By Samvat Bhardwaj
Often the term “National Security” is used by elected leaders to justify a plethora of seemingly arbitrary actions that include everything from restrictions or suspension of civil liberties to an increase in fiscal spending on defence. Through this article, we hope to demystify the National Security apparatus of a country and attempt to define the contours that some organizations on national security operate under.
National Security for National Interest
Firstly, to understand National Security in its truest, all-pervasive sense, we must understand the concept of national interest. Any activity, commodity, process, geography, people or position that comes down from the Head of the State to be of national importance can and must be considered in the national interest.
This definition is extremely arbitrary and hence may very easily be misinterpreted. Such are the dimensions because similarly arbitrary are the factors that add to a nation's strength, its ability to keep itself safe from foreign aggression, and to exert influence abroad.
Homeland Defence/Security
When it comes to internal security, for most of the applications, the services (Army, Navy and Air Force) are NOT the principal method of delivery of objectives. Instead, the Center relies upon Central Paramilitary Forces and Central Bureaucratic Agencies. Constabulary authority is exclusive to neither and may be given to some entities on a case-by-case basis, and not at all to others.
Central Armed Paramilitary Forces (CAPFs)
CAPFs have their roles well-established and their rules of engagement well laid out. All of them fall under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Home Affairs. In the Indian context they exist outside the Ministry of Defence and under the Home Ministry primarily for two reasons:
Anti-coup measures by Governments, especially pre 1970s worked as a physical stopgap against the Army. This is happening in the Cold War's context where coups and martial rules were common.
Deflating “Active Military” Numbers: Done so that India's true fighting strength could be masked. This could have been done to appear less challenging to both the USA and USSR and their interests and allies (China, Pakistan) in the region. To achieve this, a lot of duties like border policing, anti-proliferation, internal dominance assertion were given off to the CAPFs, which they continue to do to this date.
Central Agencies
Central Agencies do not and are not supposed to conduct armed operations, rather their roles include intelligence gathering, political subterfuge, counter-espionage (limiting the effect foreign entities have in India and on her interests), and advising the Government on threats from all fronts and presenting long term solutions to the same.
Operations of the Intelligence Bureau are generally in domains of political subterfuge and sabotage of terrorists, insurgents and even secessionist groups operating within India. They are also responsible for negotiations and getting said secessionists within mainstream electoral politics. Further counter intelligence or counter espionage is also a domain for the IB. This includes monitoring, tracking, and neutralizing agents of foreign governments operating in India or attempting to sabotage structures/organizations critical to national interest.
Foreign Intelligence
Figure 1: Source - Creative Commons
The task of foreign intelligence operations finds themselves under the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW). The principal task of any agency like this is to act as the State’s first line of defence. The agency must monitor or neutralize any activity, sentiment, or group that poses a threat to the State's interest or security or may do so in the future.
The R&AW's actions in today's setting, in a foreign country are conducted using cultivating local assets in the target country rather than directly involving in-house personnel. When found operating, R&AW personnel use Ministry of External Affairs credentials, NGO covers, or simple business credentials.
Intelligence operations can be understood to be of two kinds on a rudimentary level, passive measures and active operations.
Passive Measures
Passive measures would involve actions like keeping tabs on the health of the leader of a foreign regime, gathering information on resource stockpiles and consumption patterns of a partners and adversaries, troop movements, political profiling, and demography analysis, etc.
Active Operations
Active operations are designed to further national interest by making alterations in the status quo. Political subterfuge in a foreign nation, sabotage of critical infrastructure, conducting disinformation campaigns, cultivating assets in other States, covertly supporting insurgents and influencing elections are some examples of commonly observed active measures.
Military Action
Doctrinally speaking, the role of the Armed Forces is to conduct certain ‘Mission Essential Tasks’. Them being:
Shaping of the Security Environment
Prompt response to crises Mobilization of Armed Forces during conflict
Dominate all domains of warfare (Land, Sea, Air, Cyber, Space, Information)
Provide support to civil authorities
Land Operations
Land operations are conducted by defining the scope of the operation. A scope must ideally define the following, simplistically speaking:
Objective,
Enemy units,
Requirement of our units,
Logistics and Supply,
Sustainability of operations,
Permanence of operations,
Figure 2: Speculative structure by author, not official. Credit: Samvat Bhardwaj for Policy Corner
Land operations are repetitive and continuous and therefore the duration of an operation must be planned with contingencies. A force will have to engage in operations till the enemy is rendered incapable or unwilling to conduct further action. The terrain in which most land operations are set is complex and is often further cluttered with anomalies in air, sea, and space. Plans for land combat must therefore factor in these anomalies.
Naval Operations
Image 3: Source - X (Twitter). Courtesy INS Netaji Subhas
The roles of the Indian Navy as articulated in Indian Maritime Doctrine – 2015 are Military, Diplomatic, Constabulary and Benign. The Navy is a deterrent force. Its true abilities are brought to bear in times of medium to large-scale conflicts. It engages in 'Sea Control' and 'Sea Denial' operations when interacting with other foreign entities. It allows for enforcement of blockades as well as the interdiction and protection of Sea Lines of Communications depending upon the requirement. Counter piracy, surveillance, electronic warfare, maritime patrol, offshore asset protection, and 'Visit Board Search and Seizure' operations are some everyday activities in the naval domain.
Planning for naval operations happens while considering ship deployment times, weather, replenishment of crews, scheduled vessel maintenance, dry dock repairs and upgrades.
Air Operations
Air operations are concisely focused on the following metrics:
Provide all-encompassing security of the air and space domain,
Monitor and prosecute any ‘offensive parallel’ air operation to ensure compliance with the National Security Policy or specific military objectives and prevent ‘hot’ war through deterrence.
Most air operations during peace provide deterrence, surveillance and active defence of the air and space domains. Air operations possess the flexibility of encompassing multiple on-ground theaters thereby allowing for rapid induction during a conflict.
Planning for air operations revolves around weather, aircraft maintenance timetables and crew down times. Estimations suggest at a given time only <70% of aircrafts in a squadron may be operational.
Logistics
The effectiveness, longevity and morale of any force depend upon the ability of the force to be sustained. Figure 2 is a demonstrative infantry battalion, which serves as the principal fighting entity under the current doctrine. The Battalion’s sustenance means how quickly and efficiently things that the battalion needs to stay in combat (ammunition, food, medicine, fuel, mail, spare parts, fresh equipment, fresh troops and the movement of casualties away from the theater of war) are brought to it.
Wars have been won or lost by logistics as the deciding factor. Logistics hence becomes a matter of extreme national importance and takes significant time to plan and prepare for.
National Security Strategy
The National Security Strategy (NSS) must not be confused with the state’s military strategy, environmental, diplomatic or economic development strategy. An NSS is made while being cognizant of National Comprehensive Power and the anticipated political will for conflict. NSS will weigh in said cognizance to achieve the best end state while making tradeoffs that are least damaging in the long run to the national interest.
A National Security Strategy would define actions and behaviors that India seems an affront to, her sovereignty, reactions to them, and her escalation policy in case her reactions don't deliver favorable results. The Strategy would also make commentary upon India's preferred methods of waging war and the interest in whose protection might she instigate one.
The NSS works like a tool for information warfare and establishing dominance against any potential adversary. If India would now like her playbook to be public knowledge and her actions to be judged and confined with said playbook is a question that would need some more pondering.
Conclusion
The pursuit of national security is essential and is needlessly made to be bureaucratized, jargon loaded and thought of in silos. National Security is complex but at no point is it not for the average intelligent voter. Factors like intelligence, logistics, ability to wage war and political will contribute majorly to national security thought. It is these factors that end up taking a lot of money and manpower and not material acquisition and systems or weapon platform upgrades.
References/Supplementary Reading List
US Army, Headquarters, Department of the Army. “Field Manual 3-0 ‘Operations.’” US Army Field Manuals, June 2021.
Commodore Kesnur, Srikant B. “Defence Diplomacy - Adding Value to India-East Africa Relations.” Naval War College Journal, 2023.
Indian Airforce Doctrine
About the Author
Samvat is a second-year Economics major at the Jindal School of Government and Public Policy. He serves as the General Secretary for Policy Corner and a Research Intern at the Pankaj Jha Center for Security Studies. His areas of interest include national security, defence, military doctrine, and public policy.
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