We Need Professionalism, Not Politicisation of Indian Services Appointments

US President-elect Donald Trump has amongst other candid statements ominously spoken of his intent to purge the US military of what he calls “woke” generals who do not blindly follow his diktats.

General Mark A. Milley who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2020 and who objected then to the use of the military to suppress domestic protestors is one of the men in Trump’s crosshairs. Gen. Milley later in January 2021 rallied the Army and all other security forces around Washington D.C. to thwart the storming of the Capitol. Trump’s transition team is considering the formation of a board to weed out those generals and officers who “lack leadership qualities”.

Trump has lately pointed to his mass deportation plan to evict undocumented immigrants from America and said that would use the military on the southern borders and if need be to suppress protests. He has also alluded to the use of military camps to hold the immigrants and to change legislation to allow for direct orders to the military. In the wake of such statements and indicators coming from the president elect’s administration-in-the-making it has been reported that officials in the Pentagon have been having discussions regarding the response to any illegal orders. The brazen politicisation of the US military is a larger-than-life and immediate possibility.

In India, the government has sadly already travelled some distance down this Trumpian path.

The country’s political leadership has shown a marked preference for promoting those officers who are “correctly” inclined to it – as the selective appointments of the CDS and chiefs of the three services from time to time has shown. The imposition of the Agnipath scheme on the services which is having a serious detrimental effect on operational and tactical readiness is an example of the price the services have begun to pay. The services leadership needs to stand up to retain their professionalism and not be treated like police forces that unfortunately are badly in need of reform to free them from politicisation.

The need for professionalism rather than politicisation is made all the more acute by the slew of emerging threats in the military domain. There is the recent trend of missile and rocket strikes and counter-strikes and the weaponisation of fear by exploding pagers and communication devices as seen in the Middle East.

In his book Bombing to Provoke, author Jaganath Sankaran argues that it is not what these weapons physically do but what the response of decision-makers in target states to these provocations is likely to be. Despite the inability of these weapons to meaningfully deny military capabilities, they weaponise fear, trigger a sense of defencelessness, and provoke an overreaction, particularly a large diversion of military effort and resources. They may also have the effect of coercing political and regional concessions from the target leadership.

The recent reference by the Indian defence minister to “adaptive defence” as a counter to grey zone and hybrid warfare is a start, but will need rapid and substantive technological transformation within the security establishment. The military will need more substantive support than token ceremonial visits by politicians during Diwali and Dusshera. An honest appraisal of the military’s present technological threshold is likely to point to large gaps in the capability to adapt rapidly to emerging challenges. The delay of almost two years by US major General Electric (GE) Aerospace to deliver F404-IN20 engines for the indigenous fighter aircraft Tejas Mk1A only highlights the weaknesses of the ‘Atmanirbhar’ policy in defence production . Only a solid and apolitical military leadership can steer the services to effective capability building and create necessary deterrence.

The inadequacy of the political response and the slow military response to the PLA incursions in Eastern Ladakh in 2020 will embolden China which is used to playing the long waiting game to make its move. The sudden acceptance of allowing Indian military patrols to patrol points occupied/denied by China must not be misconstrued to be normalisation of relations. The military will still remain deployed in large numbers in Ladakh. The cost of such deployments is punitive in itself as it takes away the resources needed for modernisation. The slow and laggard political will shown in resolving the imbroglio in Manipur now threatens to engulf more of the North Eastern region in internal security threats with the unrest in Bangladesh acting as catalyst.

Also read: Depsang Patrolling: Army Says ‘No Roadblocks From Either Side’; Newspaper Stands by Report

The reported presence of North Korean troops along with Russian forces opposite the Ukrainian counter incursion in Kursk is a new normal that has dangerous portents for Indian security forces. The mutual defence treaty signed between Russia and North Korea has allowed for 10,000 North Korean troops to be deployed alongside Russian contract and regular soldiers. Such a treaty paves the way for a similar arrangement between Pakistan and China to deploy troops against Indian borders. China has already strongly hinted at defending its teams and workers engaged in the CPEC which passes through Pakistan and a logical progression would be deployment of troops with minor adjustments. Loud proclamations by chest thumping politicians on reclaiming Gilgit and Baltistan needs to be carefully tempered in the knowledge that such rhetoric only gives Pakistan and China the reason to push for such joint deployment.

The ongoing conflicts around the globe give security analysts numerous insights into the manifestation of threats such as coercion by the weaponisation of fear. This fear in the populace can be generated by hybrid attacks on critical infrastructure such as airlines, banking architecture or railway signalling systems. The recent mass bomb scares on hundreds of Indian flights may just be a dry run to test the response and preparations of security forces. While no system can be totally fool proof or secure, it can be made robust enough both by making the hardware more rugged and training first responders in making informed choices.

Departmental turf guarding has led to the compartmentalisation of intelligence gathering and dissemination by Indian agencies. There is an urgent need to holistically evaluate each new form of attrition likely to be available in the arsenal of our adversaries. A strong interoperability can only be created by synergising efforts of the intelligence community and the security providers. A professional military backed by technology and unencumbered by political and bureaucratic meddling is an imperative. It is incumbent on the national leadership to grasp the significance of the present global turbulence and the opportunities a study of such threats provides to invigorate national security.

Major General Amrit Pal Singh (retired) is the former divisional commander of an Army division in Northern command and was the chief of operational logistics in Ladakh between 2011 and 2013. 

This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.