Showing posts with label cariappa memorial lecture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cariappa memorial lecture. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Where the Buck Really Stops
Arun Shourie
Continuing excerpts from Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie's Cariappa Memorial Lecture 2002
Every country works solely for its own interests. There's little use in invoking justice, morality or law: indeed, doing so can be counter-productive -- by sticking to ideals, so to say, we cleared the way for China in Myanmar. If I could I would burn into the consciousness of every policy-maker in India the conversations between Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, Chou En-lai, Huang Hua. Every country works solely for its own interests as perceived by it at that time: this may not accord with our interests, or with our perception of what is in the interest of even that country itself. for eg: US aid to Pakistan in the wake of 9/11.
The US approach was well set out by Kissinger in his account of the period when the USSR and China fell out: ''The challenge for the United States was to make sure that it always had more options than either of the two parties within the triangle. This obliged the United States to stay closer to both Moscow and Beijing than they were to each other, with a tilt towards Beijing since it was the Soviet Union which represented the more immediate and by far the more powerful threat.''
This is what US policy will be in dealing with India vis-a-vis Pakistan, India vis-a-vis China: and it sets a limit to the extent to which it will heed India's interests.
The way countries deal with us depends also on what the record has led them to believe is our nature: China has carefully cultivated an image of being a porcupine-one that will brook no nonsense, one that will use force to wrest what it feels it should have. Perception about us is ambiguous, at best, given events such as Goa, Sikkim, atomic weaponry, the 1971 war that broke Pakistan. But if 61,000 had been killed in the US, China or Russia by terrorists trained, equipped, armed by a country, what would they have not done to take out the source of the assault on them?
Security is a multiplicative function, not an additive one: the expression the Chinese use is indeed apposite: 'Comprehensive National Strength''. Among the pillars on which it is built is economic strength.
Does anyone need armies today to bend Argentina and Brazil? Of the ones who keep counselling us to open a dialogue with Pakistan, how many counsel President Bush to open a dialogue with Mr Saddam Hussein? Why is it that Russia can be bent today on cryogenic engines, on Iraq, on nuclear disarmament -- and China cannot? Economic strength and independence make all the difference.
Today economic levers are routinely used to achieve political and diplomatic ends. To safeguard our freedom of action, our sovereignty, the first requisite is that we do not have to succumb to economic pressures. Nor is it enough that ''our fundamentals are strong''. Nothing happened to the ''fundamentals'' of Southeast Asian countries in 1997. The ''fundamentals'' of Japan continue to be as strong as they were 12 years ago-but the political stalemate has ensured that it has not been able to lift itself out of a bog for a decade. The ''fundamentals'' of Mexico, Argentina, Brazil did not collapse overnight -- but their economies did, and with that their freedom of action.
Therefore, when we do anything that slows economic progress, when we block the reforms that are necessary for that growth, we weaken the country. We expose it to danger: should we, for instance, have to turn to the IMF today, we would be squeezed not in spite of our atomic weapons, but because of them!
And how easy it is to slip: two years ago when we were losing almost a billion dollars every month; a single wrong decision -- for instance that the value of the rupee must be protected ''at all cost''-could have resulted in a run. Nor is it that when we thwart a reform -- for instance, by blocking steps needed for containing governmental deficits -- or by bringing work or trucks and trains to a halt, all we do is to slow down economic progress. That is not the only consequence. We confirm the perception that India is not able in the end to carry through its announcements. That perception itself is temptation to an enemy.
The lightning speed at which technology, the balance between countries, relations between them are altering: our policies have to be ''omni-directional'' and our processes have to be swift enough to match these.
The countries that were to eventually form ASEAN had approached us at the very outset. We paid insufficient attention. The result is that a few days from now, China will be meeting the ASEAN leaders to finalise an agreement for a free-trade area. We will be meeting them to commence discussions for a trade and investment area of which we too can be a part.
Faced with a decision, our first instinct must be to see the repercussions it will have for national security -- take the case of ground handling at airports. But simultaneously, we must bring our ideas about national security up to date. Take the signs at our airports ''No photography allowed'' in this age of satellite photography, when satellite images of half-meter resolution are becoming commercially available.
We must face some facts: of inundation from Bangladesh, the Islamisation of Bangladesh, the madrasas on our borders, the Chinese advances in Myanmar, the current ''denial mode'' in regard to Chinese economic advances. A senior intelligence official said, ''One word has killed us: examination.'' We were asked in the early '80s to identify Jamaat cadre who had infiltrated into the Kashmir administration, to identify madrasas that had become centres for secessionist activity. What happened thereafter? There were reports of the demographic inundation of the Northeast. What happened? Only 850 kms of 3286 kms of fencing has as yet been completed on the Bangladesh border.
Insularity does not mean independence. Put to use, close economic relations fortify security. Consider an example: There are at any time about 60,000 Chinese students in Japan. By contrast, there were just 250 Indian students in the country. Two and a half million Japanese tourists visit China every year. By contrast, only 60,000 visit India. Every week there are 282 direct flights from Japan to China. There are only 7 to India. The trade between China and Japan is a colossal 90 billion dollars. By contrast, the trade between Japan and India is just three and a half billion dollars.
The point holds just as well for foreign and security relations. In the wake of the Tiananmen killings, few lobbied harder to keep the US from taking any consequential steps as American firms that had invested in China: after all, for American firms China is today important not just as a market but as a manufacturing platform for exporting to third countries; after all, American firms earn about 7 to 10 billion dollars a year from China, a figure that is a fifth higher than the next source -- Mexico; after all, with a trade surplus of approximately eighty billion dollars every year vis-a-vis the US, China has accounted for a tenth of the total purchases of US Government securities.
Today few work as assiduously to promote China as an investment destination as the merchant bankers and consulting firms that have been used by China for its IPO's in the New York stock exchange and elsewhere, few work as resolutely to keep up China's image in the investing public as the Fund Managers whose principals have invested billions in Chinese issues.
Is it any surprise, then, that an American analyst should observe as follows? ''In other words, if the United States should opt to curtail commercial links with the mainland, it may be effectively cutting off a key source of foreign capital -- something the world's largest debtor nation can hardly afford.''
Now, if there is an eruption on the Sino-Indian border in Arunachal, which side would the Americans or Japanese be pre-disposed to believe?
We must multiply manifold intellectual work on security issues: how often we have to turn to US and European sources for material on countries that are much more liable to endanger us than Europe and the US? Get over the inhibitions of ''political correctness'' -- report of the US-China Commission on Security Implications of US-China Economic Relations. The wealth of information on which even this open-source report is based. Equally important, the candour with which it states the facts.
Governance is the central task. Defence forces cannot remain an island forever: the inertia, the vices that come to infect general governance cannot but infect the armed forces. Can it be that corruption in civilian life will become as pervasive as the very air we breathe but that affairs touching defence forces will remain pure? Can it be that delays will mar all governance but purchases of snowmobiles and bullet-proof jackets will be executed on time?
Second, in our system the higher command remains in the hands of the ones who have come up through the same political system. And I don't mean just the final decisions -- of going to war or not, of returning Haji Pir or not. Day to day decisions-budgetary allocations, postings and transfers, even such minor things as awards and decorations -- also affect morale, and therefore the fighting ability of the defence forces. And these remain in the domain of the political and administrative establishments.
Third, even if the top leaders are of the highest calibre, their decisions are bound to be affected by the general level of persons in public life: which Prime Minister or Defence Minister will shut out the clamour in Parliament or the media from his awareness? And so, the calibre of the generality of the political and administrative class, indeed of the entire lot that is in public life and discourse is certain to affect the formulation and conduct of security policy. And this is our Achilles' Heel today.
That is why I will leave you with the one image with which I began, and with the two questions that I asked.
* An image to bear in mind: Defence forces are to a country what an iron railing put around it is to a tree: in the end, howsoever strong the railing, howsoever sturdy and well-polished it looks, it cannot protect a tree that has been hollowed by termites from within: the storm shall fell it.
* A question to take home: Think of Bihar. A population of 83 million, that is a population 30% larger than that of Britain, of Italy, a population equal to that of Germany, and an area 40% as extensive as Britain. In this vast area, over this huge population, governance has evaporated. If you were running the ISI, would you waste lives in Kashmir? Or would you just smuggle 23,000 AK-47s through Nepal into the state?
And another one: When the horizon of the political class is the hulla of the day in the legislature, or the debating point that can be extracted from the headlines of the day, or the next bout of elections how can the policies and strategies that alone can enable us to deal with Pakistan and China be sustained and implemented for 20-30 years?
It is when we have rid the tree of termites that India will be secure. And only then. It is when we have made questions such as these two redundant that India will be secure. And only then.
Part - I Political Will Hunting
The Indian Express
October 30, 2002
Where the Buck Really Stops
Arun Shourie
Continuing excerpts from Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie's Cariappa Memorial Lecture 2002
Every country works solely for its own interests. There's little use in invoking justice, morality or law: indeed, doing so can be counter-productive -- by sticking to ideals, so to say, we cleared the way for China in Myanmar. If I could I would burn into the consciousness of every policy-maker in India the conversations between Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, Chou En-lai, Huang Hua. Every country works solely for its own interests as perceived by it at that time: this may not accord with our interests, or with our perception of what is in the interest of even that country itself. for eg: US aid to Pakistan in the wake of 9/11.
The US approach was well set out by Kissinger in his account of the period when the USSR and China fell out: ''The challenge for the United States was to make sure that it always had more options than either of the two parties within the triangle. This obliged the United States to stay closer to both Moscow and Beijing than they were to each other, with a tilt towards Beijing since it was the Soviet Union which represented the more immediate and by far the more powerful threat.''
This is what US policy will be in dealing with India vis-a-vis Pakistan, India vis-a-vis China: and it sets a limit to the extent to which it will heed India's interests.
The way countries deal with us depends also on what the record has led them to believe is our nature: China has carefully cultivated an image of being a porcupine-one that will brook no nonsense, one that will use force to wrest what it feels it should have. Perception about us is ambiguous, at best, given events such as Goa, Sikkim, atomic weaponry, the 1971 war that broke Pakistan. But if 61,000 had been killed in the US, China or Russia by terrorists trained, equipped, armed by a country, what would they have not done to take out the source of the assault on them?
Security is a multiplicative function, not an additive one: the expression the Chinese use is indeed apposite: 'Comprehensive National Strength''. Among the pillars on which it is built is economic strength.
Does anyone need armies today to bend Argentina and Brazil? Of the ones who keep counselling us to open a dialogue with Pakistan, how many counsel President Bush to open a dialogue with Mr Saddam Hussein? Why is it that Russia can be bent today on cryogenic engines, on Iraq, on nuclear disarmament -- and China cannot? Economic strength and independence make all the difference.
Today economic levers are routinely used to achieve political and diplomatic ends. To safeguard our freedom of action, our sovereignty, the first requisite is that we do not have to succumb to economic pressures. Nor is it enough that ''our fundamentals are strong''. Nothing happened to the ''fundamentals'' of Southeast Asian countries in 1997. The ''fundamentals'' of Japan continue to be as strong as they were 12 years ago-but the political stalemate has ensured that it has not been able to lift itself out of a bog for a decade. The ''fundamentals'' of Mexico, Argentina, Brazil did not collapse overnight -- but their economies did, and with that their freedom of action.
Therefore, when we do anything that slows economic progress, when we block the reforms that are necessary for that growth, we weaken the country. We expose it to danger: should we, for instance, have to turn to the IMF today, we would be squeezed not in spite of our atomic weapons, but because of them!
And how easy it is to slip: two years ago when we were losing almost a billion dollars every month; a single wrong decision -- for instance that the value of the rupee must be protected ''at all cost''-could have resulted in a run. Nor is it that when we thwart a reform -- for instance, by blocking steps needed for containing governmental deficits -- or by bringing work or trucks and trains to a halt, all we do is to slow down economic progress. That is not the only consequence. We confirm the perception that India is not able in the end to carry through its announcements. That perception itself is temptation to an enemy.
The lightning speed at which technology, the balance between countries, relations between them are altering: our policies have to be ''omni-directional'' and our processes have to be swift enough to match these.
The countries that were to eventually form ASEAN had approached us at the very outset. We paid insufficient attention. The result is that a few days from now, China will be meeting the ASEAN leaders to finalise an agreement for a free-trade area. We will be meeting them to commence discussions for a trade and investment area of which we too can be a part.
Faced with a decision, our first instinct must be to see the repercussions it will have for national security -- take the case of ground handling at airports. But simultaneously, we must bring our ideas about national security up to date. Take the signs at our airports ''No photography allowed'' in this age of satellite photography, when satellite images of half-meter resolution are becoming commercially available.
We must face some facts: of inundation from Bangladesh, the Islamisation of Bangladesh, the madrasas on our borders, the Chinese advances in Myanmar, the current ''denial mode'' in regard to Chinese economic advances. A senior intelligence official said, ''One word has killed us: examination.'' We were asked in the early '80s to identify Jamaat cadre who had infiltrated into the Kashmir administration, to identify madrasas that had become centres for secessionist activity. What happened thereafter? There were reports of the demographic inundation of the Northeast. What happened? Only 850 kms of 3286 kms of fencing has as yet been completed on the Bangladesh border.
Insularity does not mean independence. Put to use, close economic relations fortify security. Consider an example: There are at any time about 60,000 Chinese students in Japan. By contrast, there were just 250 Indian students in the country. Two and a half million Japanese tourists visit China every year. By contrast, only 60,000 visit India. Every week there are 282 direct flights from Japan to China. There are only 7 to India. The trade between China and Japan is a colossal 90 billion dollars. By contrast, the trade between Japan and India is just three and a half billion dollars.
The point holds just as well for foreign and security relations. In the wake of the Tiananmen killings, few lobbied harder to keep the US from taking any consequential steps as American firms that had invested in China: after all, for American firms China is today important not just as a market but as a manufacturing platform for exporting to third countries; after all, American firms earn about 7 to 10 billion dollars a year from China, a figure that is a fifth higher than the next source -- Mexico; after all, with a trade surplus of approximately eighty billion dollars every year vis-a-vis the US, China has accounted for a tenth of the total purchases of US Government securities.
Today few work as assiduously to promote China as an investment destination as the merchant bankers and consulting firms that have been used by China for its IPO's in the New York stock exchange and elsewhere, few work as resolutely to keep up China's image in the investing public as the Fund Managers whose principals have invested billions in Chinese issues.
Is it any surprise, then, that an American analyst should observe as follows? ''In other words, if the United States should opt to curtail commercial links with the mainland, it may be effectively cutting off a key source of foreign capital -- something the world's largest debtor nation can hardly afford.''
Now, if there is an eruption on the Sino-Indian border in Arunachal, which side would the Americans or Japanese be pre-disposed to believe?
We must multiply manifold intellectual work on security issues: how often we have to turn to US and European sources for material on countries that are much more liable to endanger us than Europe and the US? Get over the inhibitions of ''political correctness'' -- report of the US-China Commission on Security Implications of US-China Economic Relations. The wealth of information on which even this open-source report is based. Equally important, the candour with which it states the facts.
Governance is the central task. Defence forces cannot remain an island forever: the inertia, the vices that come to infect general governance cannot but infect the armed forces. Can it be that corruption in civilian life will become as pervasive as the very air we breathe but that affairs touching defence forces will remain pure? Can it be that delays will mar all governance but purchases of snowmobiles and bullet-proof jackets will be executed on time?
Second, in our system the higher command remains in the hands of the ones who have come up through the same political system. And I don't mean just the final decisions -- of going to war or not, of returning Haji Pir or not. Day to day decisions-budgetary allocations, postings and transfers, even such minor things as awards and decorations -- also affect morale, and therefore the fighting ability of the defence forces. And these remain in the domain of the political and administrative establishments.
Third, even if the top leaders are of the highest calibre, their decisions are bound to be affected by the general level of persons in public life: which Prime Minister or Defence Minister will shut out the clamour in Parliament or the media from his awareness? And so, the calibre of the generality of the political and administrative class, indeed of the entire lot that is in public life and discourse is certain to affect the formulation and conduct of security policy. And this is our Achilles' Heel today.
That is why I will leave you with the one image with which I began, and with the two questions that I asked.
* An image to bear in mind: Defence forces are to a country what an iron railing put around it is to a tree: in the end, howsoever strong the railing, howsoever sturdy and well-polished it looks, it cannot protect a tree that has been hollowed by termites from within: the storm shall fell it.
* A question to take home: Think of Bihar. A population of 83 million, that is a population 30% larger than that of Britain, of Italy, a population equal to that of Germany, and an area 40% as extensive as Britain. In this vast area, over this huge population, governance has evaporated. If you were running the ISI, would you waste lives in Kashmir? Or would you just smuggle 23,000 AK-47s through Nepal into the state?
And another one: When the horizon of the political class is the hulla of the day in the legislature, or the debating point that can be extracted from the headlines of the day, or the next bout of elections how can the policies and strategies that alone can enable us to deal with Pakistan and China be sustained and implemented for 20-30 years?
It is when we have rid the tree of termites that India will be secure. And only then. It is when we have made questions such as these two redundant that India will be secure. And only then.
Part - I Political Will Hunting
The Indian Express
October 30, 2002
Continuing excerpts from Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie's Cariappa Memorial Lecture 2002
Every country works solely for its own interests. There's little use in invoking justice, morality or law: indeed, doing so can be counter-productive -- by sticking to ideals, so to say, we cleared the way for China in Myanmar. If I could I would burn into the consciousness of every policy-maker in India the conversations between Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, Chou En-lai, Huang Hua. Every country works solely for its own interests as perceived by it at that time: this may not accord with our interests, or with our perception of what is in the interest of even that country itself. for eg: US aid to Pakistan in the wake of 9/11.
The US approach was well set out by Kissinger in his account of the period when the USSR and China fell out: ''The challenge for the United States was to make sure that it always had more options than either of the two parties within the triangle. This obliged the United States to stay closer to both Moscow and Beijing than they were to each other, with a tilt towards Beijing since it was the Soviet Union which represented the more immediate and by far the more powerful threat.''
This is what US policy will be in dealing with India vis-a-vis Pakistan, India vis-a-vis China: and it sets a limit to the extent to which it will heed India's interests.
The way countries deal with us depends also on what the record has led them to believe is our nature: China has carefully cultivated an image of being a porcupine-one that will brook no nonsense, one that will use force to wrest what it feels it should have. Perception about us is ambiguous, at best, given events such as Goa, Sikkim, atomic weaponry, the 1971 war that broke Pakistan. But if 61,000 had been killed in the US, China or Russia by terrorists trained, equipped, armed by a country, what would they have not done to take out the source of the assault on them?
Security is a multiplicative function, not an additive one: the expression the Chinese use is indeed apposite: 'Comprehensive National Strength''. Among the pillars on which it is built is economic strength.
Does anyone need armies today to bend Argentina and Brazil? Of the ones who keep counselling us to open a dialogue with Pakistan, how many counsel President Bush to open a dialogue with Mr Saddam Hussein? Why is it that Russia can be bent today on cryogenic engines, on Iraq, on nuclear disarmament -- and China cannot? Economic strength and independence make all the difference.
Today economic levers are routinely used to achieve political and diplomatic ends. To safeguard our freedom of action, our sovereignty, the first requisite is that we do not have to succumb to economic pressures. Nor is it enough that ''our fundamentals are strong''. Nothing happened to the ''fundamentals'' of Southeast Asian countries in 1997. The ''fundamentals'' of Japan continue to be as strong as they were 12 years ago-but the political stalemate has ensured that it has not been able to lift itself out of a bog for a decade. The ''fundamentals'' of Mexico, Argentina, Brazil did not collapse overnight -- but their economies did, and with that their freedom of action.
Therefore, when we do anything that slows economic progress, when we block the reforms that are necessary for that growth, we weaken the country. We expose it to danger: should we, for instance, have to turn to the IMF today, we would be squeezed not in spite of our atomic weapons, but because of them!
And how easy it is to slip: two years ago when we were losing almost a billion dollars every month; a single wrong decision -- for instance that the value of the rupee must be protected ''at all cost''-could have resulted in a run. Nor is it that when we thwart a reform -- for instance, by blocking steps needed for containing governmental deficits -- or by bringing work or trucks and trains to a halt, all we do is to slow down economic progress. That is not the only consequence. We confirm the perception that India is not able in the end to carry through its announcements. That perception itself is temptation to an enemy.
The lightning speed at which technology, the balance between countries, relations between them are altering: our policies have to be ''omni-directional'' and our processes have to be swift enough to match these.
The countries that were to eventually form ASEAN had approached us at the very outset. We paid insufficient attention. The result is that a few days from now, China will be meeting the ASEAN leaders to finalise an agreement for a free-trade area. We will be meeting them to commence discussions for a trade and investment area of which we too can be a part.
Faced with a decision, our first instinct must be to see the repercussions it will have for national security -- take the case of ground handling at airports. But simultaneously, we must bring our ideas about national security up to date. Take the signs at our airports ''No photography allowed'' in this age of satellite photography, when satellite images of half-meter resolution are becoming commercially available.
We must face some facts: of inundation from Bangladesh, the Islamisation of Bangladesh, the madrasas on our borders, the Chinese advances in Myanmar, the current ''denial mode'' in regard to Chinese economic advances. A senior intelligence official said, ''One word has killed us: examination.'' We were asked in the early '80s to identify Jamaat cadre who had infiltrated into the Kashmir administration, to identify madrasas that had become centres for secessionist activity. What happened thereafter? There were reports of the demographic inundation of the Northeast. What happened? Only 850 kms of 3286 kms of fencing has as yet been completed on the Bangladesh border.
Insularity does not mean independence. Put to use, close economic relations fortify security. Consider an example: There are at any time about 60,000 Chinese students in Japan. By contrast, there were just 250 Indian students in the country. Two and a half million Japanese tourists visit China every year. By contrast, only 60,000 visit India. Every week there are 282 direct flights from Japan to China. There are only 7 to India. The trade between China and Japan is a colossal 90 billion dollars. By contrast, the trade between Japan and India is just three and a half billion dollars.
The point holds just as well for foreign and security relations. In the wake of the Tiananmen killings, few lobbied harder to keep the US from taking any consequential steps as American firms that had invested in China: after all, for American firms China is today important not just as a market but as a manufacturing platform for exporting to third countries; after all, American firms earn about 7 to 10 billion dollars a year from China, a figure that is a fifth higher than the next source -- Mexico; after all, with a trade surplus of approximately eighty billion dollars every year vis-a-vis the US, China has accounted for a tenth of the total purchases of US Government securities.
Today few work as assiduously to promote China as an investment destination as the merchant bankers and consulting firms that have been used by China for its IPO's in the New York stock exchange and elsewhere, few work as resolutely to keep up China's image in the investing public as the Fund Managers whose principals have invested billions in Chinese issues.
Is it any surprise, then, that an American analyst should observe as follows? ''In other words, if the United States should opt to curtail commercial links with the mainland, it may be effectively cutting off a key source of foreign capital -- something the world's largest debtor nation can hardly afford.''
Now, if there is an eruption on the Sino-Indian border in Arunachal, which side would the Americans or Japanese be pre-disposed to believe?
We must multiply manifold intellectual work on security issues: how often we have to turn to US and European sources for material on countries that are much more liable to endanger us than Europe and the US? Get over the inhibitions of ''political correctness'' -- report of the US-China Commission on Security Implications of US-China Economic Relations. The wealth of information on which even this open-source report is based. Equally important, the candour with which it states the facts.
Governance is the central task. Defence forces cannot remain an island forever: the inertia, the vices that come to infect general governance cannot but infect the armed forces. Can it be that corruption in civilian life will become as pervasive as the very air we breathe but that affairs touching defence forces will remain pure? Can it be that delays will mar all governance but purchases of snowmobiles and bullet-proof jackets will be executed on time?
Second, in our system the higher command remains in the hands of the ones who have come up through the same political system. And I don't mean just the final decisions -- of going to war or not, of returning Haji Pir or not. Day to day decisions-budgetary allocations, postings and transfers, even such minor things as awards and decorations -- also affect morale, and therefore the fighting ability of the defence forces. And these remain in the domain of the political and administrative establishments.
Third, even if the top leaders are of the highest calibre, their decisions are bound to be affected by the general level of persons in public life: which Prime Minister or Defence Minister will shut out the clamour in Parliament or the media from his awareness? And so, the calibre of the generality of the political and administrative class, indeed of the entire lot that is in public life and discourse is certain to affect the formulation and conduct of security policy. And this is our Achilles' Heel today.
That is why I will leave you with the one image with which I began, and with the two questions that I asked.
* An image to bear in mind: Defence forces are to a country what an iron railing put around it is to a tree: in the end, howsoever strong the railing, howsoever sturdy and well-polished it looks, it cannot protect a tree that has been hollowed by termites from within: the storm shall fell it.
* A question to take home: Think of Bihar. A population of 83 million, that is a population 30% larger than that of Britain, of Italy, a population equal to that of Germany, and an area 40% as extensive as Britain. In this vast area, over this huge population, governance has evaporated. If you were running the ISI, would you waste lives in Kashmir? Or would you just smuggle 23,000 AK-47s through Nepal into the state?
And another one: When the horizon of the political class is the hulla of the day in the legislature, or the debating point that can be extracted from the headlines of the day, or the next bout of elections how can the policies and strategies that alone can enable us to deal with Pakistan and China be sustained and implemented for 20-30 years?
It is when we have rid the tree of termites that India will be secure. And only then. It is when we have made questions such as these two redundant that India will be secure. And only then.
Part - I Political Will Hunting
The Indian Express
October 30, 2002
Political Will Hunting
Arun Shourie
[Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie's Cariappa Memorial Lecture 2002, delivered in New Delhi on Saturday, argues for smart governance to secure strategic interests. A country that has ''atomic weapons'' but can't manage its finances will only be ''squeezed into submission'', he says. Exclusive extracts, in two parts.]
You couldn't have asked me to deliver this lecture because of my experience in Disinvestment! And I have no access to classified information on security affairs. Therefore, for myself alone, and based solely on my own study-much of it of the writings of experts like you!
And I do hope that what I say will not now trigger some more "Diary Items" -- that it is because the Defence Minister is speaking on Disinvestment that the Disinvestment Minister has chosen to speak on Defence!
A manuscript-already around 175 pages. By the time I revise it to shorten it-at least 250 pages! Today, I can list just a few conclusions -- I do regret having to excise the evidence that has led me to the conclusions: in part because the conclusions are the obvious ones, in part because the evidence is in many instances as delectable as it is telling. But such is the discipline of the Army that I must stick to the time limit.
A moment of substantial achievements, and several favourable turns-from the victory in Kargil to the turn of events after 9/11. But foreboding.
We often say, ''Anything is possible. What one needs is political will.'' In saying that we use the word ''will'' as if what matters is that the person at the top have the will to carry through a venture. That is of course true in a sense: at times an individual makes all the difference -- Gandhiji during the Independence Struggle, Sardar Patel in the integration of princely states. But the more enduring significance of the expression ''political will'' is not as the will of an individual. It is as the ability of a political system to deliver. That is what is being put in question every other day.
Defence forces are to a country what an iron railing put around it is to a tree: in the end, howsoever strong the railing, howsoever sturdy and well-polished it looks, it cannot protect a tree that has been hollowed by termites from within: the storm shall fell it. What is it that the Soviet armed forces could do which would make up for the sclerosis that the communist regime had imposed on the country? Could the missiles, the atomic arsenal compensate for the stagnation?
Correspondingly, think of Bihar. A population of 83 million, that is a population 30% larger than that of Britain, of Italy, a population equal to that of Germany, and an area 40% as extensive as Britain. In this vast area, over this huge population, governance has evaporated. If I were running the ISI, I wouldn't waste lives in Kashmir. I would just smuggle 20,000-30,000 AK-47s through Nepal into the state. The caste-riven people would begin killing each other, and all the forces the country could muster would get bogged down in restoring order.
Or take Pakistan and China. Only a policy conceived with the perspective of 20-30 years, only strategies actually implemented and that without wavering for 20-30 years can counter what is afoot. But if the horizon of the political class is the hulla of the day in the legislature, or the debating point that can be extracted from the headlines of the day, or the next bout of elections, how can any policy be sustained for 20-30 years?
For the same reasons, will the growing economic strength of China not get translated into military strength? And, will the growing economic distance between China and India not get translated into a greater distance between their capabilities at force projection and ours at warding off such projection?
Salvaging the system of governance is the imperative that all of us -- those in the defence forces, ex-servicemen, ordinary citizens-must attend to today. The armed forces are in fine fettle. We must get general governance up to their standards!
The Enemy Within
An implacable foe. No other identity other than ''not India'', the one whose destiny, whose religious mandate is to break India. True, there are many divisions in Pakistani society-even in regard to what is true Islam; but there is unanimity on two things-that Kashmir must be wrested, and on what must be done to India.
There is progressive Talibanisation of Pakistani society. The only recourse for Pakistan is to direct this explosive force on to external targets. It has waged a very successful strategy: over 61,000 have been killed, and yet the strategy has not provoked a retaliatory war. Quite the contrary, the strategy has worked wonders for the agencies and individuals who have directed it -- it has multiplied their importance, influence, personal wealth.
True, Pakistan has been isolated after 9/11: but it has also been able to extract postponement of dues totalling $ 12 billion, and additional aid, grants and write-offs of another $ 8 billion. But because opinion has turned against cross-border terrorism, will concentrate on fomenting internal fissures, taking advantage of internal mal- or non-governance. And it has been able to build the infrastructure for such disruption. That our agencies have been able to detect and smother 161 modules of the ISI etc. is a real achievement. But the number also indicates that ISI etc. have been able to set up these modules in the first place. Furthermore, 161 are reported to have been uncovered but some of the ones exist. Interrogations reveal that in ever so many instances, the agents were able to obtain ration cards and other papers to establish themselves as Indians-often by just paying paltry bribes of Rs. 2,000-4,000 .
Terrorism is everywhere: cells have been discovered in India, Southeast Asia, Europe. Sometimes it seems some believe that Al-Qaida is the only problem, that if it is dealt with, the problem is licked. But nomenclatures mean nothing: recall the ease with which groups that were outlawed in Pakistan just changed their names and have continued their operations. Al-Qaida is but one of the limbs of this octopus.
There are already sanctuaries for terrorists targeting India in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Arakan in Myanmar and within India. ISI moving systematically to use vacuums of this kind: madrasas along our borders. Just one example: in the district in Nepal that borders the Siliguri corridor there are 33 madrasas; 25 of these 33 have been established since 1980.
This is compounded by the rapid Islamisation of Bangladesh: a symptom is the ever-swelling Bishwa Ijtema at Tongi each year: this year about 40 lakh attended. After 1971, the Jamaat-e-Islami had lost practically all influence. As the years went by both the national parties began courting it, specially at election time. Now it is a part of the Government.
Chinese Whispers
China itself does not regard India as a rival, it benchmarks itself against the US. But it regards India as a potential nuisance in part because of India's size, and potential; even more so because of what it considers is th likelihood that India will become an instrument of the US for containing China. Hence the lemma that India is to be kept tied down in South Asia. A representative passage from a Chinese strategist: ''In the next century, to split China's western part, or more specifically, to split China's Tibetan region.... is probably the target of the Western world's geopolitical strategy. Having pushed Russia northward, creating a political barrier like Tibet or Xinjiang between China and the oil-producing countries in Central Asia conforms to the strategic interests of the West to control permanently the world's geographic and energy centre. This dovetails with India's political plot to create a Tibetan buffer zone between China and India. Currently, India is pulling out all the stops to convince the West that it is willing to play the vanguard for the West's effort to achieve this goal, under the prerequisite that the West will adopt an appeasement policy towards its nuclear option.''
For this purpose, ''murder with a borrowed knife'': arms aid to Pakistan, Chinese advances in Myanmar, the reorientation of Chinese strategic doctrine, and the consequent overhauling of the PLA. This has crystallised around three propositions: To ensure that in whatever they do, others -- in particular countries neighbouring China -- always bear in mind China's interests, and her likely reaction; to ensure that if a war is to be fought for defending China, it is not fought on China's soil; to acquire overwhelming capacity for ''local wars under high-technology conditions.''
This in turn requires that China build the capabilities to inflict on the adversary, at the very outset, such terrific losses-for instance, by crippling vital nodes of the victim -- at such lightning speed that the objective is achieved, the adversary is "taught a lesson", and allies are scared away from standing by the victim.
To implement this strategy:
*
Develop "magic weapons"-from those that will blind satellites to ones that will disorient the guidance systems of missiles; from ones that will disrupt power grids, civil aviation control systems, telecommunication and broadcasting networks; to chemical or gaseous agents that can disorient entire populations in an area.
*
Identify the "particular vulnerabilities", the "acupuncture points" of the victim.
Chinese strategic literature devotes much space and analysis to identifying such points for the US. It would be hazardous for us to assume that they would not be conducting similar analyses for India. And always remember the admonition to the Chinese of the Vice Commandant of the Academy of Military Sciences, Beijing, General Mi Zhenyu: ''For a relatively long time, it will be absolutely necessary that we quietly nurse our sense of vengeance. We must conceal our abilities and bide our time.'' Finally, of course, there is physical positioning: the acquisition in the South China Sea of Paracel Islands in 1974, Spratly Islands in 1988, Mischief Reef in 1995. Leasing of Coco Island in the Bay of Bengal... The bases in Tibet...
It is often said that the era when large armies would march across international borders is over. The proposition is true only where the armies are evenly matched. The Gulf War, the war in Afghanistan are recent reminders that if one side is manifestly the weaker one, forces will be hurled across borders also. To ensure that forces do not march across our borders, we must be adequately prepared to crush them if they do. But we also have to contend with what will arise from the preceding propositions: Local war under high technology conditions, using magic weapons "to win without fighting". The best way for doing so-watch as the enemy, through internecine quarrels and mis- or non-governance weakens himself; if necessary, give him a helping hand -- is by exacerbating these internal ruptures.
And, once in a while, "kill a chicken to frighten the monkey" -- not so much to acquire territory, but to break the morale of the adversary, ensure he stays out of your way. It does not take much imagination to infer the types of assaults on India that an enemy would find the least costly, the most effective, and therefore the most tempting:
*
Mass disruptions of the intertwined, integrated systems of a modernising military and economy that depend on ultra-modern modes of communication and command-power grids, stock markets, airport control towers, weapons guidance systems;
*
Funnel arms and funds to warring groups in areas like Bihar;
*
Funnel arms and funds, and give sanctuary to ''freedom fighters'' operating in vulnerable stretches-for instance, to the Kamtapur insurrectionists operating in the Siliguri corridor, to the Bodo Liberation Front and ULFA on the other side, to the various extortionist groups available in Manipur to block the national highways;
*
Orchestrate protracted, near-war to bleed the country -- of the kind Pakistan has waged in Punjab, Kashmir and elsewhere;
*
Suborn mafias, and through them execute Bombay-blasts type operations;
*
Engineer an occasional foray in an outlying, loosely or poorly administered area -- say, some stretch of the Northeast.
We thus have to be prepared for more than large forces crossing international boundaries. That will cost a lot. But that cost is the price of living in our times, in this neighbourhood.
Part II - Where the Buck Really Stops
Indian Express
October 29, 2002
[Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie's Cariappa Memorial Lecture 2002, delivered in New Delhi on Saturday, argues for smart governance to secure strategic interests. A country that has ''atomic weapons'' but can't manage its finances will only be ''squeezed into submission'', he says. Exclusive extracts, in two parts.]
You couldn't have asked me to deliver this lecture because of my experience in Disinvestment! And I have no access to classified information on security affairs. Therefore, for myself alone, and based solely on my own study-much of it of the writings of experts like you!
And I do hope that what I say will not now trigger some more "Diary Items" -- that it is because the Defence Minister is speaking on Disinvestment that the Disinvestment Minister has chosen to speak on Defence!
A manuscript-already around 175 pages. By the time I revise it to shorten it-at least 250 pages! Today, I can list just a few conclusions -- I do regret having to excise the evidence that has led me to the conclusions: in part because the conclusions are the obvious ones, in part because the evidence is in many instances as delectable as it is telling. But such is the discipline of the Army that I must stick to the time limit.
A moment of substantial achievements, and several favourable turns-from the victory in Kargil to the turn of events after 9/11. But foreboding.
We often say, ''Anything is possible. What one needs is political will.'' In saying that we use the word ''will'' as if what matters is that the person at the top have the will to carry through a venture. That is of course true in a sense: at times an individual makes all the difference -- Gandhiji during the Independence Struggle, Sardar Patel in the integration of princely states. But the more enduring significance of the expression ''political will'' is not as the will of an individual. It is as the ability of a political system to deliver. That is what is being put in question every other day.
Defence forces are to a country what an iron railing put around it is to a tree: in the end, howsoever strong the railing, howsoever sturdy and well-polished it looks, it cannot protect a tree that has been hollowed by termites from within: the storm shall fell it. What is it that the Soviet armed forces could do which would make up for the sclerosis that the communist regime had imposed on the country? Could the missiles, the atomic arsenal compensate for the stagnation?
Correspondingly, think of Bihar. A population of 83 million, that is a population 30% larger than that of Britain, of Italy, a population equal to that of Germany, and an area 40% as extensive as Britain. In this vast area, over this huge population, governance has evaporated. If I were running the ISI, I wouldn't waste lives in Kashmir. I would just smuggle 20,000-30,000 AK-47s through Nepal into the state. The caste-riven people would begin killing each other, and all the forces the country could muster would get bogged down in restoring order.
Or take Pakistan and China. Only a policy conceived with the perspective of 20-30 years, only strategies actually implemented and that without wavering for 20-30 years can counter what is afoot. But if the horizon of the political class is the hulla of the day in the legislature, or the debating point that can be extracted from the headlines of the day, or the next bout of elections, how can any policy be sustained for 20-30 years?
For the same reasons, will the growing economic strength of China not get translated into military strength? And, will the growing economic distance between China and India not get translated into a greater distance between their capabilities at force projection and ours at warding off such projection?
Salvaging the system of governance is the imperative that all of us -- those in the defence forces, ex-servicemen, ordinary citizens-must attend to today. The armed forces are in fine fettle. We must get general governance up to their standards!
The Enemy Within
An implacable foe. No other identity other than ''not India'', the one whose destiny, whose religious mandate is to break India. True, there are many divisions in Pakistani society-even in regard to what is true Islam; but there is unanimity on two things-that Kashmir must be wrested, and on what must be done to India.
There is progressive Talibanisation of Pakistani society. The only recourse for Pakistan is to direct this explosive force on to external targets. It has waged a very successful strategy: over 61,000 have been killed, and yet the strategy has not provoked a retaliatory war. Quite the contrary, the strategy has worked wonders for the agencies and individuals who have directed it -- it has multiplied their importance, influence, personal wealth.
True, Pakistan has been isolated after 9/11: but it has also been able to extract postponement of dues totalling $ 12 billion, and additional aid, grants and write-offs of another $ 8 billion. But because opinion has turned against cross-border terrorism, will concentrate on fomenting internal fissures, taking advantage of internal mal- or non-governance. And it has been able to build the infrastructure for such disruption. That our agencies have been able to detect and smother 161 modules of the ISI etc. is a real achievement. But the number also indicates that ISI etc. have been able to set up these modules in the first place. Furthermore, 161 are reported to have been uncovered but some of the ones exist. Interrogations reveal that in ever so many instances, the agents were able to obtain ration cards and other papers to establish themselves as Indians-often by just paying paltry bribes of Rs. 2,000-4,000 .
Terrorism is everywhere: cells have been discovered in India, Southeast Asia, Europe. Sometimes it seems some believe that Al-Qaida is the only problem, that if it is dealt with, the problem is licked. But nomenclatures mean nothing: recall the ease with which groups that were outlawed in Pakistan just changed their names and have continued their operations. Al-Qaida is but one of the limbs of this octopus.
There are already sanctuaries for terrorists targeting India in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Arakan in Myanmar and within India. ISI moving systematically to use vacuums of this kind: madrasas along our borders. Just one example: in the district in Nepal that borders the Siliguri corridor there are 33 madrasas; 25 of these 33 have been established since 1980.
This is compounded by the rapid Islamisation of Bangladesh: a symptom is the ever-swelling Bishwa Ijtema at Tongi each year: this year about 40 lakh attended. After 1971, the Jamaat-e-Islami had lost practically all influence. As the years went by both the national parties began courting it, specially at election time. Now it is a part of the Government.
Chinese Whispers
China itself does not regard India as a rival, it benchmarks itself against the US. But it regards India as a potential nuisance in part because of India's size, and potential; even more so because of what it considers is th likelihood that India will become an instrument of the US for containing China. Hence the lemma that India is to be kept tied down in South Asia. A representative passage from a Chinese strategist: ''In the next century, to split China's western part, or more specifically, to split China's Tibetan region.... is probably the target of the Western world's geopolitical strategy. Having pushed Russia northward, creating a political barrier like Tibet or Xinjiang between China and the oil-producing countries in Central Asia conforms to the strategic interests of the West to control permanently the world's geographic and energy centre. This dovetails with India's political plot to create a Tibetan buffer zone between China and India. Currently, India is pulling out all the stops to convince the West that it is willing to play the vanguard for the West's effort to achieve this goal, under the prerequisite that the West will adopt an appeasement policy towards its nuclear option.''
For this purpose, ''murder with a borrowed knife'': arms aid to Pakistan, Chinese advances in Myanmar, the reorientation of Chinese strategic doctrine, and the consequent overhauling of the PLA. This has crystallised around three propositions: To ensure that in whatever they do, others -- in particular countries neighbouring China -- always bear in mind China's interests, and her likely reaction; to ensure that if a war is to be fought for defending China, it is not fought on China's soil; to acquire overwhelming capacity for ''local wars under high-technology conditions.''
This in turn requires that China build the capabilities to inflict on the adversary, at the very outset, such terrific losses-for instance, by crippling vital nodes of the victim -- at such lightning speed that the objective is achieved, the adversary is "taught a lesson", and allies are scared away from standing by the victim.
To implement this strategy:
*
Develop "magic weapons"-from those that will blind satellites to ones that will disorient the guidance systems of missiles; from ones that will disrupt power grids, civil aviation control systems, telecommunication and broadcasting networks; to chemical or gaseous agents that can disorient entire populations in an area.
*
Identify the "particular vulnerabilities", the "acupuncture points" of the victim.
Chinese strategic literature devotes much space and analysis to identifying such points for the US. It would be hazardous for us to assume that they would not be conducting similar analyses for India. And always remember the admonition to the Chinese of the Vice Commandant of the Academy of Military Sciences, Beijing, General Mi Zhenyu: ''For a relatively long time, it will be absolutely necessary that we quietly nurse our sense of vengeance. We must conceal our abilities and bide our time.'' Finally, of course, there is physical positioning: the acquisition in the South China Sea of Paracel Islands in 1974, Spratly Islands in 1988, Mischief Reef in 1995. Leasing of Coco Island in the Bay of Bengal... The bases in Tibet...
It is often said that the era when large armies would march across international borders is over. The proposition is true only where the armies are evenly matched. The Gulf War, the war in Afghanistan are recent reminders that if one side is manifestly the weaker one, forces will be hurled across borders also. To ensure that forces do not march across our borders, we must be adequately prepared to crush them if they do. But we also have to contend with what will arise from the preceding propositions: Local war under high technology conditions, using magic weapons "to win without fighting". The best way for doing so-watch as the enemy, through internecine quarrels and mis- or non-governance weakens himself; if necessary, give him a helping hand -- is by exacerbating these internal ruptures.
And, once in a while, "kill a chicken to frighten the monkey" -- not so much to acquire territory, but to break the morale of the adversary, ensure he stays out of your way. It does not take much imagination to infer the types of assaults on India that an enemy would find the least costly, the most effective, and therefore the most tempting:
*
Mass disruptions of the intertwined, integrated systems of a modernising military and economy that depend on ultra-modern modes of communication and command-power grids, stock markets, airport control towers, weapons guidance systems;
*
Funnel arms and funds to warring groups in areas like Bihar;
*
Funnel arms and funds, and give sanctuary to ''freedom fighters'' operating in vulnerable stretches-for instance, to the Kamtapur insurrectionists operating in the Siliguri corridor, to the Bodo Liberation Front and ULFA on the other side, to the various extortionist groups available in Manipur to block the national highways;
*
Orchestrate protracted, near-war to bleed the country -- of the kind Pakistan has waged in Punjab, Kashmir and elsewhere;
*
Suborn mafias, and through them execute Bombay-blasts type operations;
*
Engineer an occasional foray in an outlying, loosely or poorly administered area -- say, some stretch of the Northeast.
We thus have to be prepared for more than large forces crossing international boundaries. That will cost a lot. But that cost is the price of living in our times, in this neighbourhood.
Part II - Where the Buck Really Stops
Indian Express
October 29, 2002
Political Will Hunting
Arun Shourie
[Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie's Cariappa Memorial Lecture 2002, delivered in New Delhi on Saturday, argues for smart governance to secure strategic interests. A country that has ''atomic weapons'' but can't manage its finances will only be ''squeezed into submission'', he says. Exclusive extracts, in two parts.]
You couldn't have asked me to deliver this lecture because of my experience in Disinvestment! And I have no access to classified information on security affairs. Therefore, for myself alone, and based solely on my own study-much of it of the writings of experts like you!
And I do hope that what I say will not now trigger some more "Diary Items" -- that it is because the Defence Minister is speaking on Disinvestment that the Disinvestment Minister has chosen to speak on Defence!
A manuscript-already around 175 pages. By the time I revise it to shorten it-at least 250 pages! Today, I can list just a few conclusions -- I do regret having to excise the evidence that has led me to the conclusions: in part because the conclusions are the obvious ones, in part because the evidence is in many instances as delectable as it is telling. But such is the discipline of the Army that I must stick to the time limit.
A moment of substantial achievements, and several favourable turns-from the victory in Kargil to the turn of events after 9/11. But foreboding.
We often say, ''Anything is possible. What one needs is political will.'' In saying that we use the word ''will'' as if what matters is that the person at the top have the will to carry through a venture. That is of course true in a sense: at times an individual makes all the difference -- Gandhiji during the Independence Struggle, Sardar Patel in the integration of princely states. But the more enduring significance of the expression ''political will'' is not as the will of an individual. It is as the ability of a political system to deliver. That is what is being put in question every other day.
Defence forces are to a country what an iron railing put around it is to a tree: in the end, howsoever strong the railing, howsoever sturdy and well-polished it looks, it cannot protect a tree that has been hollowed by termites from within: the storm shall fell it. What is it that the Soviet armed forces could do which would make up for the sclerosis that the communist regime had imposed on the country? Could the missiles, the atomic arsenal compensate for the stagnation?
Correspondingly, think of Bihar. A population of 83 million, that is a population 30% larger than that of Britain, of Italy, a population equal to that of Germany, and an area 40% as extensive as Britain. In this vast area, over this huge population, governance has evaporated. If I were running the ISI, I wouldn't waste lives in Kashmir. I would just smuggle 20,000-30,000 AK-47s through Nepal into the state. The caste-riven people would begin killing each other, and all the forces the country could muster would get bogged down in restoring order.
Or take Pakistan and China. Only a policy conceived with the perspective of 20-30 years, only strategies actually implemented and that without wavering for 20-30 years can counter what is afoot. But if the horizon of the political class is the hulla of the day in the legislature, or the debating point that can be extracted from the headlines of the day, or the next bout of elections, how can any policy be sustained for 20-30 years?
For the same reasons, will the growing economic strength of China not get translated into military strength? And, will the growing economic distance between China and India not get translated into a greater distance between their capabilities at force projection and ours at warding off such projection?
Salvaging the system of governance is the imperative that all of us -- those in the defence forces, ex-servicemen, ordinary citizens-must attend to today. The armed forces are in fine fettle. We must get general governance up to their standards!
The Enemy Within
An implacable foe. No other identity other than ''not India'', the one whose destiny, whose religious mandate is to break India. True, there are many divisions in Pakistani society-even in regard to what is true Islam; but there is unanimity on two things-that Kashmir must be wrested, and on what must be done to India.
There is progressive Talibanisation of Pakistani society. The only recourse for Pakistan is to direct this explosive force on to external targets. It has waged a very successful strategy: over 61,000 have been killed, and yet the strategy has not provoked a retaliatory war. Quite the contrary, the strategy has worked wonders for the agencies and individuals who have directed it -- it has multiplied their importance, influence, personal wealth.
True, Pakistan has been isolated after 9/11: but it has also been able to extract postponement of dues totalling $ 12 billion, and additional aid, grants and write-offs of another $ 8 billion. But because opinion has turned against cross-border terrorism, will concentrate on fomenting internal fissures, taking advantage of internal mal- or non-governance. And it has been able to build the infrastructure for such disruption. That our agencies have been able to detect and smother 161 modules of the ISI etc. is a real achievement. But the number also indicates that ISI etc. have been able to set up these modules in the first place. Furthermore, 161 are reported to have been uncovered but some of the ones exist. Interrogations reveal that in ever so many instances, the agents were able to obtain ration cards and other papers to establish themselves as Indians-often by just paying paltry bribes of Rs. 2,000-4,000 .
Terrorism is everywhere: cells have been discovered in India, Southeast Asia, Europe. Sometimes it seems some believe that Al-Qaida is the only problem, that if it is dealt with, the problem is licked. But nomenclatures mean nothing: recall the ease with which groups that were outlawed in Pakistan just changed their names and have continued their operations. Al-Qaida is but one of the limbs of this octopus.
There are already sanctuaries for terrorists targeting India in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Arakan in Myanmar and within India. ISI moving systematically to use vacuums of this kind: madrasas along our borders. Just one example: in the district in Nepal that borders the Siliguri corridor there are 33 madrasas; 25 of these 33 have been established since 1980.
This is compounded by the rapid Islamisation of Bangladesh: a symptom is the ever-swelling Bishwa Ijtema at Tongi each year: this year about 40 lakh attended. After 1971, the Jamaat-e-Islami had lost practically all influence. As the years went by both the national parties began courting it, specially at election time. Now it is a part of the Government.
Chinese Whispers
China itself does not regard India as a rival, it benchmarks itself against the US. But it regards India as a potential nuisance in part because of India's size, and potential; even more so because of what it considers is th likelihood that India will become an instrument of the US for containing China. Hence the lemma that India is to be kept tied down in South Asia. A representative passage from a Chinese strategist: ''In the next century, to split China's western part, or more specifically, to split China's Tibetan region.... is probably the target of the Western world's geopolitical strategy. Having pushed Russia northward, creating a political barrier like Tibet or Xinjiang between China and the oil-producing countries in Central Asia conforms to the strategic interests of the West to control permanently the world's geographic and energy centre. This dovetails with India's political plot to create a Tibetan buffer zone between China and India. Currently, India is pulling out all the stops to convince the West that it is willing to play the vanguard for the West's effort to achieve this goal, under the prerequisite that the West will adopt an appeasement policy towards its nuclear option.''
For this purpose, ''murder with a borrowed knife'': arms aid to Pakistan, Chinese advances in Myanmar, the reorientation of Chinese strategic doctrine, and the consequent overhauling of the PLA. This has crystallised around three propositions: To ensure that in whatever they do, others -- in particular countries neighbouring China -- always bear in mind China's interests, and her likely reaction; to ensure that if a war is to be fought for defending China, it is not fought on China's soil; to acquire overwhelming capacity for ''local wars under high-technology conditions.''
This in turn requires that China build the capabilities to inflict on the adversary, at the very outset, such terrific losses-for instance, by crippling vital nodes of the victim -- at such lightning speed that the objective is achieved, the adversary is "taught a lesson", and allies are scared away from standing by the victim.
To implement this strategy:
*
Develop "magic weapons"-from those that will blind satellites to ones that will disorient the guidance systems of missiles; from ones that will disrupt power grids, civil aviation control systems, telecommunication and broadcasting networks; to chemical or gaseous agents that can disorient entire populations in an area.
*
Identify the "particular vulnerabilities", the "acupuncture points" of the victim.
Chinese strategic literature devotes much space and analysis to identifying such points for the US. It would be hazardous for us to assume that they would not be conducting similar analyses for India. And always remember the admonition to the Chinese of the Vice Commandant of the Academy of Military Sciences, Beijing, General Mi Zhenyu: ''For a relatively long time, it will be absolutely necessary that we quietly nurse our sense of vengeance. We must conceal our abilities and bide our time.'' Finally, of course, there is physical positioning: the acquisition in the South China Sea of Paracel Islands in 1974, Spratly Islands in 1988, Mischief Reef in 1995. Leasing of Coco Island in the Bay of Bengal... The bases in Tibet...
It is often said that the era when large armies would march across international borders is over. The proposition is true only where the armies are evenly matched. The Gulf War, the war in Afghanistan are recent reminders that if one side is manifestly the weaker one, forces will be hurled across borders also. To ensure that forces do not march across our borders, we must be adequately prepared to crush them if they do. But we also have to contend with what will arise from the preceding propositions: Local war under high technology conditions, using magic weapons "to win without fighting". The best way for doing so-watch as the enemy, through internecine quarrels and mis- or non-governance weakens himself; if necessary, give him a helping hand -- is by exacerbating these internal ruptures.
And, once in a while, "kill a chicken to frighten the monkey" -- not so much to acquire territory, but to break the morale of the adversary, ensure he stays out of your way. It does not take much imagination to infer the types of assaults on India that an enemy would find the least costly, the most effective, and therefore the most tempting:
*
Mass disruptions of the intertwined, integrated systems of a modernising military and economy that depend on ultra-modern modes of communication and command-power grids, stock markets, airport control towers, weapons guidance systems;
*
Funnel arms and funds to warring groups in areas like Bihar;
*
Funnel arms and funds, and give sanctuary to ''freedom fighters'' operating in vulnerable stretches-for instance, to the Kamtapur insurrectionists operating in the Siliguri corridor, to the Bodo Liberation Front and ULFA on the other side, to the various extortionist groups available in Manipur to block the national highways;
*
Orchestrate protracted, near-war to bleed the country -- of the kind Pakistan has waged in Punjab, Kashmir and elsewhere;
*
Suborn mafias, and through them execute Bombay-blasts type operations;
*
Engineer an occasional foray in an outlying, loosely or poorly administered area -- say, some stretch of the Northeast.
We thus have to be prepared for more than large forces crossing international boundaries. That will cost a lot. But that cost is the price of living in our times, in this neighbourhood.
Part II - Where the Buck Really Stops
Indian Express
October 29, 2002
[Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie's Cariappa Memorial Lecture 2002, delivered in New Delhi on Saturday, argues for smart governance to secure strategic interests. A country that has ''atomic weapons'' but can't manage its finances will only be ''squeezed into submission'', he says. Exclusive extracts, in two parts.]
You couldn't have asked me to deliver this lecture because of my experience in Disinvestment! And I have no access to classified information on security affairs. Therefore, for myself alone, and based solely on my own study-much of it of the writings of experts like you!
And I do hope that what I say will not now trigger some more "Diary Items" -- that it is because the Defence Minister is speaking on Disinvestment that the Disinvestment Minister has chosen to speak on Defence!
A manuscript-already around 175 pages. By the time I revise it to shorten it-at least 250 pages! Today, I can list just a few conclusions -- I do regret having to excise the evidence that has led me to the conclusions: in part because the conclusions are the obvious ones, in part because the evidence is in many instances as delectable as it is telling. But such is the discipline of the Army that I must stick to the time limit.
A moment of substantial achievements, and several favourable turns-from the victory in Kargil to the turn of events after 9/11. But foreboding.
We often say, ''Anything is possible. What one needs is political will.'' In saying that we use the word ''will'' as if what matters is that the person at the top have the will to carry through a venture. That is of course true in a sense: at times an individual makes all the difference -- Gandhiji during the Independence Struggle, Sardar Patel in the integration of princely states. But the more enduring significance of the expression ''political will'' is not as the will of an individual. It is as the ability of a political system to deliver. That is what is being put in question every other day.
Defence forces are to a country what an iron railing put around it is to a tree: in the end, howsoever strong the railing, howsoever sturdy and well-polished it looks, it cannot protect a tree that has been hollowed by termites from within: the storm shall fell it. What is it that the Soviet armed forces could do which would make up for the sclerosis that the communist regime had imposed on the country? Could the missiles, the atomic arsenal compensate for the stagnation?
Correspondingly, think of Bihar. A population of 83 million, that is a population 30% larger than that of Britain, of Italy, a population equal to that of Germany, and an area 40% as extensive as Britain. In this vast area, over this huge population, governance has evaporated. If I were running the ISI, I wouldn't waste lives in Kashmir. I would just smuggle 20,000-30,000 AK-47s through Nepal into the state. The caste-riven people would begin killing each other, and all the forces the country could muster would get bogged down in restoring order.
Or take Pakistan and China. Only a policy conceived with the perspective of 20-30 years, only strategies actually implemented and that without wavering for 20-30 years can counter what is afoot. But if the horizon of the political class is the hulla of the day in the legislature, or the debating point that can be extracted from the headlines of the day, or the next bout of elections, how can any policy be sustained for 20-30 years?
For the same reasons, will the growing economic strength of China not get translated into military strength? And, will the growing economic distance between China and India not get translated into a greater distance between their capabilities at force projection and ours at warding off such projection?
Salvaging the system of governance is the imperative that all of us -- those in the defence forces, ex-servicemen, ordinary citizens-must attend to today. The armed forces are in fine fettle. We must get general governance up to their standards!
The Enemy Within
An implacable foe. No other identity other than ''not India'', the one whose destiny, whose religious mandate is to break India. True, there are many divisions in Pakistani society-even in regard to what is true Islam; but there is unanimity on two things-that Kashmir must be wrested, and on what must be done to India.
There is progressive Talibanisation of Pakistani society. The only recourse for Pakistan is to direct this explosive force on to external targets. It has waged a very successful strategy: over 61,000 have been killed, and yet the strategy has not provoked a retaliatory war. Quite the contrary, the strategy has worked wonders for the agencies and individuals who have directed it -- it has multiplied their importance, influence, personal wealth.
True, Pakistan has been isolated after 9/11: but it has also been able to extract postponement of dues totalling $ 12 billion, and additional aid, grants and write-offs of another $ 8 billion. But because opinion has turned against cross-border terrorism, will concentrate on fomenting internal fissures, taking advantage of internal mal- or non-governance. And it has been able to build the infrastructure for such disruption. That our agencies have been able to detect and smother 161 modules of the ISI etc. is a real achievement. But the number also indicates that ISI etc. have been able to set up these modules in the first place. Furthermore, 161 are reported to have been uncovered but some of the ones exist. Interrogations reveal that in ever so many instances, the agents were able to obtain ration cards and other papers to establish themselves as Indians-often by just paying paltry bribes of Rs. 2,000-4,000 .
Terrorism is everywhere: cells have been discovered in India, Southeast Asia, Europe. Sometimes it seems some believe that Al-Qaida is the only problem, that if it is dealt with, the problem is licked. But nomenclatures mean nothing: recall the ease with which groups that were outlawed in Pakistan just changed their names and have continued their operations. Al-Qaida is but one of the limbs of this octopus.
There are already sanctuaries for terrorists targeting India in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Arakan in Myanmar and within India. ISI moving systematically to use vacuums of this kind: madrasas along our borders. Just one example: in the district in Nepal that borders the Siliguri corridor there are 33 madrasas; 25 of these 33 have been established since 1980.
This is compounded by the rapid Islamisation of Bangladesh: a symptom is the ever-swelling Bishwa Ijtema at Tongi each year: this year about 40 lakh attended. After 1971, the Jamaat-e-Islami had lost practically all influence. As the years went by both the national parties began courting it, specially at election time. Now it is a part of the Government.
Chinese Whispers
China itself does not regard India as a rival, it benchmarks itself against the US. But it regards India as a potential nuisance in part because of India's size, and potential; even more so because of what it considers is th likelihood that India will become an instrument of the US for containing China. Hence the lemma that India is to be kept tied down in South Asia. A representative passage from a Chinese strategist: ''In the next century, to split China's western part, or more specifically, to split China's Tibetan region.... is probably the target of the Western world's geopolitical strategy. Having pushed Russia northward, creating a political barrier like Tibet or Xinjiang between China and the oil-producing countries in Central Asia conforms to the strategic interests of the West to control permanently the world's geographic and energy centre. This dovetails with India's political plot to create a Tibetan buffer zone between China and India. Currently, India is pulling out all the stops to convince the West that it is willing to play the vanguard for the West's effort to achieve this goal, under the prerequisite that the West will adopt an appeasement policy towards its nuclear option.''
For this purpose, ''murder with a borrowed knife'': arms aid to Pakistan, Chinese advances in Myanmar, the reorientation of Chinese strategic doctrine, and the consequent overhauling of the PLA. This has crystallised around three propositions: To ensure that in whatever they do, others -- in particular countries neighbouring China -- always bear in mind China's interests, and her likely reaction; to ensure that if a war is to be fought for defending China, it is not fought on China's soil; to acquire overwhelming capacity for ''local wars under high-technology conditions.''
This in turn requires that China build the capabilities to inflict on the adversary, at the very outset, such terrific losses-for instance, by crippling vital nodes of the victim -- at such lightning speed that the objective is achieved, the adversary is "taught a lesson", and allies are scared away from standing by the victim.
To implement this strategy:
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Develop "magic weapons"-from those that will blind satellites to ones that will disorient the guidance systems of missiles; from ones that will disrupt power grids, civil aviation control systems, telecommunication and broadcasting networks; to chemical or gaseous agents that can disorient entire populations in an area.
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Identify the "particular vulnerabilities", the "acupuncture points" of the victim.
Chinese strategic literature devotes much space and analysis to identifying such points for the US. It would be hazardous for us to assume that they would not be conducting similar analyses for India. And always remember the admonition to the Chinese of the Vice Commandant of the Academy of Military Sciences, Beijing, General Mi Zhenyu: ''For a relatively long time, it will be absolutely necessary that we quietly nurse our sense of vengeance. We must conceal our abilities and bide our time.'' Finally, of course, there is physical positioning: the acquisition in the South China Sea of Paracel Islands in 1974, Spratly Islands in 1988, Mischief Reef in 1995. Leasing of Coco Island in the Bay of Bengal... The bases in Tibet...
It is often said that the era when large armies would march across international borders is over. The proposition is true only where the armies are evenly matched. The Gulf War, the war in Afghanistan are recent reminders that if one side is manifestly the weaker one, forces will be hurled across borders also. To ensure that forces do not march across our borders, we must be adequately prepared to crush them if they do. But we also have to contend with what will arise from the preceding propositions: Local war under high technology conditions, using magic weapons "to win without fighting". The best way for doing so-watch as the enemy, through internecine quarrels and mis- or non-governance weakens himself; if necessary, give him a helping hand -- is by exacerbating these internal ruptures.
And, once in a while, "kill a chicken to frighten the monkey" -- not so much to acquire territory, but to break the morale of the adversary, ensure he stays out of your way. It does not take much imagination to infer the types of assaults on India that an enemy would find the least costly, the most effective, and therefore the most tempting:
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Mass disruptions of the intertwined, integrated systems of a modernising military and economy that depend on ultra-modern modes of communication and command-power grids, stock markets, airport control towers, weapons guidance systems;
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Funnel arms and funds to warring groups in areas like Bihar;
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Funnel arms and funds, and give sanctuary to ''freedom fighters'' operating in vulnerable stretches-for instance, to the Kamtapur insurrectionists operating in the Siliguri corridor, to the Bodo Liberation Front and ULFA on the other side, to the various extortionist groups available in Manipur to block the national highways;
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Orchestrate protracted, near-war to bleed the country -- of the kind Pakistan has waged in Punjab, Kashmir and elsewhere;
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Suborn mafias, and through them execute Bombay-blasts type operations;
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Engineer an occasional foray in an outlying, loosely or poorly administered area -- say, some stretch of the Northeast.
We thus have to be prepared for more than large forces crossing international boundaries. That will cost a lot. But that cost is the price of living in our times, in this neighbourhood.
Part II - Where the Buck Really Stops
Indian Express
October 29, 2002
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