, is ‘the military adviser to the Nuclear Command Authority (NCA).’ This is a consequential function, especially when the security situation is not ideal with military factors to the fore, especially in Ladakh over the past two years.
To enhance deterrence, the role of the permanent chairman of the COSC in the nuclear command and control chain needs to be enhanced. The permanent chairman of the COSC, in addition to a military advisory role, should also be vested with command authority over the Strategic Forces Command (SFC). As will be shown below, there is no command authority over the SFC, a gap that needs filling to keep deterrence honed.
In the current nuclear command and control arrangement, the commander-in-chief of the SFC, who ‘manages and administers’ the SFC, has dual reporting lines: with operational authority lying with the national security adviser or NSA and being only administratively under the permanent chairman of COSC.
Ambiguity galore
An academic has described the nuclear command and control arrangement as: “The command of India’s nuclear forces flows from the Prime Minister’s Office through the office of the NSA to the chairman of the COSC and the SFC commander.”
However, there is no mention of nuclear command and control in the Allocation of Business rules.
The NSA, an unelected civilian at present with cabinet rank and with a term co-extensive with the prime minister, is ‘the principal adviser on national security matters to the prime minister; and the National Security Council.’ There is no reference to any executive role for the NSA. Therefore, there is no legal basis for the NSA’s operational authority over the SFC.
The cryptic 2003 press release with an abridged nuclear doctrine is the only official clue to go on. It reads: “The executive council is chaired by the national security advisor. It provides inputs for decision making by the Nuclear Command Authority and executes the directives given to it by the political council.”
This has been translated as allowing the NSA, as chair of the executive council, operational authority over the SFC, the commander-in-chief of the SFC being a member of the executive council.
Does this also mean that the NSA has operational authority over the other members that include service chiefs and the permanent chairman of the COSC? Chairmanship of a committee does not imply subordination of the members by the chair.
The political council, being ‘the sole body which can authorise the use of nuclear weapons,’ cannot delegate its authority to the NSA. The executive council – as a collective – ‘executes the directives given to it by the political council’. In other words, a subordinate committee is empowered by and answerable to the higher committee.
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In this interpretation, the commander-in-chief of the SFC, a member of the executive council, is answerable to the political council as part of the collective, the executive council. In effect, then, a three-star commander-in-chief of the SFC is without a single-point superior with command authority overseeing him and his command.
The draft Indian nuclear doctrine’s call for ‘unity of command and control of nuclear forces’ has apparently not been met. It’s possible that the full length nuclear doctrine – of which only the abridged version is in the open domain – explicates a thorough nuclear C2. Even so, the lack of transparency that gives rise to such ambiguity does not help with deterrence.
Why fix nuclear command and control?
To vest the NSA with operational authority over the SFC is an anomaly in India’s democratic system of governance based on collective ministerial responsibility. The NSA’s advisory role is understandable. But an executive mandate with operational authority over a critical military formation – the SFC – is at odds with the ministerial system.
Even in the presidential system of the United States, the NSA does not have executive responsibility, with the command authority over combatant commands, such as the Strategic Command that controls nuclear weapons, resting with the US president and is exercised through the secretary of defence.
The belief that ‘nuclear weapons are political weapons, not weapons of warfighting,’ may have led to the civilian political authority channeling its nuclear directives through a civilian NSA. The apprehension may be over militarisation of nuclear decisions. Since the NSA would be on hand for a holistic input, such a situation would not arise. The NSA has a military adviser in the National Security Council Secretariat, a military veteran, who can potentially provide a second opinion to the military’s advice.
Changes necessary
The permanent chairman of the COSC as lead military adviser to the NCA must be part of the political council as a permanent invitee. Being on hand, he or she would be able to receive the nuclear directives directly from the political council, of which the defence minister – their boss – is part. Operational authorisation of nuclear weapons can be transmitted to the SFC through a single – uniformed – chain of command.
By virtue of this empowerment of the permanent chairman of the COSC, he or she could also co-chair the executive council. This will ease implementation since execution now is a combined civil-military activity, not all nuclear warheads being in a de-mated state.
With the SFC ‘under command’ of the permanent chairman of the COSC, deterrence stands to gain. Continuing with a nuclear command and control that sufficed over the past two decades needs a debate in light of India’s changed security situation. In the interim, at a minimum, the role of the permanent chairman of the COSC in relation to the SFC must be explicated by incorporating a specific mention in the mandate of the new CDS.
Ali Ahmed is a freelance strategic analyst.
