Abhijit Iyer-Mitra
Slowly but surely signs are emerging of a paradigm shift in the way security is understood in the country. The issue is that while the disastrous tender for the light aircraft replacement and the recent clearance of Rs80,000 crore worth of equipment are getting the spotlight, the far deeper subterranean movements that are happening are going virtually unnoticed, unreported or under-reported.
Perhaps the clearest sign of this was the National Security Advisor Ajit Doval’s speech at the Munich Security Conference Core Group Meeting in Delhi. What stood out most obviously was the clarity with which this Government articulates its vision of security, avoiding the airy-fairy “nothing specific” approach of previous Governments. India’s strategic planning has been the butt of international jokes for decades. High on slogans and low on specifics, George Tanham quite harshly (and quite correctly) came to the conclusion that India has no strategic culture. Doval’s speech then signalled the end to this fuzzy logic.
The speech was big on ideas and, for those familiar with the nuance of Indian security and foreign policy, it was also rich in detail if you looked hard enough. The three major specific takeaways of the speech were: First, that India is shifting its posture from credible minimum deterrence to credible deterrence; second, that India will for the first time actively seek to promote democracy in the region; and, third that a serious, holistic and long-term counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency policy is on the anvil and some very intelligent thinking is happening.
The shift of nuclear posture from emphasising credible deterrence over credible minimum deterrence is important for several reasons. The ‘minimum’ is a hangover of a bygone era – of an economically weak India devastated by decades of socialism, that was vulnerable to sanctions, not ‘plugged into’ the world and virtually friendless. At that point keeping numbers to a minimum made both financial sense and helped ameliorate manufactured international rage. India today has no need to be defensive and coy. Far from it, India can positively afford to exude self-confidence. This is exactly the message the NSA conveyed, unapologetically. To be fair, he did not say that India was shifting from its position of a minimal arsenal. He merely emphasised credibility with no reference to minimality. This does not mean that India will not take economics into account or plunge headlong into a suicidal weaponisation. Rather, it was reaffirming that the primary function of the deterrent was to deter credibly and keep India safe, not to deter minimally and keep the Ministry of External Affairs happy.
His clarity of vision on the problems of 4th generation warfare that combines winning hearts and minds, amorphous sub-state actors and the near end of state-to-state warfare, was unusual. But what was more unusual was that he had the humility to admit that he (and for that matter no one alive today) actually knows how to deal with this problem as yet. Consider his exact words “We are trying, we are succeeding and we are failing. The same methods, the same tactics, the same strategy at times works and at times it does not work, but most of the time it does not work”. He argued for a comprehensive approach that encompassed “civil society, individuals, corporate/business houses”. Given that in India it’s common for everyone to pretend that they are all-knowing, this told us four things: That this is a Government which is confident enough to admit it does not have all the answers, that this is a listening Government open to bright ideas, that this is an inclusive Government that wants to take everyone along on matters of security, and that this is a Government which is acutely aware both of the possibility and the consequences of failure, and wants to eliminate ad hoc approaches.
Precisely because of this need to avoid being in perpetual reaction mode, democracy is to become the cornerstone of India’s efforts to stabilise the region. His diagnosis was that the threat of terrorism was only 50 per cent of the problem. The remaining 50 per cent was in the response. Here he drew a clear line between how democracies and totalitarian states respond. For him, the response of democracies was a manifestation of “peaceful living, mutual coexistence and tolerance” that was a critical element of solving the problem. This then was not a George Bush style “drop democracy bombs” approach, but rather an indication that India’s understanding of peace in its region had expanded into the sophisticated nuances of human security, state responsiveness and good governance being critical.
