General

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This Blog is written by Vartika Saxena from Symbiosis Law School, Noida. Edited by Ravikiran Shukre.

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INTRODUCTION:

National security or defense of a nation-state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally considered as protection against military attack but now it is widely understood to include also non-military dimensions, including the security from terrorism, minimization of crime, economic security, energy security, environmental security, food security, etc. Similarly, national security risks include, in addition to the actions of other nations, action by non-violent state actors, by narcotic cartels, and by multinational corporations, and also the effects of natural disasters. The government depends on a vast range of measures, including political, economic, and military power, as well as diplomacy, to safeguard the security of a nation-state. They may also act to build the conditions of security regionally and internationally.

SPECIFIC SECURITY PROBLEMS:

India faces major national security challenges from China and the unstable Islamic state of Pakistan. Combined with the continuing political instability in Central Asia to the north and the fear of regional Islamization, India’s land borders face both active and potentially hostile opponents, at least two equipped with nuclear weapons.

Tensions between India and China along the Line of Actual Control escalated seriously when an Indian Army officer and 19 soldiers were killed in a violent face-off involving hand-to-hand combat in Galwan Valley in Ladakh. China accused India of the face-off. India’s Ministry of External Affairs blamed Beijing for trying to unilaterally change the status quo in that area. The LAC along the Galwan Valley is accepted by both the countries. Still, China sent its soldiers 3-4 km across the LAC violating its own claim and occupied the territory acknowledged by them as Indian. The Chinese Government took it to the next level by claiming sovereignty over the Galwan Valley.

DEVELOPING ALLIANCES:

For years, the USA and other countries have been trying to persuade India to become a closer military and economic partner to confront China. This idea just got real a few days back when India and China were involved in a clash in the worst violence on the countries’ border in 45 years, leaving 20 Indian troops dead and an unknown number of Chinese casualties. With China facing criticism over the corona pandemic, Western diplomats feel that recent steps taken by the Indian officials will bring India closer to West and some tension between both the countries will further push India in their direction.

India signed a major defense agreement with Australia that allows both the countries to use each other’s military bases. And expected to invite Australia for naval exercises it conducts with Japan and the United States, to strengthen efforts by the so-called quad: Australia, Japan, the United States, and India, to face China’s projection of sea power in the region.

In a virtual summit, India and Australia signed a landmark deal, providing access to each other’s military bases. This pact will clear the way for more military exercises and exchanges in the Indo-Pacific. It allows India and Australia military ships to access maintenance facilities available at each other’s bases. The Mutual Support Logistic deal among the other seven agreements that have been sealed between both countries. They also affirmed cooperation between navies and maritime security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region. India had already signed similar agreements with the United States, France, and Singapore as a part of border security cooperation, to tackle China’s growing military. Both sides agreed to continue defense cooperation by increasing the complexity of military exercises and engagement activities to develop new ways to address shared security challenges. India is looking forward to Australia’s participation in the naval exercises, that the country holds with the US and Japan in the Indian and Pacific oceans, as a symbol of concrete security between the countries.

EXPANSION OF MILITARY ALLIANCE ACROSS THE GLOBE:

COMCASA (Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement):

It stands for Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement. Signed on 6^th September,2018 by India and the United States. One of the four foundational agreements that the US signs with allies and close partners to facilitate interoperability between militaries and high-end technologies. It allows India to procure transfer specialized equipment for encrypted communications for US origin military platforms.

The joint statement issued after the 2+2 dialogue it would enable access to advanced defense systems and enable India to optimally utilize its existing US platforms. It will be implemented in a manner that the information acquired will not be transferred to any third party and it will remain consistent with the interests of the national security.

India had signed the General Security of Military Information in 2002. Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement in 2016.

ACSA (Acquisition and Cross-Services Agreements):

It stands for Acquisition and Cross-Services Agreements. It will allow the Indian military and Japan’s self-defense force to use each other’s bases for logistical support. Both sides thought to be seeking a rapid conclusion of ACSA negotiations in order to ease logistics for a number of joint Indo-Japanese Military Exercises in 2019 and 2020.

RLSA (Reciprocal Logistics Support Agreement):

It stands for the Reciprocal Logistics Support Agreement. Signed with Russia. It will facilitate reciprocal usage of logistics facilities by the militaries of both nations during visits to each other’s bases, ports, and military installations.

Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement with the United States in 2016, Implementing Agreement Concerning Mutual Coordination, Logistics and Services Support with Singapore in June 2018, Agreement for the provision of Reciprocal Logistics Support between Armed forces with France in Marc 2018 and Agreement to Extend Logistical Support to each other’s navies with the Republic of Korea.

Logistics Agreements:

They are administrative agreements which help in providing facilities like fuel, rations, spares and berthing and maintenance for the other nation’s warships, military and troops during routine port calls, joint exercises and training carried out in each other’s countries as well as during humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR). These agreements simplify the bookkeeping during such events and ensure that forces of the visiting countries are benefitted by using the host nation’s existing logistics network, which additionally reduces overall costs and saves on time.

IS INDIA PREPARED TO MEET ITS DEFENSE NEEDS?

India’s military security challenges, both current and long term, came to limelight in this month even as the nation is struggling with the health pandemic and its tragic impact on millions of citizens.

In early May, the Handwara terror attack saw the Indian Army losing a colonel and other personnel, pointing to the determination of the low-intensity conflict that has been simmering in Kashmir. This is a complex proxy war where the external Pakistani stimulus has permeated the internal security strand with all its corrosive communal elements.

Currently, India is managing an aberrant territorial challenge exigency, albeit of a low order. The eastern Ladakh sector saw a stand-off Indian and Chinese soldiers in the Pangong Tso sector. While it is well below Doklam, media reports pointed that stones were used and it is encouraging that no ordinance was exchanged, as has been the pattern for well over three decades. But the long-festering territorial dispute with China remains alive on the national security radar. The more fascinating element is that Nepal summoned the Indian ambassador on May 11 to lodge protest against the construction of a road by India in an area (Lipu Lekh pass to Dharchula in Uttrakhand) that Kathmandu claims lies within its territory.

To add the spectrum of challenges, further reports indicated that China is trying to enhance its Indian Ocean footprint in an Island near to Male in the Maldives. Thus the possibility of Hambantota kind of facility/access for the PLA navy in the IO cannot be ignored by Indian Security Planners. To cap this transparent security challenge, may also symbolize India’s complex nuclear-missile anxiety. The regional strategic environment became rough for India when China acquired nuclear weapons in October 1964; the subsequent Sino-Pakistan weapons of mass destruction convert cooperation presented Delhi with a sui generis security conundrum. The Pakistani nuclear weapon that Beijing had enabled was being used to help terrorism stoked by religious fervor- what one had described as the nuclear weapon-enabled terrorism dilemma.

India sought to mitigate its latent WMD anxiety in May 1998 through the Shakti nuclear tests under Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s watch on May 11. Two decades later, the regional WMD-terror nexus has become muddier and the techno-strategic permutations are confusing.

Does India have the wherewithal to deal effectively with this complex spectrum of national security challenges- one part of which is further aggravated by the current domestic political-ideological orientation? The answer is no- and for years’ experts have been pointing out that the annual defense allocation cannot sustain the kind of human, material and inventory profile that India needs.

Given that the Covid-19 challenges and its accumulating debris of economic devastation and human destitution will be the higher national priority for some years, India will have to embark on a radical review of its security challenges and the road map to deal with this complex spectrum. Many nations are facing a similar predicament, but some abiding elements in the Indian context must be noted. Strategic geography and its attendant security exigencies will not change due to the pandemic. The low-intensity conflict stoked by Pakistan and the internal security fabric will be turbulent and the political apex will seek to assuage national sentiment in this regard.

What kind of military capability does India need, its technological contour, and how this can be both nurtured and sustained in an affordable manner in a post-COVID -19 world needs careful and objective assessment? Against this backdrop, some of the sweeping remarks attributed to the Chief of defense, justifying lower defense spend and suggesting that the military may have been misrepresenting its requirements are perplexing, to put it mildly.