Geopolitics by Newsline

ARMS, DIPLOMACY AND BUSINESS Vol III, Issue XII, May 2013 n `100

being and becoming

There have been many Generals, but history remembers only a few

“NO PROBLEM WITH HAL” Exclusive interview with Eric Trappier, Chairman and CEO, Dassault Aviation

WHY INDIA NEEDS MORE MILITARY CHOPPERS TIME FOR COMPREHENSIVE INTELLIGENCE REFORMS India’s first Field Marshal, General S H F J Manekshaw

Geopolitics_IMDEX_274mmx210mm_FAP.pdf 1 4/21/2013 5:19:36 PM

Cover Story

(P46)

CONTENTS

LEADING GENERALS

MOD

Defence not being a priority in Governance becomes an issue only when sovereignty is threatened. This policy is adversely affecting Indian Generals and Generalship.

(P8)

PERSPECTIVE

(P10)

Trusted Partner

Strengthening Connectivity

India and Mikoyan-Gurevich celebrated 50 years of partnership, we provide a glimpse of the MiG aircraft that served and are still serving India.

DEFBIZ (P20)

IAF

WIKIMEDIA

PANORAMA

Threat of a two-front war has forced the MoD and Indian Armed Forces to adopt a new concept on reconnaissance and digital communications technology capability.

DEFBIZ (P28)

DEFBIZ (P37)

ANXIOUS START

EXPECTING PARTNERSHIP

STRETCHING ARMS

As Sikorsky is too anxious to get started in Indian Market, the company speaks about the new products and the experimental projects such as X2 and the future prospects for the Indian Market.

Rockwell Collins is very keen on constituting defence programme in India because there are huge opportunities and great potentials in Indian defence market.

As DRDO emphasises on buy Indian, its Director General Vijay Kumar Saraswat says that Indigenous components in our defence items have gone up from 30 per cent to 55 per cent in recent years.

www.geopolitics.in

(4)

May 2013

CYBER SECURITY (P58) As the definition of battle changes and Chinese hardware spreads around the world. India must gear up to fight the cyber war.

BOAZ GUTTMAN- PHOTOSTREAM

MAYANK AUSTEN SOOFI

CLOUDFRONT

BOEING

ATTACK HELICOPTERS (P14) Keeping in view the future military requirements, the military helicopter acquisition programme is progressing on the right path.

NEW MINDSET (P62) Indian intelligence agencies need to create a new setup that will imbibe ideas to tackle non-state actors. and terror outfits.

FOCUS

(P72)

PULLING THE TRIGGER (P77) With North Korea threatening of nuclear confrontation, can North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-Un be viewed as simply erratic?

Editor-in-Chief

K SRINIVASAN Editor

PRAKASH NANDA Managing Editor

TIRTHANKAR GHOSH Consulting Editor

SAURAV JHA Correspondents

TRISHIT RAI, RIJUL S UPPAL, NAVEED ANJUM Chief Visualiser

AJAY NEGI Designers

MOHIT KANSAL, NAGENDER DUBEY Design Consultant

WIKIMEDIA

ARTWORKS

ARMS CONTROL OR DISARMAMENT Far from being guided by national interest, is Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s opposition to the Arms Trade Treaty guided by entrenched interests?

Photo Editor

H C TIWARI Staff Photographer

HEMANT RAWAT Director (Corporate Affairs)

RAJIV SINGH

Director (Marketing)

RAKESH GERA

Conceptualised and designed by Newsline Publications Pvt. Ltd., from D-11 Basement, Nizamuddin (East), New Delhi -110 013, Tel: +91-11-41033381-82

DIPLOMACY (P68)

BRICS SUMMIT

The fifth BRICS Summit has just concluded in South Africa but it has already given rise to many speculations whether the member countries will be able to set up a global financial institution.

www.geopolitics.in

Cover Design: Artworks The total number of pages in this issue is 80+4

(5)

for NEWSEYE MEDIA PVT. LTD. All information in GEOPOLITICS is derived from sources we consider reliable. It is passed on to our readers without any responsibility on our part. Opinions/views expressed by third parties in abstract or in interviews are not necessarily shared by us. Material appearing in the magazine cannot be reproduced in whole or in part(s) without prior permission. The publisher assumes no responsibility for material lost or damaged in transit. The publisher reserves the right to refuse, withdraw or otherwise deal with all advertisements without explanation. All advertisements must comply with the Indian Advertisements Code. The publisher will not be liable for any loss caused by any delay in publication, error or failure of advertisement to appear. Owned and published by K Srinivasan, 4C Pocket-IV, Mayur Vihar, Phase-I, Delhi-91 and printed by him at Nutech Photolithographers, B-240, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-I, New Delhi-110020. Readers are welcome to send their feedback at geopolitics@newsline.in

May 2013

LETTERS

LETTERS TO EDITOR

(43)

April 2013

In order to project itself as a blue water navy, the Indian Navy has to take a few more steps for the naval shipbuilding programme, although it has covered some distance in contributing much to the platform requirements for maritime forces. India is one of the few countries in the world that has the capability to construct all types of warships ranging from aircraft carriers to nuclear and conventional submarines along with destroyers, frigates and corvettes. Over 90 warships have so far been indigenously constructed, with 30 more in the pipeline. As we all know India being a regional power has to showcase its strength in maritime security and would need several warships in the near future for this purpose. The demand can only be met through an indigenous shipbuilding programme. We can see that India’s overall shipbuilding industry comprises 27 shipyards, of which six are under Central Gov-

www.geopolitics.in

g DEFBIZ

DIPLOMACY

AgustaWestland AW 101 VVIP Chopper, and (Below) Luxurious Interiors of the Chopper

Continued from Page 17

WHAT NEXT IN THE FINMECCANICA CASE? and other companies in which the Italian group has capital investment and interests. That apart, it can adversely impact government policy vis-á-vis foreign military hardware buys. This can be gauged from Defence Minister A K Antony’s statement at a press conference during the 2012 DefExpo in Delhi, within days of his ministry black-

www.geopolitics.in

The policy of banning every company that comes under the slightest cloud should be immediately done away with, as it does not help the cause of armed forces modernisation. So should the provision to cancel the contract. If the product that has been offered by the company, which come under a taint at the stage of implementation, then the contract obligations should be completed by the firm. However, completion of contractual obligations doesn’t mean the company that got involved in graft will not go scot-free despite the wrongdoing. It will pay up and face financial penalties that would be so severe that it would not only recover any loss that may have been caused to the nation’s exchequer, but it would make the firm think twice on getting into underhand dealings.

listing six companies including four foreign companies, for their involvement in the corruption case against former Ordnance Factory Board Director General Sudipto Ghosh, who has been convicted in the case by a special CBI court. Antony had then said that the 10-year ban on these companies doing defence business in India would apply to ‘their

(34)

ancillaries’ too and the entire ‘Defence Ministry family’ will have no business to do with these companies: Singapore Technologies Kinetics, Israel Military Industries, Zurich-based Rheinmetall Air Defence, Corporation Defence Russia, Delhi-based TS Kisan and Company and Ludhiana-based RK Machine Tools. In the case of the AgustaWestland deal

April 2013

•

for the VVIP helicopters, the contract and the integrity pact provides for five-year ban in case of any wrongdoing is found during the tender or after signing of the contract, which has been incorporated as per the Defence Procurement Procedure 2006. If things come to such a pass, here is what the ban would mean for not just

www.geopolitics.in

(6)

India and its armed forces, but also for AgustaWestland, its parent firm Finmeccanica and all its subsidiaries and ancillaries: • As and when the AgustaWestland deal goes down, it would take along with it, the MMRCA deal too. For, the plane selected by India under the 2007 tender is the French firm

(35)

•

Dassault Aviation’s Rafale combat aircraft. But how is Finmeccanica involved in the Rafale deal? European company MBDA manufactures the missiles that the French combat planes are armed with. Finmeccanica has a 25 per cent stake in MBDA. In its January 2013 brochure for India, the Italian group has claimed that MBDA is part of its group companies. The MMRCA contract is yet to be awarded and cost negotiations are in progress, though Dassault has already indicated that it will have only European missiles on Rafale. The weapons package comprises a mix of MICA and Meteor air-to-air missiles manufactured and supplied by MBDA. So are the air-to-ground Storm Shadow/ SCALP and the maritime superiority missiles such as the Exocet. Another Indian project in which MBDA is participating is the Mirage-2000 upgrade programme that too has been won by the French. In January 2012, India decided to buy 490 MICA missiles worth $1.4 billion (Aprrox. `7,700 crore) for its 50 French Mirage-2000 combat planes in the IAF fleet. This project too may suffer. India’s prestigious 45,000-tonne Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC) too will face a major setback, as Finmeccanica’s subsidiary Selex ES has been awarded the contract to supply the Indian Navy with its RAN-40L 3D Air Surveillance Radar that is to be installed on-board the IAC, under construction at the Cochin Shipyard. Finmeccanica’s subsidiary WASS is the winner of the Indian Navy project to upgrade its 128 A244 lightweight torpedoes on all its 13 operational conventional underwater combatants. The contract was awarded to WASS in 2010. The above projects apart, Finmeccanica’s NH Industries is competing in the $1 billion (Aprrox. `5,500 crore)

April 2013

eyond 2 vy: B 00 Na N uard: 12 to st G oa Upto 12 NM ce

M 0N 20 om the shor fr

www.geopolitics.in

trinsic to it by targeting blacksmiths, carpenters and artificers who were singled out for special retribution. The shipbuilding industry, through this instrument passed into the hands of the colonists, worked to its bidding and grew under its decree. Whether it was the shipyard at Bombay or Calcutta, their purpose was to service the Company’s enterprise, and in time the Crown’s imperial ambitions. Ancient India was one of the leading maritime nations, which at some point of time possessed the tidal dock at Lothal (located in the Bhal region of modern Gujarat) which dates to 2300 BC and stands testimony to the vibrancy of the tradition.

n November 1788, an intriguing order was passed by the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East India Company. On the one hand, it sounded the death knell for private shipbuilding activities in Bengal; while on the other, it underscored the strategic linkage between economic power as a function of British colonial venture and the challenges that an opposing maritime capability may pose to it. Specifically, it prohibited ship construction of any nature on pain of physical punishment and forfeit of properties; but far more insidious was the systematic obliteration of a vocation and the skills in-

It had colonies in Cambodia, Java, Sumatra, Borneo and Socotra. Indian traders had established settlements in southern China, in the Malayan Peninsula, in Arabia and in Egypt. Through the Persians and the Arabs, India had cultivated trade relations with the Roman Empire. There is also a treatise named Yukti Kalpa Taru (an 11th century AD compilation by Bhoja Narapati), offering a technocratic exposition on the art of shipbuilding. It sets forth minute details about the various types of ships, their sizes and the materials from which they were built. Such a vast undertaking could never have occurred without a close union between a deliberate imperial policy and a nautical strategy to realise it. Significant to early Indian maritime endeavours was the mercantile pursuit that drove shipbuilding. The nature of hulls—deep and bulkhead free—was designed for carriage of cargo rather than for survival in action damage. Even the colonisation of South East Asia was more on account of a migratory stimulus than one urged by conquest. This outlook changed

--- The order from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East India Company

Plugging the Leaks on Coastal Security (GEOPOLITICS April 2013) was interesting to read. As the story suggests, there is no universal legal definition for coastal security. It is defined as comprising those issues that pertain to the sea and have significant implications for the country’s security. It covers many policy sectors including seaborne trade and commerce including energy resources. Assessment

In di India n rine Pol C Ma i

“—all carpenters; blacksmiths and other artificers are prohibited being employed in the building of boats…”

Prem Singh, Kolkata

COASTAL SECURITY SCHEME

INTERNALSECURITY

*NAUTICAL MILES

he term maritime security, which has no universal legal definition, is defined as comprising those issues which pertain to the sea and have significant implications for the country’s security. It covers many policy sectors including seaborne trade and commerce in energy resources, the management of living and non-living marine resources, the delimitation of international seaward boundaries, and the deployment and employment of naval forces. Elements of the maritime security regime could be coastal security including port security, vessel security, facility security, resource security, environmental security including management of oil spills, security of seafarers and fishers including search and rescue. Assessment of the Indian maritime coastal security challenges must commence with a statement on the maritime boundary to comprehend the enormity of the problem: India has a 7,517 km-long coastline of which 5,423 kms covers the mainland and 2,094 kms encircles Andaman & Nicobar (A&N) Islands. The country has an EEZ of 2013410 sq km. To secure the coastline and the maritime area of interest, a layered security system that begins beyond the country’s physical borders with at-sea presence to deter potential threats is required. Maritime domain awareness through surveillance assets intelligence sensors to track and interpret a matrix of real-time images sourced from satellites, drones, ships at sea and manned surveillance aircraft and identification of all vessels at sea, to increase warning time and engage the potential threats at the farthest point possible. There is a multi-tier arrangement for the maritime security of the country involving the Indian Navy (IN), Coast Guard (ICG) and marine police of the coastal States and UTs. The overall responsibility for maritime security rests with the IN. ICG is designated as authority responsible for coastal security in territo-

www.geopolitics.in

GEARING UP: Commandos of Indian Coast Guard jumps out of an Indian hovercraft to perform a drill

PLUGGING THE LEAKS Following the attack on Mumbai from Sea in 2008, the coastal security, but there are areas which need relentless systems, writes MONISH GULATI

rial waters assisted by state marine police and other central and state agencies. The Indian Customs, which patrols the sea up to 24 nm to prevent smuggling, has also been brought under the coastal security mechanism. The three-level Coastal Security Scheme (CSS) delineates the geographical limits and responsibilities: • Marine Police would be responsible for patrolling up to 12 nautical miles; from the coast • ICG to patrol from 12 to 200 nautical miles and • IN to patrol beyond 200 nautical miles. Post-Kargil, in October 2001, a Group of Ministers (GoM) was appointed to review the national security systems. This started a series of events which led to the

(54)

present day improvements in the coastal security. In January 2004, the Department of Border Management was created in MHA for effective management of land and coastal borders. Thereafter the Kargil Review Committee’s comprehensive recommendations prompted the Central Government to launch the Coastal Security Scheme. The Coastal Security Scheme was implemented in the 9 coastal States and 4 coastal Union Territories (UTs) since 2005 for strengthening infrastructure for coastal patrolling and surveillance. 73 coastal police stations, 97 check posts, 58 outposts and 30 operational barracks were set up. The approved outlay of the scheme was `400 crore for non-recurring expenditure and `151 crores for recur-

April 2013

government has undertaken many measures to enhance the vigilance through well-trained manpower and well-equipped ring expenditure for 6 years. The scheme was later extended by one year up to 31.03.2011 with additional non-recurring expenditure of Rs 95 crores. The procurement of the 204 interceptor boats was done centrally through M/s Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL), Goa and M/s Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Limited (GRSE), Kolkata. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has signed a contract in March 2008 with these vendors for supply of 84 (5 Ton) and 110 (12 Ton) boats. Besides, an agreement with GRSE has also been signed for supply of ten of 12 Ton boats for A&N Islands with higher specifications. The coastal States/UTs carried out vulnerability/gap analysis in consultation with ICG and recommended an addition-

www.geopolitics.in

al 131 coastal police stations including upgradation of 20 existing Police Stations in A&N islands and procurement of 225 boats under the Phase-II of the Coastal Security. The Phase-II has a financial outlay of `1,579 crores to be implemented in a period of 5 years from 1st April, 2011. A Comprehensive Security Plan for A&N Islands with an implementation period of eight years, in three phases 2012-2015, 2015-2017 and 2017-2020 was also formulated. The comprehensive security plan is in two parts; Part A is taken up under Phase II of coastal security scheme and Part B is taken up in the state plan of A&N Islands. A scheme with an outlay of `342.56 crores and six years implementation window with effect from 2005-06 was formu-

(55)

PHOTOGRAPHS: INDIAN COAST GUARD

BUREAUCRATS

Apropos the story, What Next in the Finmeccanica Case? The idea behind it is totally convincing. What is worrisome for the Indian armed forces and the public in general and for foreign military vendors in particular, is that this case has the potential to paralyse several projects involving Finmeccanica, its subsidiaries and other companies in which foreign investments and interests are involved. That apart, it can adversely impact government policy to buy foreign military hardware leaving the armed forces stranded. In the case of the AgustaWestland deal for the VVIP helicopters, the contract and the integrity pact provides for a five-year ban if any wrongdoing is involved and can affect the capability of our armed forces. When the AgustaWestland deal is thrown out of the window, it would take along with it the MMRCA deal too which will affect the MMRCA programme of the Indian Air Force. It’s not just one or two deals involved but will impact several deals which can leave our armed forces vulnerable to

foreign threats affecting national security as well. As of now we can just wait and watch the developments that will take place.

TWOCIRCLES.NET’S PHOTOSTREAM

COVERSTORY

In order to develop a truly world-class edifice in India, the country must match resources to its overall naval strategy and grant autonomy to the yards, writes VIJAY SHANKAR

Ram Kumar, Vishakhapatnam

AGUSTAWESTLAND

INDIA’S INDIGENOUS WARSHIP BUILDING: A CASE STRANGLED BETWEEN MOD &

ernment control, two under state government and 19 in the private sector domain —together, they can boost the indigenous efforts to build warships for the navy and the Coast Guard. As the story points out, both design expertise and consultancy must reside in the shipyards and if this has been achieved in India.

The cover story, India’s Indigenous Warship Building’ (GEOPOLITICS, April 2013), about the indigenous programme to build warships for the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard was a well researched story and reflected all the aspects of the programme. The introduction said it all: “In order to develop a truly world-class edifice in India, the country must match resources to its overall naval strategy and grant autonomy to the yards.”

lated for creating additional infrastructure for ICG to ensure intensive patrolling and surveillance of the close coastal areas of Gujarat and Maharashtra. Under the scheme, ICG is to procure 15 Interceptor Boats and set up three Coast Guard Stations in Dhanu and Murud Janjira in Maharashtra and Veraval in Gujarat. The procurement of the 15 interceptor boats from M/s Bharati Shipyard Ltd is scheduled for completion by March 2014. In addition, for protecting naval bases and adjacent strategic installations, a specialised force (Sagar Prahari Dal) consisting of 1000 personnel equipped with 80 interceptor boats is being raised by the IN. The physical security of India’s major ports is being ensured through the deployment of the Central industrial Security Force (CISF). An informal layer for surveillance comprising fishermen and coastal villagers has also been added Local fishermen and villagers have been organised into groups (Sagar Suraksha Dal and Gram Rakshak Dal) and trained to keep a vigil at sea as well as along the coasts.

Maritime Domain Awareness

For achieving near gap-free electronic surveillance of the entire coastline the Coastal Surveillance Network project is being implemented. This project provides surveillance up to 25 nm into the sea and involves the setting up of 46 static radars along the coastline—36 in the mainland and 10 in the island territories. Phase I of the project is nearing completion. The network has other components; one of which is the National Automatic Identi-

April 2013

of the Indian maritime coastal security and challenges faced thereupon is the biggest question that pops up now and then. However, as the story states, there is a multi-tier arrangement for maritime security of the country involving the Indian Navy (IN), Indian Coast Guard (ICG) and marine police of the coastal states and Union Territories. The overall responsibility for maritime security rests with the Indian Navy and Indian Coast Guard. The Coastal Security Scheme which was implemented in the nine coastal states and four coastal Union Territories since 2005 for strengthening infrastructure for coastal patrolling and surveillance. Naved Ansari, Mumbai

May 2013

Def Biz 42-47final.qxd

4/28/2012

4:41 PM

Page 27

YEARS OF

SERVICE As MiGs complete 50 years of glorious service in India this April, we take this ride down memory lane. Ever since the inception of the first MiG in the Indian Air Force (MiG 21), MiGs for over 5 decades, formed the backbone of the nation’s air defence assets. Even today, India is reliant on MiGs as the Indian Navy procures MiG 29Ks for its carrier based fighter needs.

BASES

ENGINES

MiG 21s are based at Pathankot, Tezpur, Jamnagar, Jaisalmer, Hashimara, Halwara, Chandigarh, Bathinda, Bareily, Bagdogra, Ambala and Jallandhar airfields. MiG 23s are based at Jodhpur, Halwara and Jallandhar airfields. MiG 25s bought ready to fly from the Soviet Union were based at Bareilly. MiG 27s are based at Kalaikunda, Jamnagar, Jodhpur, Delhi (Hindon), Hashimara and Bathinda airfields. MiG 29s are based at Jallandhar and Pune airbases.

MiG 21— Tumansky R-25 Turbojet Engine is a two-spool axial-flow turbojet. The engine was also built under licence by HAL in India. MiG 23 and MiG 27— Tumansky R-29 was a turbojet engine, generally described as being in the ‘third generation’ of Soviet gas turbine engines. MiG 25—Tumansky R-15-300 is an axial flow, single shaft turbojet with an afterburner. It was known for ease of maintenance, performance, and good monitoring systems. MiG 29 & MiG 29K—MiG 29 uses Klimov RD-33, a turbofan engine. The space between the engines generates lift to improve manoeuvrability.

www.geopolitics.in

(8)

1982 MiG 23

The MiG-23 is a variable-geometry fighter aircraft. It was the first attempt by the Soviet Union to design look-down/shoot-down radar and one of the first to be armed with Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missiles (BVRAAM). After three decades of service with the IAF, the combat fighter aircraft was phased out. The swing-wing MiG-23BN was one of the most powerful singleengine fighters in the world. The MiG-23BN ground attack aircraft was phased out in 2009 and the MiG-23MF air defence interceptor phased out in 2007. A total of 150 MiG-23s had been obtained.

May 2013

PANORAMA

1961 MiG 21

MiG 21 is a supersonic jet fighter aircraft. The fighter made aviation records as it is the most-produced supersonic jet aircraft in aviation history. In 1961, the IAF opted to purchase the MiG-21. As part of the deal, the Soviet Union offered India full transfer of technology and rights for local assembly. MiG-21 became the first supersonic fighter jet to enter service with the IAF. It also became the first fighter to be manufactured in India. Positive feedback from IAF pilots prompted India to place more orders and also invest heavily in building the MiG-21’s maintenance infrastructure and pilot training programmes. It was manufactured in India at HAL Nasik.

1981

1986

1980

2004

MiG-25 is a supersonic interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft that was among the fastest military aircraft to enter service. The aircraft entered into service in 1970. Production of the MiG-25 series ended in 1984 after completion of 1,190 aircraft. It is the second fastest and second highestflying military aircraft ever fielded after the SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft. In India, the existence of the MiG 25s with the Indian defence establishment was a closely guarded secret.

The MiG-27 is a groundattack aircraft licenceproduced in India by HAL. It currently only remains in service with the Indian, Kazakh and Sri Lankan Air Forces in the ground attack role. Since 2001, the Indian Air Force lost more than 12 MiG-27s to crashes. In mid-February 2010, India grounded its entire fleet of over 150 of the aircraft after a MiG-27 crashed on 16 February 2010 in Siliguri, West Bengal. It was manufactured in India at HAL Nasik.

MiG-29 is a fourth-generation fighter aircraft. India is one of the largest export operators of MiG 29. Since induction into IAF, it has undergone series of modifications. MiG-29’s good operational record prompted India to sign a deal with Russia to upgrade all its MiG-29s. In 2007, Russia gave India’s HAL a licence to manufacture 120 RD-33 series 3 turbofan engines for the upgrade. Six MiG-29s will be upgraded in Russia while the remaining will be upgraded in India.

The MiG-29K is an allweather carrier-based multirole fighter aircraft. India has in total ordered 45 MiG29Ks fighters. The MiG-29K is to provide airborne fleet air defence and surface attack capabilities. MiG-29K entered operational service with India in February 2010. The fighters are based at an air field in Goa until the INS Vikramaditya joins the navy. The future indigenous aircraft carrier Vikrant, currently being built by India, also is likely to carry these aircraft

MiG 25

www.geopolitics.in

MiG 27

MiG 29

(9)

MiG29K

May 2013

g PERSPECTIVE

BECOMING NETWORK CENTRIC

DRDO

The countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s armed might has ventured into the world of space reconnaissance and digital communications technology for net-centricity, crucial in fighting a two-front war, writes SAURAV JHA

READY TO SERVE: Indigenously

www.geopolitics.in built Rohini 3D Radar system of the

Indian Army, which has a range of around 150 kms

(10)

May 2013

g PERSPECTIVE

HEMANT RAWAT

he first Gulf war showcased to the world the importance of mastering the so-called ‘Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act’ (OODA) cycle, itself the product of credible ‘command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance’ (C4ISR) capability. C4ISR-enablers have evolved rapidly since the information technology revolution actually accelerated. The Indian armed forces, aware of the fact that they could be faced with a two-front war in the near future are investing heavily to augment C4ISR and become true network-centric forces. Building a superior network is crucial to thwarting any coordinated multiple front offensive against India by Pakistan and China. However, even as a number of new ISR platforms are being inducted by the services, managing and co-ordinating the vastly-increased quantum of input is posing new challenges and quicker movement is required on the C4 front particularly by the Indian Army (IA). In today’s battle-space, networks fight networks and they are increasingly looking to become Mobile Adhoc Networks (MANET) to literally keep pace with an ever-changing tactical battle area. Compressing the sensor to shooter chain requires ad-hoc networking that optimises spectrum utilisation when coupled with contemporary waveforms, which in turn enables the real-time delivery of video, image transfer, voice and data. The dependence on space to provide wider coverage continues to grow which is then sought to be linked with MANETs on the ground, in the air and above and below the seas. The Indian Air Force (IAF) has taken the lead in becoming a network-centric force of this sort. This is not surprising as the IAF has seen the greatest accretion in

www.geopolitics.in

terms of new airborne ISR platforms including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) which in order to be exploited fully must ride new age networks. The fact is that the IAF has traditionally been India’s most technology-intensive force as it garners the largest share of the Indian defence budget. The IAF’s big move in the direction of network-centricity was taken with the launch of AF-NET in 2010 which replaced the IAF’s old communication network set-up using tropo-scatter technology from the 1950s. Under AF-NET all major formations and static establishments have been linked through WAN and are accessible via data communication channels. AFNET incorporates the latest traffic transportation technology in the form of Internet Protocol (IP) packets over the network using Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS). A large Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) layer with stringent quality of service enforcement will facilitate robust, high quality voice, video and conferencing solutions. IAF’s emerging Integrated Air Command and Control System (IACCS), an automated command and control system for air defence (AD0 operations will ride the AFNET backbone integrating all ground-based and airborne sensors, AD weapon systems and

C2 nodes. The IACCS consists of ten major nodes with each node having ADDCs under it which in turn will be continuously connected with both Air Staff HQ as well regional command HQs. Incidentally, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) recently floated an international tender for software-defined radio based communications tied to the networks’ airborne and ground-based segments. It is understood that Israeli Aerospace Industries, RAFAEL, Rockwell Collins and Rhode & Schwartz are competing for this tender. The IAF’s nationwide ‘Live Wire’ exercise underway at the time of writing is related to testing the efficacy of its IACCS. In any case, the IACSS, by 2015-17, will have under its purview a fully modernised fleet of early warning and Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) resistant radars. As of now the IAF’s chief groundbased radar assets are the THD-1955, 36D6 and the P-12/18 family and the indigenous INDRA-II but this is changing at a fair clip. As such the IAF has begun to progressively induct contemporary jamresistant radars with digital receiver and programmable signal processing. This means that the software defined radars can be re-programmed to keep Electronic Counter Measures (ECCM) capability up

MISSION READY: An Indian AEW&C Embraer jet getting ready to take-off

(11)

May 2013

g PERSPECTIVE

to date. The IAF is also introducing its first ground-based active arrays in the form of the Arudra MPR which is a S-band solid state active aperture that can detect and track fighter-sized targets from more than 300 km away. The radar is also capable of both stand alone as well as networkcentric mode, although in the latter department Arudhra apparently offers extremely potent capabilities. Replacing the P-12/18 family is DRDO’s Rohini 3D which has a range of around 150 kms and DRDO claims that the entire set up can be deployed or decamped in 30 minutes. Though a mechanically steered pulse doppler array, the Rohini’s ECCM capability owing to its all digital environment is noteworthy. However, true situational awareness in mountainous areas cannot be achieved without deploying Airborne Warning and Control Systems (AWACS) in numbers and this is exactly where the recently acquired IL-76 based PHALCONs are proving to be a game changer. The PHALCON’s EL/M-2075 radar can detect low Radar Cross Section (RCS) targets amidst background clutter from hundreds of kilometres away, under all-weather conditions. Its AESA technology allows it to achieve superior target discrimination in comparison to mechanically-steered arrays and also makes it less susceptible to interception and jamming. For instance track initiation by the EL/M-2075 is achieved

www.geopolitics.in

PIB

SPREADING WEB: The Indra Radar system displayed on the eve of Republic day

in two to four seconds as opposed to the 20 to 40 seconds that is standard with legacy AWACS types sporting rotodomes housing mechanically steered arrays. The PHALCON in any case will be a key element in the IACCS’s cruise missile defence posture given its characteristics. At the moment two more IL-76 based PHALCON’s are under consideration. In the near future the PHALCON will be supplemented by three units of DRDO’s ERJ-145 based AEW&C which will operate in conjunction with the former. This indigenously developed system centred around an S-band AESA is expected to deliver features such as high performance tracking and priority tracking with reference to fighter sized targets. The cabinet committee on security has also given the go ahead to DRDO’s ‘AWACS India’ project which will develop an indigenous radar in the PHALCON’s class, although the system may be based on a western platform like the A-330. Up to seven units of this type will be in service by 2020. The IAF has also expressed requirements for nine special mission aircraft for Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), Communications Jamming (COMJAM), ground survey and target towing. According to the reports, Request For Information (RFI) has been sent out globally out of which two of the nine aircraft would have to be certified for the SIGINT role while the rest be validated for the COMJAM mission.

(12)

The service is also bringing in more aerostats equipped with the EL/M-2083 radar which is reported to be a derivative of the ‘Green Pine’ missile defence radar used in the Arrow Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) system. The EL/M-2083 given its reported antecedents is probably a L-band phased array radar capable of search, acquisition as well as fire-control. It can acquire and track targets at both ‘high’ and ‘low’ altitudes, identify targets such as cruise missiles and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) against background clutter. It scans electronically in both azimuth as well as elevation and does so out to a potential 500 kms. A potential buy of a dozen such systems may be in the basket. All of these assets will enjoy greater network capability once a dedicated communication satellite for IAF planned to be launched in 2013-2014 becomes operational. However, the Indian armed service spearheading the exploitation of space is the Indian Navy (IN). Given its domain of operations the IN is a natural user of Geographical Information Systems (GIS). At the moment, the IN is looking to achieve true Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) by making its ships all weather day and night networked with each other and linked to the Navy’s shore based headquarters’ through ISRO launched communication satellites and stabilized terminals. The Navy’s first dedicated satellite, the multi-band GSAT-7, is scheduled to be launched on board of an Arian space launcher this year. According to ISRO, GSAT-7 has a lift-off mass of 2,550 kgs with power handling capability of around 2.6 kilowatts. All Indian naval ships are currently being outfitted with dual offset gregorian terminals in 45 inch radomes which would allow communication via GSAT-7. As of now the IN is also leveraging existing Indian satellites for its ISR needs. Oceansat-2 is giving the navy access to bathymetric data which is assisting Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW). India’s synthetic aperture radar fleet consisting of radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT-1) and RISAT-2 are allowing surveillance in all weather day/night conditions with the IN using commercially available data banks of ships to finger-print them at sea and in harbours. In any case the tri-service Defence Image Processing and Analysis Centre (DIPAC) in New Delhi which has satellite receiving facilities in Central In-

May 2013

IAF

SECURING SKY: An IAF IL-76 based Falcon (AWACS) Aircraft

dia often gives the Navy’s requests priority tasking. Under Project Rukmani the IN has also created an initial naval enterprise network in the VHF band for satellite augmented communications. The Navy currently uses a mix of indigenous and imported ship terminal to control its growing fleet of land based UAV’s over extended ranges in all sea states. All new airborne platforms including the P-8I long range maritime reconnaissance aircraft and the proposed medium range maritime reconnaissance aircraft will also naturally act as ISR facilitators to MDA. Unfortunately, the laggard service in terms of attaining network centricity is the Indian Army (IA). In fact, the current flagship IA programme, the Tactical Communication System (TCS) was actually labelled as TCS-2000, initially given that it was supposed to be rolled out by that year 2000 and after a decade long delay, the programme was re-labelled as TCS-2010 and its already 2013. Clearly something is amiss with this programme that needs to be fixed quickly. Be that as it may, the TCS programme which is sought to be developed under the ‘make’ category of the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) has two competing development agencies—Bharat Electronics (BEL) and a consortium of L&T, Tata Power and HCL Infosys Ltd. TCS as currently envisioned is essentially a mix

www.geopolitics.in

of a mobile Vehicular Ad-hoc Network (VANET) and is a more static Wireless Service Network (WSN) technology at the corps level. It is designed to give the Army the means to ‘communicate on the move’ even as it penetrates into enemy territory making the TCS a very big enabler of the ‘cold start’ doctrine. Based on lightweight, high mobility vehicles that represent communication nodes TCS will have the bandwidth to handle very high data rates and provide encrypted voice, video and data transmission though frequency hopping radio networks with multiple redundancies. Naturally this network will also have the mobile terminals necessary for the satellite based connectivity as well and the firewalls necessary to prevent cyber intrusion given that cyber and electronic warfare techniques are increasingly melding with each other. The project worth around $3 billion and will see each of the two competitors build a prototype of TCS with the one being selected will be given the contract to build seven sets of TCS for seven corps of the IA. The TCS is however a harbinger of a truer MANET called the Battlefield Management System (BMS) which will facilitate high bandwidth real time communications from the battalion headquarters forward to the companies and platoons. Being fielded in all varieties of

(13)

terrain the BMS contract value will probably be worth ten times more than the current TCS contract and a game changer in Asia. The IA actually has vast network centricity plans and envisages a tactical command, control, communications and information (TacC3I) system core which will encompass the command information decision support system, the Shakti artillery combat command and control system, the battlefield surveillance system including battlefield support surveillance radars and weapon locating radars, an air defence control and reporting system augmented by newer generation of 3D radars and of course the BMS. The three services together are moving towards an overarching Defence Communication Network (DCN) which once fully operationalised would give real meaning to the concept of ‘jointness’ championed by security experts. In the words of the Defence Minister, “DCN envisages a network of optical fibre cables, satellite earth stations and transportable and portable satellite terminals with high security features that enables conduct of simultaneous real time networked operations from multiple sites to cater for contingencies and failures, as well as hardware redundancies for fail-safe operations. Such a network will be the backbone of the proposed joint commands for cyber-warfare, special operations and space operations”.

May 2013

HEMANT RAWAT

READY FOR WARFARE: HAL built Rudra for Indian Army with the complete bag pack of weapons

BUILDING A CHOPPER

BRIGADE www.geopolitics.in

(14)

Leaving the murky past of protracted evaluations, myriad scams and whimsical cancellations behind, the military helicopter acquisition programme in India is progressing on the right path, writes VIJAINDER K THAKUR May 2013

g NEW INDUCTIONS: (Left) An armed version of MI 17 V-5 of IAF and (right) indigenously built LCH for the Indian Army

HEMANT RAWAT

SPECIALFEATURE

he requirement of the Indian security forces for helicopters is large and growing. Luckily for the country, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) has made good progress in meeting the demand, in contrast to its dismal record with designing and developing fighters, trainers and transport aircraft. The Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) Dhruv took much longer than it should have but the ultimate success of the project has given HAL a solid base and the confidence to incrementally develop increasingly specialised variants of the basic design. The Dhruv Mk 4 Rudra, for example, which is an armed variant of the basic Dhruv design, received its “Initial Operational Capability” (IOC) on February 3, 2013 in Bengaluru, and its first lot was delivered to the Indian Army during Aero India 2013. HAL has also been developing the Light Combat Helicopter (LCH). Aerodynamically a completely different design, the LCH uses a lot of the technology developed for the Dhruv including its Shakti engines. Dhruv is a light medium helicopter with a maximum take-off weight of 5.5 tons. Besides light medium helicopters, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has identified requirements for light utility and observation helicopters (2-3 tons), multirole helicopters (10 tons), medium attack helicopters (10 tons) and heavy lift helicopters (20 tons).

Choppers in armed forces

Helicopters serve a critical role in the armed forces, during peace and war. In

www.geopolitics.in

the case of the Army and the Air Force, they provide quick communication, logistics and casualty evacuation support to units and installations located in remote areas and harsh terrain. Most of India’s border areas fit the above description, with the Himalayas in the north and north-west, and desert and marshlands in the west and south west. Only the Punjab sector has a communication and transportation infrastructure that is well developed right upto the border. As an example, the journey by road from Guwahati to Tawang takes a minimum of two days by road, but just around two hours by helicopter. In the case of the Navy, helicopters similarly serve ships out at sea. In wartime, helicopters additionally provide mobility and flexibility to redeploy weapons, troops and supporting equipment quickly, serving as force multipliers.

Use of armed ’copters

Since helicopters serve units and troops along border areas, they can come under fire when battle lines change rapidly, or as a result of intrusions. They can also come under fire from insurgents. As a result, the Army and the Air Force are increasingly opting for light or medium helicopters that can be fitted to fire weapons while ferrying troops and supplying. These helicopters can fire back, eliminate the threat and continue with their mission. The IAF’s rotary wing workhorse, Mi17, can be converted to an armed helicopter. Similarly, the Army plans to equip itself with the Rudra, an armed variant of the Dhruv.

(15)

IAF’s ’copters

Communication and logistics needs are best served by light or medium-light helicopters because they tend to be more manoeuvrable and handle better at high altitudes. Armed variants of these helicopters can attack and defend themselves better. All the three services have a sizeable fleet of light helicopters comprising Chetaks (Alouette III, Empty Weight 1.23 tons) and Cheetahs (SA 315 Lama, Empty Weight 1.02 tons). The IAF and the IA are now in the process of inducting HAL built Dhruv Mk III (empty weight 2.5 tons). Wartime mobility of troops and equipment is better provided by medium and heavy helicopters, which can carry larger number of troops in battle gear, armoured vehicles and even heavy artillery slung under their bellies. The IAF uses the medium Mi-8 / MI-17 (Empty Weight 8 ton) as its workhorse for helicopter borne airlift. In the past, the IAF used Mi-6 helicopters for heavy lift. Attack helicopters, unlike armed helicopters, have no communication and logistics role. They are light to medium helicopters that are shaped and sized to be manoeuvrable. They are single, or twin tandem seaters with low frontal cross section and armour plating, making them difficult to shoot down. They are equipped with heavy duty weapons and sensors to neutralise enemy armour as well as soft skin targets, in terrain that rules out fighter aircraft operations. The IAF has a limited number of Mi-35 attack helicopters in its inventory.

Future military requirements

The helicopter fleets of the three services

May 2013

BUILDING THE DHRUV

Braking System

Engines

Rotor Blades

C B

A F

Flight/Engine Controls

Gun turret

Hydraulics

Fuel Tanks E

A D

Rocket Launcher

Self-protection

INDIAS ALH: Crew: 2 Nos. Length: 12.89m

Flotation

Air to Air Missiles

Display & Mission Computers

Height: 3.76m Max. speed: 280 km/h Service celling: 6000m

WEAPONS POSSIBILITIES: Anti-tank missiles 4 Mistral air-to-air missiles

Display & Vibration Control System

20 mm gun turret under nose 2 torpedoes or 4 anti-ship missiles (in Naval version)

SOURCE:AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

need replacement and augmentation. The light helicopter fleet—Chetaks and Cheetahs—is based on 1950s design and technology. Improvements have been confined to instruments and the limited avionics fitted on these helicopters. GEOPOLITICS spoke to Air Cmde Bhupinder Singh Subhlok (Retd.), a former IAF helicopter pilot who now works with Pawan Hans. Asked if he expected the requirement of helicopters for the defence services to increase in the coming years, his answer was a very categorical, ‘Yes’. Along our borders with China and Pakistan, the requirement of helicopters for logistics and communication will only increase further in future due to focus on rapid deployments/re-deployments. “The Air Force too would need to deploy certain elements in the forward areas which would need helicopter support,” he explained. Alluding to the Naxalite threat and the recent incident when an IAF helicopter came under fire from insurgents, Singh said there was a requirement to adequately protect the helicopters deployed on such duties that added to the requirement of attack helicopters with IAF for

www.geopolitics.in

escort duties. Also the IAF should be able to spare enough helicopter support effort for such internal security tasks till the police/para military forces are able to have their own. According to Singh, our helicopter fleet is spread too thin for a country as large as India. In case of any natural calamity/contingency requirement, crucial valuable time would be lost in repositioning helicopter relief and rescue elements from far off bases. Thus, there is a need to have a reasonable amount of helicopter support available to all parts of the country for which the IAF needs to induct more helicopters. “With an improving economy and increased affluence, expectation from the services for assistance during natural disasters is likely to go up. For effective relief and rescue helicopter is normally the ideal platform and not surface means,” he said. In the case of IAFs own requirements, there are many tasks for helicopters at all IAF bases e.g. Search and Rescue (SAR), reconnaissance, communications, limited logistics for which each base must have some heli-support at its disposal. As of now the same is not adequate and

(16)

needs to be enhanced. For instance, very often a single helicopter is earmarked for SAR at two flying bases that are miles apart. For SAR to be effective, there needs to be at least two helicopters on duty during flying hours at any fighter base. Viewed thus, most of the increased helicopter requirement would be for light helicopters and HAL has done well to score a success in this area. Requirement for medium and heavy helicopters is also expected to rise for special operations and increased mobility of troops. If a breach in defences has to be plugged, or a counter punch thrown at the enemy is not enough to be able to ferry a handful of troops, the country needs to move battalions.

Helicopter procurement

The good news is that several helicopter procurement and development projects are underway, even if their progress has been very slow.

Light utility and observation helicopters

MoD is in the process of procuring 197 military Light Utility Helicopters (LUHs) to replace the existing fleet of Chetak and Cheetah helicopters in the three services.

May 2013

g PLA AIRFORCE

SPECIALFEATURE

E C A B

US/Israel INFO GRAPHIC: AJAY NEGI

Of these, 133 are for the Army and 64 for the Air Force. Russian Kamov 226T and Eurocopter’s AS550C3 are contenders for the initia.

Medium helicopters

While HAL has a credible capability in designing and developing light helicopters, it is only now starting to design and develop a medium (empty weight 6.5 tons) helicopter. HAL displayed a concept drawing of a Multi Role Helicopter for the first time at Aero India 2011. The HAL multi-role helicopter would be used for: • • • • sault operations • • India has invited request for information for 16 Multi-Role Helicopter (MRH) to replace its fleet of aging Sea King Helicopters. It is likely HAL is developing the Indian Multi Role Helicopter to meet the long term need of the three services for a

www.geopolitics.in

MIXED COLLECTIONS: Chinese fleet of choppers which include (top) WZ-10 attack chopper, (centre) Changhe Z-8 heavy lift chopper and (bottom) WZ-11, a Chinese surveillance chopper

CHINA’S MIXED FLEET The PLA operates a fleet of light utility and attack helicopters consisting of Harbin Z-9B (empty weight: 2.35 tons, its armed variant is WZ-9) and Changhe Z-11 (empty weight: 1.12 tons). The Z-9B is a Chinese adaptation of the French Eurocopter AS365 Dauphin. China initially licence manufactured the Dauphin as Z-9A and then progressively increased the use of locally manufactured components. The Z-11 is locally designed and developed, but based on Eurocopter AS350 Ecureuil. PLA’s medium helicopter fleet comprises a large number of Mi-8 and Mi-17s bought from Russia; these can be fitted as armed variants. The PLA uses Changhe Z-8 (empty weight 6.86 tons), a locally produced version of the Aérospatiale Super Frelon for ship-based ASW/SAR.

(17)

China also purchased two dozen Sikorsky S-70 Blackhawks from the US in the 1980s, before the arms embargo that followed the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. In the past the PLA has shown interest in attack helicopters and looked at the AH-1 Cobra, Mi-28, Ka-50 and the Italian A129 Mangusta. It couldn’t strike a satisfactory deal for any of them and has so far not fielded an attack helicopter. The recently unveiled Changhe WZ-10 is set to change that. Russian’s Kamov designed the WZ-10 to Chinese specifications under Project 941 in a 1995 deal. With an empty weight of 5.54 tons, the WZ-10 is in the same class as the Boeing AH-64D Apache helicopter being acquired by the IAF.

May 2013

g SPECIALFEATURE BUYING ABROAD: (Top) Chinnok heavy lift chopper and (bottom) an Apache Longbow attack chopper which is being procured from the USA for the Indian Armed Forces

10 ton class helicopter.

BOEING

MoD is in the process of acquiring 22 attack helicopters to replace the IAF’s ageing Mi-25 and Mi-35 attack helicopters. Boeing (AH-64D Apache Longbow) and Mil (Mi 28 Havoc) competed for the contract, but the Mi 28 did not meet IAF requirements during flight trials. The IAF requirement was for a twin engine helicopter that was highly manoeuvrable with good anti-armour capabilities and capable of operating in all weather and terrain. The IAF is getting the Block III version of the Apache AH-64D (empty weight 5.2 tons). The US Army has renamed the AH64D Block III the ‘AH-64E’. The Apache is a fine example of contemporary attack helicopter technology. It carries laser-guided

DUTCH AIRFORCE

Attack helicopters

precision missiles, 70 mm rockets and 30 mm automatic cannon. A mast mounted radome on the Apache AH-64D houses the AN/APG-78 Longbow fire control radar. Its millimetre-wave sensing allows the helicopter to fly under poor visibility conditions being less sensitive to ground clutter. The short wavelength also allows a very narrow beam-width, which is more resistant to countermeasures while guiding the helicopter’s missiles to their targets. The radome can be traded for an Unmanned Aerial Systems Tactical Common Data Link Assembly (UTA) that’s mounted in the same place on the mast.

Heavy lift helicopters

MoD is procuring 15 heavy lift helicopters, primarily to ferry the Bae Land Systems M777 ultra-light howitzers that the

www.geopolitics.in

Indian Army plans to acquire from the US under FMS, for use along India’s mountainous border with China. India invited bids for 15 heavy-lift helicopters in May 2009. Boeing (CH-47F Chinnok) and Mil (Mi-26 T2) submitted competing bids. Both Boeing Chinnok and Mi-26 T2 bids were found to be technically compliant but the Boeing bid was found to be more competitively priced. In a press release on December 5, 2012, GOI confirmed that Boeing had emerged as the lowest bidder. HAL’s military helicopter design and development is one of the few indigenous defence production success stories. The company’s decision three years ago to venture into production of medium helicopters could allow it to meet almost the entire spectrum of helicopter requirements of the defence forces. Heavy lift

(18)

helicopters like the Chinnok and highly specialised armed helicopters like the AH-64D are required in too small numbers to justify local manufacture. Despite HAL’s success with helicopters, chronic delays in development and operational certification continue, with all projects running years behind initially projected time lines. There is a limit to the extent of delay the armed forces can accept, before being compelled to shop abroad because of operational considerations. Also, delays lead to sensor and weapon fits becoming outdated soon after induction, sometimes even before, once again providing an imperative to shop abroad. Despite the IOC for Rudra, it could take a long while before HAL is in a position to supply the light armed helicopter to the Army in large enough numbers. It’s not surprising that Bell Helicopters has been making a low key pitch to India for an armed version of its Bell 407 AH. A successful commercial helicopter, the Bell 407 can be converted into an armed helicopter using certified kits and specialised mission equipment. Bell says the 407 AH is the first commercially qualified, armed helicopter, configurable to perform a wide range of missions. The company displayed the helicopter during Aero India 2013 and demonstrated its flying and sensor characteristics to select personnel, outside the flying display timings, without creating any media buzz.

May 2013

INTERVIEW

NEW DESIGN

Sikorsky’s President Mick Maurer speaks on innovation and excellence

D E F E N C E

Agilent Technologies introduces its latest products GEOPOLITICS

B U S I N E S S

A DPP FOR SELF-RELIANCE

Mounting corruption charges in defence deals has prompted the government to usher in a new Defence Procurement Policy (DPP) that will strengthen the indigenous industrial base in India. Under the new policy, the first preference for defence procurement will be given to the country’s public sector units and the private sector. A special report: SECURING INDIA: Tata Motors Micro Bullet-Proof Vehicle (MBPV) design to assist the country’s elite forces in internal combat.

or a country, which has relied almost 100 per cent on foreign vendors and nations to meet its military hardware requirements, the import route would be the last option for the armed forces under the new Defence Procurement Policy (DPP) approved by the Government.

The new policy approved by the Defence Acquisition Council in its two meetings—irst on April 2 and the second on April 20—cleared the policy framework under which the indigenous industrial base would be widened by the Government as they would be the first choice for buying weapons for the forces. “The DPPContinued on Page 24

www.geopolitics.in

(19)

Indo-Israel defence project hits roadblock

he Indo-Israel joint development programme for surfaceto-air missiles for the Navy and the Indian Air force (IAF) has been put under scrutiny, according to the reports. The defence ministry has put on hold all further orders of Long-Range Surface-to-Air Missile (LRSAM) and Medium-Range Surface-to-Air Missile (MRSAM), estimated at around `50,000 crore. The LRSAM joint development programme was signed between the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) for the Navy in 2006, while the MRSAM project for IAF was signed in 2009. The project has been delayed by almost four years—the LRSAM for the Navy, for example, was to be ready by 2010—since the operational requirements projected by the IAF and Navy have not been met. The private company floated by the Tata group and IAI, Nova Integrated Systems, is also out of the picture after it was made the final integrator of the project. When that happened, it was reported that the DRDO would set up an assembly line for integration in Hyderabad. However, given its role as the military research agency, the government may not agree to DRDO running an assembly line. Continued on Page 27

May 2013

“We are very anxious to get started in the Indian market …”

GOOD PARTNERSHIP: (Left) Air Vice Marshal (Retd) Arvind Walia, Regional Executive—India & South Asia and (right) Mick Maurer, President of Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation

www.geopolitics.in

(20)

May 2013

Sikorsky has a global reputation for innovation and excellence exemplified by one of their rotorcraft, the Black Hawk. But there is more to the American giant than just this one machine, as President MICK MAURER told K SRINIVASAN in Bangalore during Aero India

DEFBIZ

On Sikorsky’s journey

The big question always is how quickly is this going to happen. But it’s not a question of whether things will happen; it is a question when things will happen and we recognise that…we are patient. But we are making some really good progress in terms of just establishing ourselves in the Indian industrial base with Tata of course, but also looking at some of the other opportunities that may develop over time.

Partnership with Tata

Sikorsky already does that. We actually sell a few fixed-wing aircraft ourselves. The one that is most interesting is called the M-28. It is a short take-off and landing utility aircraft. It is produced in Poland and may have some use here in India. We have seen some interest here at Aero India show. So we do produce a fixed wing, although that is a small percentage of our business. Almost everything that we do as an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) is rotary wing. But in the aftermarket, we do quite a bit of fixed wing work —military fixed wing. In some of our factories, we actually produce some components for fixed wing manufactures—typically aero structures for a number of OEMs, so we expect the same thing with our joint venture in Hyderabad. Initially, as we start, all the parts we produce are for Sikorsky products (AS 92), but we purposely develop capability and have an expectation. We are actually talking to a few other OEMs to be selling different detailed machine parts to other OEMs. The other interesting thing about the joint venture is that—certainly not necessarily—the legal structure that we have is in place now and we can use that company to branch into other activities in the defence area. Whether that is system integration, completions, engineering development, any one of those we can do using that company. So that is really exciting for us.

H C TIWARI

On other joint ventures

www.geopolitics.in

The relationship we have with the Tatas started a few years ago and we are looking at not just capability, because obviously they are new to aerospace, but it’s really compatibility—culturally, ethically and in a number of other levels. So, we see a

(21)

good fit there and we also have connections across other parts of United Technology. So, we are not the only part of the united technology that works with the Tatas. And yes, there are a lot of great companies here in India and I don’t believe for a minute that the only relationship we are going to have in India is with Tata. Clearly there are other players too.

Building relationship with customers

It is and we found out that as we have been working together, it is getting that much better. It is not so much what you produce first, it is about developing the partnership so that when the next opportunity arises, you know how to work together, and you already have a relationship. So, now you can be that much faster and that much more capable of going after an opportunity or serving a customer’s needs.

On what lies next

We are now doing a couple of things. We are building two air vehicles that will be bigger than the first one. One of those two is primarily so that our customers can fly and they will believe it when they actually see it right and do it. So (we have to) give them that experience, but also use that to have the customer’s feedback. What you like, what you do not like, what would you like to see us do differently, how can we make this better? So to get interactive feedback with customers because the first aircraft only a test pilot can fly - so, it is limited in that sense. The other aircraft we are using will mostly be heavily instrumented in use to prove the technology: check data and because one of the things we have to do —clearly one of our bigger customers in the US is the Department of Defence— they look at something called the technical readiness level. And they are looking to say how much risk is here, how sure in the technology, where you stand? So, one of the primary goals of ours in this programme is to advance the technical readiness level so that the risk is reduced in the government’s mind. When they are ready to do something, they look at risk (and) say the higher the risk the higher the cost and more time. So, we are trying to say ‘No, the risk is manageable’. In fact, the cost is competi-

May 2013

tive. This is a very affordable solution I think. We are not working with some wild, exotic materials or doing something that is really earth-shattering. So, we fully expect to have an affordable solution that is also extremely capable in terms of its performance. That is what we are doing with that product. Now, not coincidentally that product is exactly the same size as what is needed in the US Army for something called the Armed Aerial Scout and they have an old, old product which is called Kiowa Warrior. They have to decide, ‘Am I going to continue trying to extend the life of that one more time with some sort of upgrade and what they call a service life extension programme or am I going to go to a new start?’ So, we are really trying to tempt them by saying, ‘Here it is’. And a lot of the customers are seeing that and drooling over it and saying, “Boy! I really would like that—the thing that goes 220 knots as opposed to this thing that goes 90 knots”. And it can handle the high-hop requirements, but the sticking point is how long it will take us to do it and how much will it cost. So, they become sort of afraid of that. We are trying to go as fast as we can. We do not know whether we will go fast enough.

SIKORSKY

DEFBIZ

And we were also sharing—a lot of what we are doing now during development is —we are sharing data and working with the customer so that they can feel more comfortable with the technology. Just a quick story—it might be interesting. When we flew the X2 we had a prediction that said if I put this much power in, here is how fast I should go. We did the curve, we looked at all the data and when we were done, it turns out that it was better than we predicted, meaning it took less power to go faster. Now you would think, that is great, right? No, not if you are the Army Technology Directorate. They said, “You do not understand it because you could not predict it”, which is sort of true, right? Therefore, there is risk. Well, so one of the things we have done recently is that we have done some testing in the NASA wind tunnel with the customer and us, sharing all the data and we discovered a phenomenon we did not expect. Most of the time when you have a propeller it is on a wing; you know a fixed wing aircraft. But this is different as it is at the back of the body of the helicopter. So all the aerodynamic theory that has been around since the ‘20s and beyond, all the conventional wisdom says, here is how you look at this. You have an effect, which has to do with the air going over the fuselage, and you have an effect that has to

do with the propeller. And you add those two together and you run the calculations and you get this curve and you say, ‘Okay, that is how much power and this is what I expect to see’. Well it turns out we did not understand then that we now understand that there is a 1+1=3 type of fact that says there is a synergy that happens with the pusher prop and the fuselage that generates more lift than we expected. So, now we understand why it takes less power to go as fast as we want. Now the army is happy. They say, ‘Now you understand, you get credit’. So, it is not just the thing that you see and how fast it goes. It is little, what might sound like subtle things like that where we are proving out the technical readiness so that everybody understands the product better, everybody understands the technology better and we are hopeful. We do not know whether that will happen—we’re really hoping that the Army will say, ‘You know what? This could be so much better that I think I’ll run a competition and have a new start rather than try to upgrade the old one’. So, we’re waiting, it may happen, it may not.

Partnership with Boeing

We have an equal, basically a 50-50 partnership, we equally invest. We equally

BUILDING BIG: (Top) A Sikorsky’s S-92 cabin being made at TASL-Sikorsky production facility at Hyderabad and a completed S-92 chopper with first India made cabin

On future prospects

Well, we are going to fly at the end of 2014.

www.geopolitics.in

(22)

May 2013

g share the work and we intend to equally share the returns.

Problems with Boeing

It is hard for me to say. I will admit that I am not the Rotorcraft engineer. I certainly have a lot of interest in it. I might have some opinions but I would not say it was definitive. The investment in Rotorcraft in terms of development over time is much less than fixed wing. The market is much less as well. So, in terms of the air vehicle, you could say, ‘Yes, I see a single main rotor, looks about the same as what I have always seen’. So, there is not much of an advance from there. What goes inside has changed a lot…fly by wire, active vibration control, certain other aspects like that. I think you could probably make a pretty good argument that says, the investment has not kept pace with fixed wing and probably the advances have not kept pace with fixed wing. The other thing that you have with fixed wing that is different from Rotorcraft (is that) 80 per cent of the market is commercial. So, there is a private industry investment that naturally happens, right? Chasing after all that business and the military gets a collateral benefit. In Rotorcraft, that is (in the) reverse. It is about 75-80 per cent military and you have got to have a lot of guts to do speculative development in the military world. So typically, you wait for the customer to define a programme and make the investment and then you invent what they want. It is a little less free market… maybe a little less natural innovation might happen in Rotorcraft. Having said that, our X2, a lot of people will say, that is the next new thing. It is very different and it looks like it is going to work and so we will see.

On engineering excellence

Frankly, we have a long history that we are very proud of. We tend to be a bit of an engineering-centric organisation founded by Igor Sikorsky. His son still works for us. So, we have a great sort of tradition and passion around that. We have had the fortune to have some real success. The Black Hawk may be the biggest in terms of just a franchise that just has gone on for decades and so that foundation allows us to make investments and do other things that maybe some other companies may not have the luxury to do. So, we are very fortunate with that.

www.geopolitics.in

We have a mix of commercial and military; we have a mix of sort of the old and the new. So, we have a lot of interesting things going on and we are fortunate that in the last five years we have had some very rapid growth. So, we have been able to hire. We have had a lot of new, fresh young engineers coming in, paired up with some of the more experienced folks, working on things like the X2. You know we have small groups but almost all these small groups… it is interesting when you look, there is a mix. It is not just the old hands; it is a really healthy mix. Both really benefit from that. The other thing that we decided to do a couple of years ago was to create our own, a separate group that we call ‘Sikorsky Innovations’. And those are the people that are allowed to go and do things that do not necessarily have a specific contract, a specific bottom-line today. They are the guys that did X2.

On innovations

We are working on different unmanned systems. We are doing a lot of things now that will provide returns in a short time… maybe not. But we back that technology (drive). We are very tied into universities and that sort of thing. So that keeps us fresh, I think.

On success and failure

We are hopefully placing enough bets, so that if a few of them pay off we are going to be very happy.

On touring India

One of our quotes is—‘Nothing sells helicopters like helicopters’ and having the customer see that, fly that—that always tends to be beneficial. That is an aircraft that has never flown in India before it showed up here. We took it to many more places (other) than India. So we thought it was a way to recognise some of the people that use our aircraft and also our employees. The people who got to participate in that, it really helped the morale of our people, to say ‘thank you’ to them and our customers but to take it around and you see a bunch of young kids at a school, eyes light up, first time maybe they have ever seen a helicopter, certainly one that big maybe and have a chance to play around and see that and talk to the pilot. So, it was business and pleasure I guess. It is business and community that is one of the

(23)

SIKORSKY

DEFBIZ

FLYING HIGH: A Sikorsky Black Hawk chopper of the US Army which was used in Abbottabad operation

things that we pride ourselves on. I do not know exactly how it translates but I guarantee we got ten times the return from a business standpoint than it cost us to do that. And it was especially nice we could bring it here to India where we build the cabins. That was really special. I was at the factory before it came but I was not here while it arrived.

On Indian programmes

One in particular that we are very anxious for them is to open the envelope. We think we will be successful and we are really anxious to get started. It is nice to do all the bidding and the talking and the quoting, talk to reporters and all that but really what matters is actually building the aircraft, delivering the aircraft, and servicing the aircraft for the customer. That is really the rewarding part and we are very anxious to get to that point in the Indian market. Yes, it will happen. I’m not the most patient person in the world but (I am) trying!

On flying choppers at 450 km per hour

No. The reason I say that and I admit I maybe wrong, in aerospace anything that is flying twenty years from now, has been invented now. There may be some technology that is just getting started but in terms of the users, probably not, but who knows? I do not know—who is to say, but I think for it to be in production and in practical use, pretty much anything that has been left that is going to be in use twenty years from now, is being developed today.

May 2013

Continued from Page 19

DEFBIZ

A DPP FOR SELF-RELIANCE

REACTIONS FROM INDUSTRY

The new DPP is a refreshing change and it has brought new energy to the Indian defence and Aerospace industry. Though, the amended policy is a good one but it has some drawbacks like giving priority to the indigenous content in buy categorisations. Larger the Indian content in buy categorisations less is the chance of winning a bid because Global OEMs will include all international firms whereas the Indian OEMs will be restricted to Indian vendors. According to me, a price and purchase preference could be an idea that could be developed or incorporated in the new DPP. Sujeet Samaddar, Director and CEO at ShinMaywa Industries India Limited

www.geopolitics.in

All the proposed amendments approved by the Defence Acquisition Council are exciting. We in the Indian private sector have been eagerly awaiting the prioritization of projects under the ‘Make Indian’ or ‘Buy Indian’ category. This is the only way by which the nation can be self reliant in the Defence sector. We hope that the revised licensing requirements are also implemented quickly and the revised DPP finds acceptance in the political arena. Cmde (Retd) Samir Advani, Vice President, Strategic Business Development at Mahindra Defence Systems

(24)

We are expecting many of the future programmes in India to be ‘Make India’ programmes. So, we have teamed up with some of the Indian partners and this will continue to be a key element in our strategy. As we have already collaborated with the TATA Strategic Electronics Division and with the new DPP coming in, local industry will be positioned better off for technology transfer. Rockwell Collins has existing partnerships with key Indian companies such as TATA, HAL, and BEL. The new policy will benefit the local economy while providing the best solutions for end customers and the companies involved. T C Chan, Managing Director, Rockwell Collins

May 2013

g DEFBIZ

MIXED VARIANTS: A fleet of military trucks for the Indian forces

I think this is the best policy so far and is a strong proof of the Indian MoD’s commitment to build a strong and vibrant Indian defence industry in the private sector. I feel that the international firms will be more willing to share their technology if the partnership share is increased to 49 per cent from the existing 26 per cent under the new DPP. Hence, as a country, India will gain greater exposure to international standards of working. Puneet Kaura, Executive Director, Samtel Avionics & Defence Systems Limited

www.geopolitics.in

2013 is being issued with the twin objectives of infusing greater efficiency in the procurement process and strengthening the defence manufacturing base in the country,” a Defence Ministry spokesperson said. He went on to add: “The new procurement policy has been finalised under which Indian public and private sector will be given first priority for military procurements and will help in plugging loopholes that allow corruption.” Under the DPP-2013, which will be formally launched by the Ministry next month, the armed forces have been asked to first exercise the option of buying from Indian sources and if they are not in a position to do, look for other sources. “Preference for indigenous procurement has now been made a part of DPP through an amendment that provides for a preferred order of categorisation, with global cases being a choice of last resort. The first option would be to buy from India followed by ‘buy and make India’,” the Defence Ministry said. Under the second category, private and public sector firms can tie up with

foreign vendors and produce the equipment required by the armed forces within the country. The Ministry has also made it mandatory for the armed forces to explain to the Ministry that why they are not buying from Indian sources or excluding the higher category. The other three categories include ‘Buy and make with Transfer of Technology’, ‘Make’ and the last option of buying the equipment from foreign vendors directly under the ‘Buy’ (global) category. “The only way forward for the country is rapid indigenisation of defence products, with both the public and the private sectors playing pivotal roles in this endeavour. The government will make all efforts to create genuine level-playing field for Indian manufacturing industries visa-vis global players,” Defence Minister A K Antony said. The new policy measures are expected to provide a drastic boost to Indian industry which has so far played second fiddle to the foreign suppliers in providing equipment to the Indian armed forces. To ensure that the forces have access

The amendment to DPP 2011 announced is a retrograde step and will adversely affect the much needed modernisation and outfitting of the Indian Armed Forces with the latest technological solutions available in the world. Clearly the amendments have been hastily drawn in a jerk reaction to the alleged kickbacks in the Agusta Westland case and will affect the county at large.

The steps enumerated will take India and Indian industry towards substitutive selfreliance. The MoD has addressed several key industry recommendations. We welcome this and eagerly await the details in the fine print of DPP-2013.

Cdr Sunil Chauhan, Retd. Defence & Security Analyst

(25)

Rahul Chaudhary, CEO (Strategic Electronics Division) of Tata Power and co-chair of Ficci’s Defence Committee

May 2013

AGUSTAWESTLAND

DEFBIZ

CONTROVERSIAL DEAL: AgustaWestland (AW101) VVIP chopper deal that rocked Indian defence procurement

HIIGHLIGHTS OF DPP-2013 • Indian industry to have first right of refusal in defence tenders • Foreign vendors to be last resort for procurement • Maintenance and repair of equipment to be done by the private sector and the public sector both ending PSU monopoly • All procurement procedures simplified by the Ministry for Indian vendors • Armed forces to share their development plans with private sector firms • Buy and make India cases worth `1,20,000 crore to be cleared on priority • Simplified licensing procedures for defence companies • The financial powers of Services Headquarters get three-fold hike from `50 crore to `150 crore • SIDBI to grant `500 crore loan to defence medium and small companies

www.geopolitics.in

We welcome the Indian government initiative for rapid indigenisation of defence products. We are looking for partnership with the Indian public and private industry for transfer of technology. But the transfer will only take place when foreign players have a higher equity than present. An increase in FDI will motivate the OEMs to transfer technology. Inderjit Sial, President and Managing Director, Textron India Private Limited

to reliable supply chains in times of war, the Ministry has defined the indigenous content “in an unambiguous manner, providing requisite clarity and a common understanding”. Under the new clauses approved for the DPP, the Ministry has made it clear that it would not allow the Indian private sector firms to put a ‘made in India’ stamp on equipment procured from abroad and offer them to the Indian armed forces as indigenous one. The Ministry had taken up the case of night sights provided by one Public Sector Unit which had around 90 per cent of foreign content whereas the requirement stipulated it to be not more than 50 per cent. The DAC also approved an amendment mandating consultations to begin sufficiently in advance of actual procurement by Services, so that capital acquisition plans can be translated into national Defence Research and Development and production plans. “In addition, a high-level Committee has also been constituted for simplification of ‘Make’ procedures, with a view to unleash the full potential of this impor-

(26)

The new Defence Procurement Policy (DPP) is sound in principle. However, both ‘Buy’ and ‘Make’ Indian cannot happen without requisite transfer of technology from the global defence firms. Consequently, it is imperative that the government create conditions for meaningful joint ventures to fructify, if it want the private sector to take greater role in the defence sector. The new DPP in my view will remain incomplete without creation of an enabling ecosystem with FDI upto a minimum of 49 per cent. Lars-Olof Lindgren, Head Market Area India, Saab India Technologies

tant category,” the Ministry said. Under the make procedures, the DRDO and the DPSUs produce the equipment for the armed forces. The Ministry also announced that it will allow the private and public sector vendors to access the Long Term Integrated Perspective Plans (20122027) of the armed forces and the ‘Technology Perspective and Capability Roadmap’ (TPCR). “This will help the vendors to firm up their research and development efforts and capital investments towards the actual requirements of the armed forces as they would know what all equipment and technology is planned to be inducted by the forces in the long-term,” the spokesperson said. However, this was putting old-wine in a new bottle as similar announcements had been made during the DEFEXPO-2010 but the Ministry took no concrete step in this direction for a long time. Antony also formally gave up his powers to approve deviations from the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) in military tenders to buy equipment for the forces. The Ministry insiders, however, say this was done to avoid the scope of being

May 2013

Continued from Page 19

Indo-Israel defence project hits roadblock

Tata Motors welcome the amendments to the DPP-2011. The new rules will provide private Indian defence OEMs, such as Tata Motors, a level playing field not only with foreign players but also with DPSUs. MoD agreeing to release a public version of Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan (LTIPP) is particularly noteworthy, as this will help us to strategise R&D, Technology and Infrastructural investments. Company Spokeperson, Tata Motors India

accused of favouring or not giving favours to any particular vendor on part of the Minister and he wanted any such proposal to be discussed or debated through a collegiate body before any final discussion. In the DPP-2013, the main thrust is to avoid the chances and scope for corruption in the procurement cases after Antony was twice caught in the midst of Parliament sessions for defence scams. The first scam was the Tatra truck deal scam in March last year and this year it was the AgustaWestland. Taking a cue for the allegations of specifications being changed by the IAF at the last moment to allegedly favour AgustaWestland in the VVIP chopper tender, the Ministry has made it mandatory for the armed forces to freeze tender specifications of the desired products before they are approved by the DAC. “A stipulation to freeze Service Qualitative Requirements before the Acceptance of Necessity(AoN) stage (in DAC) and the validity of AoN has also been reduced from two years to one year. These measures are expected to expedite the acquisition process and increase trans-

www.geopolitics.in

parency,” the Ministry said. The Ministry has left very little scope for any changes to be made in technical specifications of the armed forces or in tender documents at later stages, which was being observed in several procurement cases. The financial powers of the armed forces’ headquarters have also been raised from `50 crore to `150 crore which will help them to procure items at a faster pace without getting approval from the Defence Ministry, the Ministry said. Armed with these enhanced powers, the Services headquarters will now appoint Additional Financial Advisers (AFAs) to deal with the increased burden of procurement. The new structures would be given a final shape in consequent meetings of the DAC. The Ministry also approved the Defence Items List that would be sent to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion for notification, which will bring required clarity in the licensing process. “The Ministry has categorically clarified to DIPP that dualuse items will not require licensing, thereby bringing added clarity to the licensing process,” it said. Draft security guidelines for the private sector firms under which they will have to maintain a minimum-required security perimeter for their facilities were also approved by the DAC. “The Ministry has circulated the guidelines for consultation among the stakeholders,” it said. The Defence Ministry said it will take up the matter of rationalisation of tax and duty structures impinging on Indian industry with the Finance Ministry. The Ministry also announced that the Small Industries Development Bank has agreed to provide loans worth `500 core to Indian small and medium enterprises working in the defence sector. Along with these measures approved in the DPP, the Ministry is also mulling more changes in the procurement structure and may include the Central Vigilance Commission in it. It is also mulling the creation of a new body on the lines of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to check corruption in procurement and keep an eye on its officers involved in it along with the foreign and Indian vendors, sources said. The CVC gets involved to check the fairness of procurement procedures if the Government gets any complaint from any source regarding corruption in any defence deal.

(27)

VIJENDER K THAKUR

DEFBIZ

Defence PSUs such as Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) and Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) were also not consulted when the project was conceptualised. But, a few months ago IAI, BEL and BDL entered into a MoU to work out a final contract for the integration of the system. To top it all, the rocket motors being developed by DRDO also failed to meet requirements. Incidentally, the other crucial technologies of the system have been sourced from Israel. According to reports, the entire programme had been signed only as a work share contract and not as a joint development programme. The Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) of the technology developed for the project would not belong to us despite India funding the entire development.

May 2013

g DEFBIZ

On the footprint in India

We are very keen on constituting a defence programme in India because there is a great need in India for the improvement in systems, modernisation of systems, particularly in communication. And so we see an opportunity that can help the country in terms of modernising its communication network and are focussing some of our efforts on this, apart from the other programme that we are driving through, we are investing in the country at the same time. We have a designing centre at Hyderabad. And at the last Aero India Show 2011, we were about 300 people and now, I am very proud to say that we have about close to 500 people in Hyderabad. The people are involved in cutting-edge designs, designing software and (the centre) has also added research engineers who will be researching on the communication software waveforms, may be even on the encryption, working with the Indian defence establishment. We want to show the defence community in India that we are not only focussing on communication but we have avionics capability as well. We have simulation capability. And in a different show, we will also be able to show our ability to address targeting systems and simulations and training as well.

On the private-partnership collaborative efforts

Well, we announced that we have almost finalised an agreement with Tata SED to collaborate on the Indian Air Force SDR programme and we believe that Tata’s would bring a lot of strength to our product portfolio. They obviously know the market trend and how to pursue the programme here. So, we are working together to try and provide the Indian Air Force the sort of communication that they need in the near future.

On the relationship with HAL and BEL

We are in touch with many private firms but obviously whether a partnership comes to fruition, really depends on value proposition. How we value them and what value can we get from them in exchange, is a big question. So really, (there have been) very open sort of discussions,

www.geopolitics.in

“We can help the country to modernise its communication network” T C CHAN, Managing Director, Rockwell Collins, spoke to K SRINIVASAN on the sidelines of Aero India 2013 at Bengaluru, about the exciting developments and collaborations in the sub-continent and in India nothing is concrete at the moment but we want to keep the options open. The only partnership we have at the moment is with the Tata on the Indian Air Force SDR programme.

On the specific programme that is underway

As I mentioned earlier, we have put four research and development engineers in IDC and the people involved would be specifically researching on the defence products, which can be introduced to the market may be in 3 to 4 or 5 years’ time. For our partnership, we are thinking with the other entities around in India. And yes, we are also looking for the core devel-

(28)

opment of products that may indigenise into an Indian environment and in the longer term, we can introduce that innovation to the United States or to some other countries at a later stage.

On the design centre at Hyderabad and the working environment there

People are working on various domains from flight management systems and displays to communications. They are involved in mechanical design, PC board design, and are working on programmes that not only just come from the United States but programmes that are spread all over the world. So, we have engineering

May 2013

g DEFBIZ

centres in Europe and obviously in the United States. We are working in collaboration with all of them.

On the fact that not many of the engineers are aeronautical engineers

HEMANT RAWAT

I think the main knowledge of some of these engineers that we have is becoming more and more recognised and growing up. Obviously, it takes a long time. I mean, a fresh engineer from a university will know a lot of languages in programming but they need to know and understand the domainâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the domain knowledgeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and that is what we are trying to teach and impart to the engineers. It has come a long way. We are doing a lot of cutting edge work. For instance, we are developing the information management system for the A350. Airbus and Rockwell are doing a lot of cutting edge in the IDC programme today. We are doing a large part of it but we are definitely part of that programme chain that is being led from France.

www.geopolitics.in

(29)

May 2013

DEF BIZ HAL’s new highs Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) achieved new financial highs with a turnover of `14,316 crore in the financial year 2012-13 (provisional figures). The company declared an interim dividend to the tune of `823 crore-683 per cent of equity base of `120.50 crore for the financial year. HAL, being a technology driven company, continues its thrust on R&D by incurring 12 per cent of its turnover towards it. The company filed a record 32 patents in 2012-13 to reinforce and protect its intellectual property developed at large investment. Chairman HAL, R K Tyagi said, “We strive to live up to the expecta-

tions of our stakeholders.” He added, “The company’s return on shareholders’ investment is impressive, comparable to some of the best companies anywhere.” This year witnessed landmark events for HAL, such as handing over of the first weaponised Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) Rudra to the Indian Army, export of Cheetah helicopters to Republic of Surinam and Do-228 light transport aircraft to Seychelles and the first flight of Jaguar

DARIN-III upgrade and LCA Naval prototypes. The last of the limited series production LCA took to skies this year. Backed with long experience of being with military aviation and extensive infrastructure, HAL plans to foray into civil segment which is forecast to have promising growth. Separate operations are planned to handle civil segment including suitable partnerships with private Indian industries and foreign operators. HAL aims to achieve business excellence while pursuing its mandate of nation building. It has plans to introduce additional capacity to handle future programmes like the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA),

Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA), Multi-role Transport Aircraft (MTA), Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) and Light Utility Helicopter (LUH). The LUH has gone past the design phase with successful realisation of the Ground Test Vehicle, MTA has entered the conceptual design phase and the FGFA will be entering the detail design stage, all encouraging signs for the future of aerospace in India. During the year HAL’s focus areas included building partnerships and relationships—be it with employees, shareholders, customers, value chain and business partners, industry leaders, academic institutions or the government as industry regulator.

BAE

HAL’s CIVIL FORAY

HAL-BAE FUTURE has its presence. Tyagi said HAL would be keen to carry forward this relationship. A new business model such as Performance Based Logistics (PBL) could be an area of cooperation with HAL learning from BAE experiences. HAL and BAE Systems have been together since 40s and the relationship has strengthened over the years. Currently HAL produces awk Mk advanced jet trainer, 32 under licence from BAE Systems, UK.

country’s leading aeronautics and space scientists are spearheading the project and I hope this takes shape.” R K Tyagi, Chairman, HAL, said the company plans to diversify into the civil market. “We now propose to play a leading role in India’s national civil aircraft development programme as we have dedicated facilities at our transport division in Kanpur,” he added.

HAL

In a momentous occasion, HAL got a rare visit from BAE Chairman Dick Olver and Chief Executive Officer Ian King, who interacted with HAL Chairman R K Tyagi on various business issues of mutual interest. Speaking on the occasion, Olver insisted that the deep routed business relationship with HAL should go beyond Hawk to make the future better than the past. He said that the partnership could be expanded to working on new projects in 17 countries where BAE

At the FAA-Asia Pacific bilateral partners meeting hosted by the HAL, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said that efforts will be made to get Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification for HAL’s Advance Light Helicopter (ALH-Dhruv). He added, “We also have a national civil aircraft development programme for 100-seat medium transport aircraft. Some of the

www.geopolitics.in

(30)

May 2013

India-Russia finalise tech specs of PAK FA The contract to develop a sketch and technical project of the Russian-Indian prospective multi-functional Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) has been completed. Both parties have agreed upon on the amount and division of work during the research and development (R&D) stage. A contract for the R&D is being prepared. It is to be signed this year. The agreement on the joint development and production of the fifthgeneration fighter aircraft was signed on October 18, 2007 in Moscow at the 7th Session of the joint Russian-Indian Intergovernmental Commission on Military and Technical Cooperation. It is the largest joint project of the

Russian-Indian military and technical cooperation. In December 2010, Rosoboronexport, Sukhoi Company and the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited signed a contract to develop a sketch and technical project of the fighter. In the course of the first stage of the project, the Russian side trained Indian professionals, provided them with the original data and the software to create a single working environment. While the Indian working group of experts has been in Russia since January 2012, a group of Russian specialists have been working in India. Both parties have been exchanging the necessary information.

FIPB nod to Thales-BEL JV The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) recently cleared a joint venture between Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) and France’s Thales to build radars meant for the Indian Air Force’s medium multi-role combat aircraft programme, which has already been delayed. In the venture, government owned BEL will have a 74 per cent stake, the remaining shared between Thales Air Systems and Thales India Private Ltd. Thales forms part of the IAF deal to buy 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft from Dassault Aviation, whose

www.geopolitics.in

combat jet Rafale emerged as the lowest bidder after a global contest. The FIPB blocked Israeli company Elbit System’s tie-up with Bharat Forge Ltd for making artillery guns, howitzers and mortars. The proposed JV on manufacturing of artillery guns and command, control, communication and radio systems with Indian company Bharat Forge would have supported the army’s artillery modernisation programme. The FIPB deferred the decision on the JV on the recommendations of the home ministry as well as the defence ministry.

(31)

Indian Navy to acquire five selfpropelled Fleet Support Ships

To bolster blue water capabilities, the Indian Navy plans to acquire five selfpropelled Fleet Support Ships (FSS) that are capable of transferring all types of stores, ammunition, fuel and personnel to naval units at sea. According to the Request for Proposal (RFP) issued recently, the Navy wants the FSS to be able to perform 60-day missions with the capability to operate for an extended mission on requirement and be able to endure a trip of 12,000 nautical miles at a speed of 16 knots. The FSS should have a service life of 30 years, be capable of operating helicopters in extremely rough and cyclonic sea conditions and should possess ballast capability. The RFP, issued under the ‘Buy Global’ category, is expected to elicit responses from around the world. Indian shipyards have their hands full and need expertise to undertake such ventures. Larger blue water navies tend to have large auxiliary fleets comprising longer-range fleet support vessels designed to provide support far beyond territorial waters.

May 2013

g DEFBIZ

“We have no problem with HAL” Said ERIC TRAPPIER, Chairman and CEO, Dassault Aviation, when K SRINIVASAN met him recently in Paris. The reaction came after the reported breakdown of negotiations with Dassault on the $20-billion (`1,05,000 cr approx.) deal to buy 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA). The French manufacturer told the Ministry of Defence that it would not be responsible for the 108 aircraft that HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd) would produce. In fact, Dassault said that the government would have to sign separate contracts: one with Dassault for 18 ‘fly-away’ aircraft and another with HAL, which will produce 108 jets under licence. Trappier, in fact was gung-ho about the deal and hoped it would go through by the end of this year. Excerpts:

The Mirage 2000 is now being refurbished successfully. How is it going?

We have signed (the agreement) two years ago; we are in the process of developing an upgraded Mirage. We have an Indian team with us. Then we will shift the work to HAL which will do the job in Bengaluru with the support of the team to start with. Then, they will do it by themselves.

You have a very good working relationship with HAL and the Indian Air Force? Yes, you may say that, because, I think, it has been a long time that we have been

www.geopolitics.in

working with the Indian Air Force. You may know that our first customer after the Second World War was India. We are proud that we have been able to develop with the people of India…and to contribute to the ability to defend themselves. So, it has been a very old relationship. Based on the capabilities of the Rafale and budgetary estimation by the Ministry of Defence, we have succeeded in the MMRCA competition.

one of the backbones of the defence system in India. It proved itself to be operational in the hands of the Indian Air Force pilots. And I am sure that the Government of India knows very well of the capabilities of the Mirage and what it did in the past. I think, the second matter is that we have always been supporting the Indian Air Force, in the best

way we could, but we did it in a very transparent way. And I think IAF knows they can count on a company like Dassault.

Do you think the Libyan operations helped the Rafale?

I think, first of all, India got the information based on the evaluation. You know the Rafale was evaluated like the oth-

Even the present Chief of the Indian Air Force has been a Mirage pilot.

Yes. I think the Mirage 2000 is

(32)

May 2013

g DEFBIZ

er competitors in India and in different places in India. And the IAF knowing very well about the Mirage…has been able to fly the Rafale in such a way that it could have a good knowhow and knowledge about the Rafale. I am sure the combat report and demonstration of the Rafale in India is a good confidence for those who want to buy it because it has demonstrated itself to be really operational in all types of missions: at ground, recognition, to see, that’s something which is seen by Indian defence capabilities.

So, how is your relationship with HAL, IAF? That’s why there is a bit of surprise at the developments where you have questioned the capabilities of HAL? It’s quite normal because we have had a good working relationship with HAL mainly with the Mirage 2000. They were in charge of the Mirage 2000 in Bengaluru. Now we are in tough discussions because we are discussing the details for the work share, transfer of licence of air frames and engines. And this is taking time because when you speak about transfer, you have to speak about the job which has

to be performed: who is doing what. And that is taking time so we are not so much concerned by what the press is saying, So we are progressing.

So, you want to ensure that the quality should be maintained since post the first 18, all will be produced there.

The general perception that you have no confidence in HAL is, therefore, wrong?

When do you think the deal will be signed?

It’s wrong. We know HAL has certain capabilities. It’s different from France, the standards are different. It is also not... maybe something that is totally the same—the work done in India cannot be compared with the work done in France. What we are doing now is to understand how the job of manufacturing in France will be implemented in India in HAL. Maybe, there is a matter of time (in moving forward), as far as we are concerned, we have no problem with HAL. And HAL has been designated by the Government of India to be a lead production agency. So they are the leaders.

In effect, you want to say that the standards you follow in France must be replicated in India? Yes.

Yes, correct

That’s a most difficult question. Because I don’t know (laughs) well, the sooner the better. But at least, we need to discuss—the Government of India and Dassault, HAL is also involved, we have also partners involved in the licence. It is taking time. We try our best to go fast. And there is a huge team mobilised on the task on both sides. And I hope 2013 should be the year. We have a target for mid-2013, so this is the target. So, I think the more realistic (target) should be that it should signed before the end of the year.

You got the French Air Force and the Navy, and you got the Indian Air Force. Where else do you expect to sell the aircraft? We have some better prospects in the Middle East, in South America, in ASEAN. So, there are a couple of countries

which are very interested by the fact that they saw the results of the Rafale in Libya and in Mali. We may have some new countries interested in the Rafale, because they are a bit disappointed by the US fighters like the F-35 which takes time to be developed, faces problems, has a very high cost and this could be the idea for others to join the family of Rafale.

Well, the Eurofighter team has its own questions of the Rafale as do many others.

Well, I would be unhappy if I failed. I am happy because I succeed. I expect them to be unhappy, but that’s life. I think we have a better aircraft and it also (happened) to be less expensive. Because this was the criteria, L1. According to the Indian Government, it had to be lowest. So, I think we got it because we had a good aircraft and we were L1. I think the Indian Government did a great job by having six competitors with countries like US, Russia, Britain, Germany and Italy. And they were able to organise a big competition, selection was a very transparent one and very clear in not too long a time for such an important project. It (has been) a good challenge and we are proud to work with India. So, I would say congratulations to them. But now we need to finalise, it’s the last step.

READY TO FLY: A Rafale outside the final assembly line plant at Bordeaux, Merignac

www.geopolitics.in

(33)

May 2013

DEF BIZ

Night-vision devices for army approved The Defence Ministry has approved a `2,820 crore proposal to provide nightvision devices to the Army to enable its tanks and infantry combat vehicles to have capability to fight in both day and night conditions. Under the plans to do away with the night blindness of Army’s mechanised fleet including the Russian-origin T-90 and T-72 tanks and the BMP Infantry Combat Vehicles (ICV), around 5,000 thermal imaging sights would be procured from defence PSU Bharat Electronics limited. Meanwhile, the Ministry also cleared a proposal to upgrade the existing inventory of M-46 130mm artillery guns to 155mm guns through the Ordnance Factory Board.

www.geopolitics.in

ATGMs, produced by BDL under licence from French and Russian companies, which are wire-guided and do not have fireand-forget capabilities. A part of the deficiency is to be met by the induction of the long-delayed indigenous thirdgeneration Nag ATGMs, which are vehicle and helicopter-mounted, with a 4-km strike range. The Army has already placed an initial order for 443 Nag

missiles and 13 Namicas (Nag missile tracked carriers).

BOEING

Israel is all set to bag another mega Indian defence deal to equip all the 356 infantry battalions of the Indian Army with third-generation Anti-Tank Guided Missiles (ATGMs). With Russia in the lead, Israel is trying to fend off the US to remain the second largest arms supplier to India. The `15,000-crore project will involve an initial direct acquisition of the manportable ‘tank killers’ followed by Transfer of Technology (ToT) to defence PSU, Bharat Dynamics, for large-scale indigenous manufacture. The 1.13-million Army is pushing the ‘critical’ project since it has a huge shortfall of 44,000 ATGMs of different types, half its authorised inventory at present. At present, the Army is making do with second-generation Milan and Konkurs

WTY

Israel to bag another Indian defence deal

Boeing and Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) are expanding their partnership through a follow-on contract involving the manufacture of subassemblies for the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter jet. This contract, for Super Hornet subassemblies, expands work Boeing awarded BEL in 2011. BEL delivers components for the Super Hornet and P-8I maritime reconnaissance aircraft; and is a partner with Boeing at the Analysis and Experimentation Centre in Bengaluru that opened in 2009. “Boeing’s relationship with BEL demonstrates our commitment to working with Indian industry to provide customers with the best products while fostering global growth and market access,” said Dennis Swanson, vice president of International Business Development for Boeing Defence, Space

(34)

Boeing-BEL partnership expands

and Security in India. Through the new contract BEL will produce Super Hornet subassemblies including the Ground Power Panel, Helmet Vehicle Interface Stowage and Switch assembly and Cockpit Console Panels. For the F/A-18, BEL also produces a stowage panel for the Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System connector cable and an avionics cooling system fan test switch panel with a Night Vision Imaging System-compatible floodlight assembly. For the P-8I it provides the Identification Friend or Foe interrogators and Data Link II communications systems. “BEL believes this cooperation with Boeing is a great opportunity and is ever willing to take it to greater heights,” said H.N. Ramakrishna, BEL director of Marketing.

May 2013

DEF BIZ

Agilent Technologies, a premier test and measurement company, launched its latest state-of-art products for the Indian Defence Forces in New Delhi. Agilent Technologies provides test system development and designing to the defence forces across the world as they have served several countries for more than three decades and have a presence in more than 100 countries. The company’s latest state-of-art products are designed especially for the Indian market as they can work in extreme weather conditions and serve the Indian purpose for testing and measurements. The major field of research is the aerospace and defence sector as company offers huge range of products to these sectors. The latest products launched were the Agilent EEs of EDA system for electronic system-level design that allows systems to innovate the physical layer of wireless and aerospace/defence communications systems, the FieldFox hand-

HEMANT RAWAT

Agilent equipment for Indian forces

held microwave analysers are built to work in any weather conditions ranging from-45oc (Drass sector) to 71oc (Desert region) and hard to reach locations such as dense forests and Real-Time spectrum analyzer, an upgraded version of existing PXA signal analysers which can be used for deeper analysis of complex signals and act like a powerful interceptor. The other products introduced were PXI signal generator used to deliver new levels of speed in signal generation and the U1610A/20A handheld digital oscilloscopes, a 3 in 1 prod-

uct which is defined as precision, reliability and readiness due to its effectiveness. The customers for the Agilent technologies in Indian defence market incorporates DRDO Research centre, HAL manufacturing units, several Indian dock yards and IAF’s workshops and depots as well as Bharat Electronics Ltd. which uses Agilent instruments for their tests and measurements.

Streit appoints Winner Boeing delivers FAB-T Test Units The Boeing Family of Advanced Beyond Line-of-Sight Terminals (FAB-T) wideband communications programme has entered a new phase by delivering the first two engineering development models to the US Air Force. Able to perform nearly all FAB-T production terminal mission functions, the models will be tested through June under realistic operational conditions aboard aircraft and at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass. “These models will allow the Air Force to test how actual terminals will perform in their deployed configurations,” said Paul Geery, Boeing Vice President and FAB-T programme manager. “With tests conducted in 2012, Boeing has demonstrated that FAB-T can perform effec-

www.geopolitics.in

tively even in the extreme vibration and harsh temperatures found on airborne platforms.” FAB-T will carry protected communications for the command and control of US nuclear forces via Advanced Extremely High Frequency and Milstar satellites. The terminals will be used aboard B-2 and B-52 bombers, RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft, and E-4 and E-6 Special Air Mission aircraft, as well as in fixed and transportable configurations on the ground. “These milestones validate that Boeing has a mature design that meets operating requirements for all mission environments,” Geery said. “Our solution offers the quickest and lowest-risk path to putting all the FAB-T functions into war-fighters’ hands.”

(36)

Streit Group, the world’s largest privately-owned vehicle armouring company, has appointed David Winner to the key position of General Manager, Streit Group UK. Opened in London in 2012, the UK subsidiary is responsible for all of the Group’s sales and marketing operations across Europe and for consulting on European defence and security requirements and design solutions. David Winner has joined Streit after a 32 year career in the British Army during which he was entirely focussed on armoured vehicles. He has been involved at all levels, from vehicle user to trials and development work to the short notice introduction of new platforms for operations. He was also responsible for the delivery of technical training on a number of platforms operated by the Royal Armoured Corps and the wider Army community.

May 2013

GEO Subscription form_April.qxd

3/31/2012

E F E N C E

2:37 PM

Page 1

I P L O M A C Y

E C U R I T Y

g geopolitics DIPLOMATS POLICY MAKERS CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS WORLD BODIES

Our readership is, to simply put it, Fortune 500;

NOW!

Please accept my subscription for 12, 24 and 36 issues of geopolitics

Name______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Address____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Ph. No.________________________________________________ Payment

Cash

Cheque

e-mail____________________________________________________

Cheque/DDNo. ____________________________________________________

Drawn on__________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Date_______________________________________________________ Signature ______________________________________________ NO. OF ISSUES

NEWSSTAND PRICE

DISCOUNT

YOU PAY

YOU SAVE

Rs. 1200/-

15%

Rs. 1020/-

Rs. 180/-

Rs. 2400/-

20%

Rs. 1920/-

Rs. 480/-

Rs. 3600/-

25%

Rs. 2700/-

Rs. 900/-

Cheque / DDs should be drawn in favour of

NEWSLINE PUBLICATIONS PVT. LTD.

Send your subscription to Newsline Publications Pvt. Ltd., D-11 Basement, Nizamuddin (East), New Delhi -110 013 Contect us on : +91-11-41033381-82, e-mail: geopolitics@newsline.in

DIPLOMACY

“INDIGENOUS CONTENT OF OUR COUNTRY HAS GONE UP TO 55% TODAY” In an exclusive interview with the editors of GEOPOLITICS, Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister and Director General of the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) Dr VIJAY KUMAR SARASWAT outlined where India stands today in its indigenisation programme of defence production. Excerpts: www.geopolitics.in

(38)

May 2013

g DEFBIZ

Why is that India is poor in developing engines, which are the most important thing in developing systems? With regard to propulsion technologies, we have a lot of catching up to do. What are the issues dogging propulsion capability development in India? See, I agree with you that there is a gap in the propulsion technology in general. I am talking general propulsion. We talk of so much about the automobiles that we have got automobile boom, economies due to the automobile. We have got almost 15–20 major players in the automobile sector. I may be wrong. I have not counted, around that number. But if you look at how and where we are barring a few who have started now making their own designs, most of the designs which came are from outside and even if they have done the design, the engines have come from outside. So that is called when you classify the system, A grade item, B grade item, and C grade item. So C grade and partially B grade we make here. A grade comes from outside. That is the problem. Unless we make A grade items also here and this has happened in all sectors—it has happened in defence because we have licensed productions going on coming from various agencies like Russia, France, Germany, or whatever places but we got manufacturing technology and critical systems and subsystems continued to come from outside. This is even today it is happening. So we are changing this now. Now through the DRDO’s collaboration, we are changing this syndrome totally. When I am doing LR-SAM with Israel today, we do not have any element in that which we are not exposed to. There is no way we can be told that no this is not available to you. Full—right from the first letter A to the complete paragraph is known to us.

But what about the precision manufacturing capability? India has got good precision manufacturing capability except in one or two areas. For example in the gears, we still need to have that same amount of precision what others are having. But otherwise general machining, engineering capability in India is very good. That is why when we come for the offset tomorrow, we will have lots of components and subsystems being produced by the Indian industry to the aerospace standards.

www.geopolitics.in

So you are confident that the foreign companies will provide us all the components and technologies that we are aware of?

Yes, they will give but there is only area which is a new area which is called the composite materials. It is not metallic materials, 99 per cent I am confident. But on composite materials and composite manufacturing, India still needs to build the infrastructure and capability and this we are facing today in the missile programme because we are switching over to composites in a big way to reduce the weight. In the aircraft programme again, we are moving, 4th generation itself has got 60 per cent composite component. So we have to go now 70–75 per cent. Boeing is already 70 per cent composites. You know the Boeing Dreamliner. So this technology to aerospace standards has to be set up in this country. Now that is where the industry is coming. So my request to the Indian private sector is—look, you should now start taking the best technologies, for example, Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Moulding or the Resin Film Transfer Moulding; all these systems have to come. They have to be set up because metallic materials are a problem in many cases. Composite materials are the need of the hour. For example, you can get F glass fiber but you cannot get an E glass fibre. You have to import. So we have to make fibres. Carbon fibres you have to import. Now these are the things which we have to augment. DRDO and Department of Defence and Atomic Energy and Space are doing lot of work in this direction to promote composite technologies because without that, we cannot work.

What about composite and ceramics?

Composites and ceramics I have referred to in a generic manner. Ceramics is also very important.

Ceramics constitutes the key component in our directed energy weapons programme. What will you say on this, particularly on solid-sate leaser?

See, Solid-State lasers up to certain power level, we are okay with power source, few watts. But the moment high power comes; directed energy weapons are not done with few watts of power. You are aware of that. They are done with high powers. High power means kilowatts of power. I did at least 5 kilowatt to 100 kilowatt, in that range different types of weapons.

(39)

Now to generate 5 kilowatt power, there are various methods. There is a chemical laser system what we have done now and we have already built it….CO2 gas dynamic laser coil that we have done already. It is now working. It is in TBRL, Chandigarh. We have a full setup. We are able to produce chemical and it can produce almost 100 kilowatts of power, no problem. But technology that is not a solid state laser. That is a chemical gas dynamic laser. So we have to now build a solid state laser. Technology is going in that direction. So we are developing today in DRDO fibre lasers. Then power combining of the fibre lasers to make 5 kilowatt into 25 kilowatt. So all these technologies are part of our DEW programme in which special materials are required, special control systems are required, interaction of the laser beam with the atmosphere is required, beam pointing accuracy is required, power combining that means the stabilisation system on which it is mounted has to be of a very precise accuracy because the beam size, the spot size is less than a millimetre and if it is drifting or if it is widening, the whole power is lost. So these are all critical technologies which are part of our programme which we are developing today. In fact, we have a lab here in LASTEC in Delhi which is doing work and we are setting up another lab in the similar directions at Hyderabad where we will do weaponisation of these systems. Here, we will do fundamental work and there we will do weaponisation so that we can convert them into usable systems because unless weapon is portable or transportable, it is no point because then only it is useful.

Here, when we are talking of the weapons, say our missiles, are we also working on expanding their range?

The range of a system or capability of a missile is a function of what is my threat profile. I will develop a system to meet my threat. I will never try to unnecessarily build a system. So our choices of ranges, our capabilities are purely based upon threat profiles and I can only assure you that whatever ranges we are covering today meets our existing threat profiles. We do not have to worry about going to Mars. No there is no requirement to go to Mars.

Where exactly we are on the front of developing stealth aircraft and bombers?

See, our road map for the development of fighter aircraft systems is very clear.

May 2013

g DEFBIZ

We have done LCA–LCA–MK.1 which is going to be produced. Production has started, you know it. Then we are doing LCA- MK.2. Then we are doing LCA–Navy. Now these LCA–MK.2 and LCA–Navy are similar. LCA-Navy only one difference is that it is to take off and land on deck of a ship. So we are building all facilities for a short lift, short take off, short landing, all that we are doing. We are building a system at Goa where from there Shore-Based Test Facility (SBTF) are going to do that. This is our present profile and this present profile will take care of all light combat capabilities required. Now, there is a gap between what the user needs and what is available either through import because they have imported. We have got MiG-29. We have got Jaguar. We have got Mirage. So there is a profile which covers variety of combat requirements. In future what we are seeing is there will be a requirement for a medium lift capability in the region of 25 to 30 tons class and that is where our future programme, Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft(AMCA) will be directed. Now obviously even as we do a future programme, it cannot be the 4th generation technology. It has to be a next generation technology better than what we are having. So we have set up our goals in that direction that the AMCA is going to be the 5th+ generation aircraft with all technologies which are relevant to 5th+ generation. That means one of them is supercruise. I should be able to go on a supersonic mach number without firing the re-heat afterburner. I should be able to have capability so that the signatures of the aircraft are minimum. That means all my weapon systems and all my stores are completely hidden. They are not suspended like one bomb here and one bomb here. All the signatures whether they are radio signatures or thermal signatures should be minimized. That means stealth. So we have got a big list of technologies which will be done in that. Present status is we have done a lead project which is leading to the design of the system at least what we call as a first level of design. That lead project is on and after lead project is done then of course national level reviews and things like that, it is a process. And then we will go for the sanction and then this is as far as…. But we have in parallel a technology develop-

www.geopolitics.in

ment programme which will provide the subsystems and systems for AMCA. For example, we are working today on stealth technology, special materials, signature subtraction, and measurement of signatures. Similarly, we are working on special mechanisms for controlling the aircraft because even when we talk of fly-by wire, the next generation is fly-by wire with minimum number of wires. So what is called a photonic interface is coming for all avionics. This is also called fly-by light. So we are now building that, photonic interface so that my signals, my power, my communication is all done through that process. So that is technology. So we have got large number of technology projects which are already on as part of my S&T programme and they will ultimately merge into the availability of critical subsystems for AMCA. AMCA requires an engine of higher thrust... So our Kaveri does not meet the requirement. Kaveri, you know, we are not able to use in LCA itself because of the lower power. So we are going to develop a new engine and that would be the AMCA engine. So that will be a part of our AMCA programme.

Yes, yes, 100 per cent, I have no doubts about it because the MK.2 and MK.1, there are major modifications which we have done in terms of the….and all modifications based upon the requirements of the users. For example, missile firing capability, we are introducing on MK.2, the missile firing capacity from the MBT Arjun. For example fording capability, it can become an amphibian so that it can cross all the rivers and all the tanks whatever is that. Like that and panoramic site for the commander or gunner site for all these tanks. Earlier, they were analogue. So large number of changes; active protection systems, protection system against the incoming project tanks; so all of them are on the right course. With Arjun MK.2,

When I am doing LR-SAM with Israel today, we do not have any element in that which we are not exposed to. There is no way we

can be told that no this is not available to you. Full— right from the first letter A to the complete paragraph is known to us

But what about the engine for the AMCA? Are you looking towards international collaboration for this aspect?

I am coming to that. AMCA requires an engine of higher thrust.. So our Kaveri does not meet the requirement. Kaveri, you know, we are not able to use in LCA itself because of the lower power. So we are going to develop a new engine and that would be the AMCA engine. So that will be a part of our AMCA programme. And we will certainly look forward to collaboration in that area. We are going ahead.

Since we are talking about engines, what about the indigenous engine for the Arjun MBT programme? We have started a national programme for building the engine for tank. It is in advanced stage today. Designs have been completed and now we are launching detailed development.

Will Arjun have sufficient orders from the Army?

(40)

May 2013

g DEFBIZ

we are testing certain elements. Out of the 56 modifications, we have demonstrated about 20 plus in the last summertime.

Does this technological upgradtion include protection from nuclear weapons?

No, no, we are not talking of nuclear weapons protection. Nuclear weapon is a different ball game. But active protection system is something, suppose there is a projectile coming to you, it could be a bomb or it could be a missile or it could be…. I should be able to divert that or engage it. That is called active protection system. Passive protection is anyway they have in terms of armour which is…even armour we are changing in the MK.2. We were putting Explosive Rreactive Armour(ERA) there. So these are ongoing programmes. That is why I am telling you, indigenous technology has got that greatest advantage that you can do product improvement on your system and follow what is called spiral methods of development.

You can have MK.1. You can have MK.2 and ultimately you can reach the latest technology in the MK.3 or whatsoever.

There was a newspaper report which said that you announced the existence of an Agni-VI programme on the sidelines of Aero India 2013. Please tell us more about this and whether the Government has given the go ahead for this programme? This particular question whosoever has written in that newspaper, I saw that, it is a totally wrong statement of mine. It is false. I have never said that we have announced A6 programmes. What I have said is we are converting Agni-5 into a force multiplier which is not A6 and I also mentioned that Agni-5 is a force multiplier with multiple delivery systems. That is all. It is not A6. It is not anything and that also we are doing technology. We do not have a mission mode programme which will lead to tomorrow…no… see, because we do mission mode program after our technology levels come to a certain level. I mentioned to you. Now, first I have to

understand how to do this force multiplication. How do I do MIRV? How do I do all this? So technology work is going on. Some reporter said Agni-6 has been done, no, no. We want to actually first demonstrate dummy packages from a missile at various altitudes. This is my first experiment.

Does this include the use of micro- sat launches?

No, no, this force multiplication which I am talking of has nothing to do with micro satellites. That is a different question. What they were saying at that time is that can India have a launch on demand capability? I had said—yes, India today with Agni-5 and other launchers what we have made has the capability to launch micro and mini satellites on a short notice to meet the tactical and strategic requirements in the event of our space assets being denied. This is precisely what I had said. And that I had said as a scientist. We scientists keep doing assessment. We do keep analysing. It is my job as a Scientific Advisor. You will appreciate that. I have to keep seeing what possibilities are available. So we did our analysis. We did our simulation. We did our calculations. We found that yes, it is feasible. It can be done. Now, when it is required to be done, how many numbers to be done, who has to do it, how it has to be done, it is more a policy decision which will be taken as and when we come to that point.

Going to another area, do you think cyber warfare and electronic warfare are about to merge? The United States is known to be researching air to air cyberwarfare techniques and electromagnetic waveforms containing code that can be fired through radar apertures to take over as the system administrator of air defence networks. Does DRDO have any similar programmes underway?

we have got a big list of technologies which will be done in that. Present status is we have done a lead project which is leading to the design of the system at least what we call as a

It will merge ultimately because today people are more concentrating on cyber warfare with respect to cyber space but all technologies which we are developing for cyber warfare will be applicable for electronic warfare. Only thing is that instead of cyber space, it will be the communication or the surveillance space of particular weapon system. If you recall today itself in an electronic warfare, we have COMINT, we have ELINT, and we have ESM. We are already doing many

first level of design www.geopolitics.in

(41)

May 2013

g DEFBIZ

of these things. We have got an airborne rangeâ&#x20AC;Ś when my Sukhoi or my MiG-29 goes, it has got escort jammer, it has got communication system detection, it has got a radar, and missile warning system. All these things are already happening. What they want to do is that they will sense the signatures of what software is running inside because if I am sending a particular pulse which is jamming, I will analyse the pulse tomorrow and find out how that pulse is generated and make sure that the system of generating the pulse is finished. That is what you are talking of that. So all this is happening in the cyber warfare today. We are killing the complete software of a computer. We are using the cyber space for that. It will happen in the communication space tomorrow in the electronic warfare system.

Talking of cyber Space, how indigenous is the planning for Operating Systems(OS)?

We are working very hard on that and security OS is our priority. OS for commercial use, we are not so much worried. We want to develop first OS for the security system of the country and that is one area where we are putting lot of effort and we are getting help from academic institutions and some industries also. Security OS is our priority. Of course, it is a complex process. We cannot develop OS in a hurry.It is still in the architecture, finalisation, and lot of module designs and things like that.

Sir, let us go to a different front. As you know, military is one of the largest consumers of energy. The Defence Minister has been talking of the importance of environmental protection by our military, leave alone the financial angle. Your comment. See, it is not defence alone. Energy is a major issue in this country. Energy security is a major issue. You are aware of

I have never said that we have announced A6 programmes. What I have said is we are converting Agni-5 into a force multiplier whi ch is not A6 and I also mentioned that Agni-5 is a force multiplier with multiple delivery systems www.geopolitics.in

(42)

it. If you take our import bill, oil is the largest bill. And you also know that the oil resources are depleting very fast. The prediction is that 2035 onwards, oil may not be available as freely as it is available today even if you pay. Obviously, there is a need for alternate energy sources. And there is lot of work going on. You guys are aware of that. Only thing is there are technologies which are very specific. What technology we should choose for a country like India? Coal is going to remain in India for next 73 years. We have got many reserves of but our quality of coal is poor. We have got a coal which is high ash content coal and that remains that. We should solve that problem technologically. So government has decided that they should go for gasification of coal. They should go for ultra supercritical combustion and boiler something like that which will remediate many of these problems. So there is a major programme going on. How we want to take this technology which is emerging somewhere into defence? We want to make packaged gasifiers for our armed forces. This is one. And the advantage of gasifier is the gas which comes out is free from pollutants. Only carbon dioxide and hydrogen comes out and I can use hydrogen for running a small turbine and carbon dioxide I have to store and sequester somewhere. So I am confident. This is a cycle. So we want to build packaged gasifiers which can be put on a vehicle and like generators people are using today, I can generate power. This is one segment. Another segment is fuel cells. DRDO is working on the development on the fuel cells. We have done already fuel cells which are working on hydrogen, oxygen, methanol base, and ethanol base. We have got 30 kilowatt fuel cell which is working in my lab in NMRL. Now fuel cell, so we have got solid oxide fuel cell programme. We have got a programme for Air Independent Propulsion(AIP) for my diesel submarine so that I do not depend on the air. The programme is going very well. In fact, now we are coming to the engineering stage. We are making a full what we call as the plug. We will have the total system integrated and then when the submarine manufacturing of this is happening in our dockyard, we can take that and integrate that. It is in advanced stage today. So AIP is one which will give power, power for mobile systems or using

May 2013

g DEFBIZ

fuel cells also is possible. This fuel cell is one technology. We have a power requirement in high altitudes today. For example, our armed forces which are deployed in Leh, Ladakh, up to Kargil, they have to carry diesel all the way from Delhi, Chandigarh, and all that. Transportation cost itself is very high. You know you are aware that in Leh, Ladakh, there is no power generation system. The entire Leh, Ladakh is powered by diesel sets and in these four months or five months when there is no transportation possible, they store huge quantities of diesel and then survive. Now that is a very dangerous situation, dangerous from the security point of view. If somebody wants to create problem for us and that storage is finished then we are out. So we have to think something like that. We have done mapping of this complete region and we found that right from this side Nainital, Uttarakhand to Kargil, the Himalayan ridge is having hot springs. That particular belt has got hot springs. So at a couple of places near Leh, Ladakh, we have done the survey and we found that you get steam at 16 bar pressure and at 140 degrees Celsius which is good enough for running an energy cycle. One first well we are digging now and we want to demonstrate geothermal plants in that area. that this is my passion which I started and I hope I succeed in that. First demonstration plant we want to put up there because it requires time. Drilling about 1 kilometer deep you have to go for a well. There is a lot of work. You need the geologist units. See, it is a science which… and you can work few months. Transportation is a problem. Difficult terrain. Now you will say DRDO has delayed. What can you do about it?

Finally, all said and done, can you reassure the nation by giving a fixed time line or say a particular year by which India will produce 70 percent of its arms and ammunitions indigenously, reverdsing the present situation when we import them 70 percent? You have to understand percentage is a function of again… Percentage is numerator and denominator, you know. Then only percentage comes. Unfortunately what is happening, your denominator is increasing very-very fast. This country did not import anything between 1986– 1987 till about 2005. You just see our import of weapons and equipment for all services; may be one odd major con-

www.geopolitics.in

Energy is a major issue in this country. Energy security is a major issue. You are aware of it. If you take our import bill, oil is the largest bill tract was there. But from 2005 till 2013, in 7 years, we are importing. Despite this increase in the denominator, the selfreliance inductors, we call as indigenous content of our country has gone up from 30 per cent which was there in 1995 to 55 per cent today and this is based upon how much is our import bill for weapons and equipment, how much indigenous products have gone into production. This is based upon that data and this sum is not done by me. I asked the National Council of applied Economic Research—please come and do this sum for us and they did this sum and that. So it is that increase despite the denominator going up. Suppose we have

(43)

happened the same level of import what we had in 1980s and 1990s and early 2000, this figure would have gone up very high but country has today certainly gone on what is called self-reliance trajectory in a much cheaper mode. I am of the opinion that this will continuously grow despite this denominator going up because today, all such systems which our armed forces need whether it is radar, radars we have more than 80 per cent indigenous. Electronic warfare systems, we have 70 per cent indigenous. You take our missile programme, we are 75 per cent to 80 per cent indigenous except that 15 per cent and that will continue. We do not have to worry about it. Components, materials, systems, not cost effective to produce. So you should not. But our criticality and independence from control has come. Today, anybody can put a MTCR in its totality. We are not worried. We can manage with our indigenous capability. We are in the area of naval systems. All the sonar systems in our country are indigenous. We are hardly importing any system into that. All the naval radars we are putting are indigenous. You take now with MBT Arjun, I think if the MBT Arjun MK.2 also gets into the system, the requirement and my FMBT program also is on the way then we will be quite good in supplying the combat vehicles also. Our bridges for the engineering, Sarvatra Bridge now 46 metre bridge, all indigenous going into our system. The gun programme which was not there; after the Bofors, we never imported any gun. Now, we have started a gun programme and I am sure in the next 3-1/2 to 4 years, I will give you an indigenous gun which will be produced in this country. So slowly, that trajectory has changed colour and our at least the weapons which were developed in 1990s, they will be available through the indigenous sources. I am not saying that weapons which are coming in 2015, I should be able to give you tomorrow, no. Like DEW and all that will take time. They are weapons coming today. So we are developing. They are also developing and we will continue it. It is moving up. The spiral is moving up. The trajectory is going on the rise. I expect that we will be free of controls and we will be competitive in terms of technology with respect to other nations and nobody will be able to blackmail us as far as non-availability is concerned.

May 2013

BSF

NUMBERSGAME

To boost up the offensive against antiMaoist operations, the government has given a thumps up to a plan for deploying choppers and drones under the revamping of the nationally-coordinated offensive against Naxal violence launched in 2009. A panel headed by cabinet secretary AK Seth has already cleared a plan to assign 14 Indian Air Force choppers that were recalled recently from United Nations peacekeeping operations to be used in anti-Maoist operations. The choppers will replace the fleet of six MI-17 IAF choppers

2,000 HEMANT RAWAT

To thwart the Naxal activity in Odisha, the Border Security Force (BSF) has deployed 2,000 personnel in Naxal-hit area of the state.

www.geopolitics.in

currently at the ministry’s disposal. The ministry is also planning to shift the unmanned aerial vehicle base from Begumpet in Hyderabad to Bhilai, a town in the middle of Maoist battleground in Chattisgarh. The offensive against Naxal has killed more than 11,000 people in the past seven years, as per government sources. The home ministry also wanted to deploy helicopter gunships for surgical airstrikes as well as 30,000 personnel of the army’s antiinsurgency force, but the defence ministry turned it down.

INDIAN ARMY

COMBAT MAOIST

168 A brawl among army personnel in May 2012 at Mahe firing range near Nyoma in Ladakh witnessed disciplinary action against 168 personnel including then Commanding Officer (CO) of an artillery unit. An Army Court of Inquiry (CoI)

BSF TROOPS BOOST FOR COMBATING MAOIST

The jawans will be deployed in the districts of Koraput, Rayagada and Nabrangpur and will coordinate with state police to counter the naxal activity in the state. With the despatch of these troops,

the total number of paramilitary personnel involved in anti-Naxal operations would touch one lakh. Apart from BSF, the CRPF has deployed 82 battalions. 11 battalions each have been deployed by BSF and Indo Tibetan Border Police for carrying out operations in Naxalite. Paramilitary officials said five battalions were being trained and would be sent to Naxalhit areas.

(44)

JAWANS TO FACE DISCIPLINARY ACTION was recommended and disciplinary action was taken against those involved. The CoI was held under Brigadier Ajay Talwar and completed the probe and submitted its report to the 14 Corps headquarters in Leh. The personnel

`1000 INDIAN ARMY

IAF CHOPPERS TO

The Indian Army has approached the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as the 130 mm Russian-origin artillery guns in its arsenal need to be upgraded to enable striking power at longer range and with greater accuracy. The Army headquarters has given its nod to the proposal of `1,000 crore to upgrade the 300 pieces of the 130 mm artillery

CRORE FOR 300 ARTILLERY GUNS

guns. The upgraded guns will mean that the 130 mm will be refurbished with new firing technology, a new barrel and a new set of ammunition to become a 155 mm gun — the type that is being preferred globally. The Army wants the guns be upgraded to fire at targets 39 kms away.

May 2013

crore

EUROCOPTER

95 acre 197

` 10,000

OF DEFENCE LAND

ENCROACHED

355

FOR CITIZENS

In view of the pending investigation in the AgustaWestland bribery case, India delayed a decision on a deal to buy 197 light-utility helicopters. In 2007, a similar tender to buy 197 helicopters for the army for $550 million (`3,000 crore Approx) collapsed after claims of irregularities in the field trials. India’s defence deals met a setback after revelations of AgustaWestland bribery case came into light after Italian police arrested the head of defence group Finmeccanica over allegations that subsidiary AgustaWestland paid bribes to win a $750 million (`4,250 crore Approx) deal to supply 12 luxury helicopters to India. While looking into the Finmeccanica deal, Italian investigators said they found papers suggesting a serving Indian army brigadier offered to help AgustaWestland win the contract for the 197 helicopter in return for a $5 million (`275 crore Approx) bribe. India plans to spend $100 billion (`5,50,000 crore Approx) to upgrade its military hardware to match its growing economic clout and keep up as China and Pakistan modernise their own defence capacities. along with 351 judicial officers posted in various districts.There are four Z+ category VIPs, including Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal, who heads the Punjab police as the home minister and moves along with 30 cops and radio frequency jammer vehicles. Punjab has six Z- category VIPs. PUNJAB POLICE

3FOR EACH

VIP IN PUNJAB

www.geopolitics.in

DELAYED

Major General Venu Gopal, outgoing GOC of Karnataka and Kerala sub-area of the Army revealed that ninety five acre of defence land has been encroached in Karnataka. As per requirement, the Army should have had 8,772 acres in the state in view of the number of Army establishments; however, the Army has only 4,435 acres out of which 95 acres had been encroached upon. The Army had reclaimed seven acres from the encroachers that dated back to 1979-80. Though the encroachments had been challenged in court by the Ministry of Defence, the state government has made an offer to Army on alternative land on the outskirts of Bengaluru city.

1 COP

Punjab’s unique VIP culture is an obvious reason behind the deteriorating law and order situation in the state. According to a recent report by the Punjab government, the state has a list of 1,294 VIP’s enjoying the security cover of 4,121 Punjab police personnel. With this number, Punjab has topped the list of VIP protectees

CHOPPER PURCHASE

in the country, leaving behind Delhi (436) and Assam (390). Punjab police spends `15.57 crores yearly for VIP protectees that range from SGPC chief and members, dera heads, police officers facing criminal inquiries and cabinet ministers. Only 34 cops are protecting 29 Punjab and Haryana high court judges, while 548 cops are moving

India is set to undergo major upgradation of its entire fleet of over 2,000 infantry combat vehicles which includes advanced weaponry and night-fighting capabilities. The Army is pushing for speedy modernisation of the 1.13 million force. Defence Ministry will shell out an estimated cost of `10,000 crore for the up gradation. The armament upgrade alone, for instance, would worth over `5,000 crore, with the BMPs to be equipped with two twin-missile launchers on each side, 2nd-generation-plus ATGMs (Anti-Tank Guided Missiles) and 30-mm automated grenade launchers. The armoured corps has already inducted around 800 of the planned 1,657 Russian-origin T-90S tanks and 124 indigenous Arjun tanks (the Mark-II version of which is being developed with ‘89 improvements’), apart from upgrading its old warhorse fleet of T-72 tanks.

HEMANT RAWAT

have been indicted by the CoI for various charges including arson and assault. The army personnel include 17 Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs) and 147 jawans as per Army sources. Disciplinary action in connection with the incident against the personnel may also lead to court martial. The brawl had left three officers, including the CO, and eight jawans of 226 Field Regiment injured.

for upgradation

(45)

May 2013

GENERALS AND GENERALSHIP INTERNALSECURITY

COVERSTORY

www.geopolitics.in

(46)

May 2013

IS THE INDIAN ARMY REALLY FACING A CRISIS WITH THE QUALITY, CALIBRE AND COMMITMENT OF ITS SENIOR OFFICER RANKS? RAJ MEHTA ATTEMPTS A HARD-NOSED ASSESSMENT OF THE ‘PROBLEM’ AND ITS PRAGMATIC RE-ORIENTATION To create a strategic culture and develop it to the point of enumerating grand strategy requires ‘strategic integrity’—the skillsets to listen and to accept divergent viewpoints emerging from a conceptual framework of analysis based on multi-disciplinary methodology. We have the third largest armed forces in the world but have not even rationalised the role of Professional Military Education (PME) within the ambit of higher education in India. —Prof Gautam Sen a respected ex-Army military strategist and teacher

he rank “General” first came into use in 1660, when King Charles II of England used it for anointing George Monck who he appointed to command the English Army on his behalf. Today, Chambers dictionary rules that ‘A General can be any leader especially when regarded as a competent one’. Collins dictionary defines the art of Generalship as ‘The leadership ability of a military General’. Seen in context, Generalship is leadership exercised by competent Generals. With much of the world in turmoil fighting external aggression and internal strife

www.geopolitics.in

(47)

and with the remote possibility of a nuclear war being engineered thoughtlessly by a buccaneering North Korean “General” and its supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, it is fair to wonder about the direction in which Generals and their Generalship are headed, and more so in our context. It is educative here, to examine what the iconic American General, Douglas Macarthur felt drove Generals and Generalship: Duty, Honour, Country. This phrase, taken from General Douglas Macarthur’s moving farewell address to West Point officer cadets, coincidentally captures the essence of

May 2013

GRAPHICS: ARTWORKS

As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a General who loses a war. —Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling (Retd), US Army.

g COVERSTORY

H L SETH

HISTORIC SURRENDER: Pakistan’s Lieutenant General A A K Niazi (right) signing the Instrument of Surrender while surrendering to Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora of the Indian Army (left) at the National Stadium Dacca

a subtler, deeper Indian variation: Naam, Namak, Nishan freely translated as Honour, Integrity, Country. These deathless words that have defined the Indian military ethic evolved on the killing fields of Kurukshetra and are meant to be implemented through their soldiery, by Generals displaying great Generalship. There can be no disagreement with General Macarthur when he said that “These words do not constitute a ‘flamboyant’ phrase. Something that every (current) demagogue and cynic will mock and ridicule… These words build your basic character; mould you as custodian of the nation’s defence. They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; to learn to stand up in a storm but to have compassion on

www.geopolitics.in

those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep. They teach you to be an officer and a gentleman.” The code, he intoned, “embraces the highest moral laws or philosophies ever promulgated”. For India, its ancient Naam, Namak, Nishan ethic was given a modern, explicit implementation code by Field Marshal Sir Philip Chetwode, Commander-in-Chief India. Delivering his address at the inauguration of the Indian Military Academy in 1932, he opined that “the safety, honour and welfare of your country come first, always and every time. The honour, welfare and comfort of the men you command come next. Your own ease, comfort

(48)

and safety come last, always and every time”. How do our Generals measure up in implementing this demanding and sacred “Corporate Governance” credo of India’s Armed Forces? Most observers would agree with an overall ‘B’ Grade…Not bad; could be much better. Ben Kohlmann, an analyst, whose April 2012 article in Small Wars Journal:’The Military Needs More Disruptive Thinkers’ has created worldwide military interest because of its stark identification of what is wrong with militaries worldwide - reinforcement of status quo and mediocrity over merit and a distinct inability to keep pace with changing times, innovation and new media. He quotes Joshua Ramo to make his key point: “We’ve left our future largely in the hands of people (read officers) whose single greatest characteristic is that they are bewildered by the present.” He says that “a large (military) bureaucracy thrives best when it can promote the average individual in a one-size fits all ascension programme. This, however, necessitates sloughing off the highly talented instead of promoting them in accordance with their ability.” He adds that we should, on the contrary, be developing individuals who can see connections across a myriad of professions and intellectual pursuits. This is not possible in a vertically integrated organisation like the military which hates change. You can’t innovate and have a long term impact if you are only surrounded by likeminded people. Challenging the status quo, he adds, is anathema to most military careerists. The article notes that “the officer learns how to function within the system that promoted him. So we get officers who think small, don’t understand the importance of broad understanding and miss the trends that are shaping our world”. The indictment may be savage and hurts. It is, however, quite symptomatic of not just the US Army, but, to a large measure, the Indian Army (read Indian Armed Forces) as well.

Are Generals and Generalship under public scrutiny world-wide?

The question appears to be justified considering the current reality. In America, the much lionised, media-savvy General David Petraeus, who was not long ago considered as America’s best General since George Washington; the world’s leading counter-terror expert and a po-

May 2013

g COVERSTORY

tential Presidential candidate is languishing in shame and calumny. The FBI revelation that he betrayed the nation’s trust and his marital vows by having an affair with a subordinate officer, led to his sacking and fall from grace. In Sri Lanka, exArmy Chief Sarath Fonseka, lauded for defeating and eliminating the LTTE Supremo, Prabhakaran, was recently awarded Presidential pardon after languishing in jail on charges of high treason. In Pakistan, the narcissistic ‘Commando’ who boasted in his poorly written ‘In the Line of Fire’, that he broke the sacred ‘Cadet’s Honour Code’ while under training at the Pakistani Military Academy; General Pervez Musharraf, is now in Pakistan; allowed to participate in the forthcoming general elections on bail. Musharraf is facing treason, ‘war against Pakistan’ as well as murder charges.

The Indian situation: The media, ‘experts’ and ‘Think-tank’ view

In India, the legal system is examining whether several senior officers gleaned unfair advantage in the allotment of flats meant for war widows. The traumatic exArmy Chief-Government stand-off on several counts including personal issues has left the country shaken. The integrity of a former Air Chief is reportedly under investigation as unsubstantiated media reports suggest his unethical involvement in a Government-driven aircraft purchase deal; an allegation that defies logical explanation, because his was an advisory role. Overall, cases involving impropriety by senior defence services officers are also on the rise. So what gives? If ‘Generals’ (and equivalent ranks in the Navy and Air Force) are indeed competent and ‘Generalship’ a display of their manifold leadership skills, why is there a serious mismatch across continents between expectation and delivery? In the Indian scenario, particularly the media, especially television channels have gone ballistic in breathlessly breaking news by the day about corruption in senior military ranks; about sleaze, questionable deals, corruption, unprofessional and sometimes morally-debased conduct and an expanding ‘disconnect’ between military leaders and subordinates and other damning indices of the military’s poor internal health. This media carps about the ‘lack’ of intellectual ability of General’s to comprehend internal

www.geopolitics.in

security dynamics; and perverse dependence on imported warlike equipment and weapons as opposed to indigenously developed weapon platforms. They condemn the apparent lack of military ability in senior officers to execute war or even understand war in its larger geo-political and geo-strategic context. Take all this at its face value and you cannot be blamed for thinking that there must be a serious problem at hand, at least in-so-far as India is concerned. Readers need a knowledge base to figure out how much of the savage indictment that bombards us incessantly is hype and what percentage hardcore reality. For doing so, the author has used the American experience with their Generals and their displayed Generalship. By implication, not much can be said with authority on the current Indian systems because it is ‘closed’, hence not open to public scrutiny.

Current American views on what’s wrong and what needs fixing? Given its open-minded culture, America has never had a dearth of writers on how its military functions. Major General McMaster is an outstanding serving Cavalry officer rated a counter-terrorism expert. A protegee of Petraeus, his other claim to fame is his book; ‘Dereliction of Duty’ in which he savaged the top political, bureaucratic and military hierarchy for their failure during the Vietnam years “to provide a successful plan to pacify either a Viet Cong insurgency or defeat the North Vietnamese Army”. His disciple, Colonel John Nagl (Retd), also a ‘Petraeus guy’ is another brilliant officer, whose book ‘Learning to eat soup with a knife’ is a counter-terrorism classic. It examines American mistakes in senior leadership roles in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is, however, Colonel Paul Yingling (Retd), a young Artillery officer, who set the cat among the pigeons in the US military establishment with his damning article, ‘A Failure in Generalship’ published in April 2007. He likens Iraq to Vietnam, stating that “for the second time, America faced defeat at the hands of an insurgency”. Because Vietnam was commanded by different Generals than Iraq, he concluded that the US Generalship as an institution had failed, not individual Generals. He proposed that Congress take more interest in military affairs, especially when confirming Generals. He stated bluntly

(49)

TAKING COMMAND: The Supreme Commanders on 5 June 1945 in Berlin; (from left to right) Bernard Montgomery, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Georgy Zhukov and Jean de Lattre de Tassigny

that “the intellectual and moral failures common to America’s General officer corps in Vietnam and Iraq constitute a crisis in American Generalship”. He added that “the system that produces our Generals does little to reward creativity and moral courage” and instead, sought conformity because those senior officers who select Generals were themselves conformists. He added, “It is unreasonable to expect that an officer who spends 25 years conforming to institutional expectations will emerge as an innovator when he becomes a General”. Yingling, therefore, suggested US Congress’ oversight in selection, besides changing the fundamental selection system to a 360 degree evaluation system that included peer and subordinate ratings of seniors, so that people with creative intelligence, intellectual achievement and moral courage got selected. Generals, he wrote, “have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities”. He said that, by law, Congress had to confirm the retiring rank of a three or four-star General to increase their accountability. Adding that, “as matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a General who loses a war. By exercising its powers to confirm senior retired ranks, Congress can ensure their accountability”.

Impact of the “Yingling factor” on the US Army

The Yingling ‘fire-storm’ compelled the

May 2013

g INTERNALSECURITY COVERSTORY

US military establishment to seriously examine the internal health of its Generals and Generalship. That nothing much has changed on the ground is not Yingling’s fault. It merely indicates that management of change is always a challenge. The fact that Yingling’s effort mattered became clear when the US Army Vice Chief took feedback from specially selected, battle hardened young officers undergoing a course at Fort Knox on what they thought was the relevance of Paul Yingling’s article. He found a majority in agreement. A summary: •

•

Trust Gap between senior and junior officers hurt because many young officers have more combat experience than their seniors and “trust their instinct more than they trust orders”. This accounted for an increase in officers leaving the military while still very young. No-mistake: Army officers believe that “you’re only one mistake away from career end”. Officers question whether it is worth investing years only to have one report ‘kill’ them. Seniors avoid risks for fear of failing. Making a platoon leader learn from mistakes rarely happens. Marketability: There is concern with post-Army marketability: Young officers wonder “Why stick around for 20 years with poor benefits when the civilian sector offers increased pay, benefits, stability, and quality of life?” Soldiers First; We Care for Soldiers: These are seen as empty slogans because the erosion of benefits is too real to overlook. A year-long waiting list for housing every two years makes wives unhappy. Female officers have a difficult time balancing military and family life because day-care facilities are inadequate. Shift in Army personality: From being an envied way of life, it has become just another overworked job without time for unwinding. Units operate at 80 per cent intensity level all the time, leaving no time for “rest, recuperation, and rebuilding unit cohesion.” Micro-management: Virtually every officer felt that division commanders were commanding companies and brigade commander’s platoons. Mentoring: The group felt that “mentoring” was a synonym for favoritism. The Army should initiate an

www.geopolitics.in

BOOSTING UP: Gen. Douglas MacArthur addressing an audience of 50,000 at Soldier’s Field, Chicago, on his first visit to the United States in 14 years.

•

• •

•

“Officer Professional Development Programme,” where senior officers spend one-two days per week educating subordinates for studying and learning their trade while NCOs run the garrison. Top-down loyalty: Most young officers felt it does not exist. Senior leaders will “throw subordinates under the bus in a heartbeat to advance their careers”. Ethics: Most found it incredible that senior leadership mentions ethics to them. Teaching at Schools of Instruction: US military analyst Huba de Czege puts it aptly: “The crux of the problem… is that officers are not systematically taught how to cope with unstructured problems.” This points to linearity and development of too little critical thinking in teaching. Training schools do not teach coping with real situations; focus on theory instead. Instructors are not the best available. Power Point Army: The Army leads by ppts, does not conduct real training and with too much focus on technology simulation. Soldiers want to be tough & realistic, not listen to fancier Power Point briefings. The US Army is a ‘Talk’ Army; rather like the Russian interpretation of NATO - No Action Talk Only. The Army needs to return to the basics. Selfless Service: Officers felt that General officers would gain much from developing an understanding on “selfless” versus “selfish service.” Most are

(50)

too preoccupied with their careers.

Other American views on Generals and Generalship The well known author of the 2007 best seller, The Generals, Thomas Ricks, said that the entire concept of future Generalship in the US needs rethinking. He suggested that not just Generals but civilian officials too should be held accountable when things go wrong. He emphasised the need to add quality to the military staff and war colleges. He supported the sacking of incompetent Generals as practiced by the World War II great General George Marshall, who he calls the American military’s “Gold Standard”.

Using American Metrics, where does the Indian Army Stand?

One must salute the American military penchant to read the Riot Act against itself without pulling punches. Such candour is part of their military and national culture. Regrettably, this ability is not part of our military or national culture. For instance, successive Indian Governments have stonewalled demands to make the Henderson Brooks Report on the 1962 debacle public. We do have our General Petraeus equivalents if not better senior officers but not too many ‘thinking officers’ of the McMaster-Nagl-Yingling-Kilcullan class who could make it to General Officer ranks. That aside, the US experience begs a candid answer on whether it is relevant to the Indian Army. It is, but with some qualifications. For one, there is a huge dif-

May 2013

g COVERSTORY

•

• GENERALSHIP TO THE FORE: Intricate and crafty planning by the Allied Forces Generals saw the US soldiers entering Rome and pushing out the enemy

ference in the geo-strategic and geo-political matrix of the two countries. America has been a world power for much longer than India has been a developing country. America has no worthwhile mainland threat other than imported terror. India was born in battle (1947) and has remained engaged since with external as well as internal enemies. America’s wars are a consequence of its world power/ global policeman status. India fights to defend its sovereignty with limited resources, of which the Army gets just a small fraction. More tellingly, America was truly victorious just once in the last 100 years when it led the global coalition against Germany in World War II. Post that war, it has won battles, engagements and skirmishes but never another war. Vietnam haunts America just as 1962 haunts us. Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan have been wars America ‘won’ (or is winning) only notionally. India, on the contrary, has enviable successes to its credit except for its 1962 shame, and, along with the Israeli Army, is today amongst the most combat-hardened Armies of the world, having won four of the five wars it has fought; with the caveat that both 1962 and the Sri Lanka intervention were eminently forgettable. War is a hive of interlinked activity of which the military is just one small portion. Ends, Ways and Means are a strategic equation to attain national victory. ‘Ends’ are defined as the strategic outcome or end state desired. ‘Ways’ are the methods (diplomatic, economic, technological, coalition-led), the tactics and strategies to

www.geopolitics.in

achieve the ends. ‘Means’ are defined as the resources required achieving the ends, such as the armed forces, their weapons systems, money, political will, and time. The Army is thus, just a small sub-set of means. In other words, countries win or lose wars, not Armies, even though the popular belief and mindset is to the contrary, leading to often unwarranted and ill-considered criticism of the armed forces; criticism better directed at the Government. The 1971 Indo-Pak war could have been a complete victory for India as World War II was for America except for the fact that the Government of the day did not think through the benefits of taking the Armed Forces on board at Shimla, thus effectively letting Pakistan off the hook and unthinkingly allowing Pakistan the space which it has ruthlessly exploited to conduct proxy war. The Bangladesh issue could also have been handled differently, had the Army been co-opted.

Macro Issues that Affect Indian Generals and Generalship Cheerful acceptance of the American findings is mandated, with the key difference being of scale, because, with a far better combat record achieved in far more hostile terrain, altitude and weather and with a fraction of the American resources and wealth, we certainly have a better General officer and Generalship record. What we clearly lack: • Over-arching strategic vision: We could not inherit the British strategic vision which was tailored to suit their national interests and haven’t

(51)

•

bothered to make one of our own. Our Generals seem comfortable with the stalemate rather than proactively nudging Government to formulate an overarching strategic vision. Defence not a national priority: Defence is not a priority with Governance; it becomes an issue only when sovereignty is threatened. Ostrich outlook: While candour, critical thinking and self-dependence are an established American ethic, we are savagely deficient. Instead, we cope resignedly with increasing corruption, declining integrity, linear thinking; are rabidly anti-intellectual; suffer from ‘lanyard-itis’ (favouring officers of the same arm/service/unit/shared interests) and reward mediocrity. Out-of-the-box outlook: We deride an intellectual/maverick outlook; have not formalised indigenous weapon system philosophies, and run predictable, linear exercises on Army courses of instruction on which students with the ‘pinks’ (suggested solutions) prosper. The ‘known’ is honoured; the ‘unknown’ feared. In this context, the need to encourage and develop ‘disruptive thinking’ which is led by an entrepreneurial spirit of seeking and innovation is critically needed. Formal collaboration between top notch military and educational institutes for mutual military-corporate benefit will not just improve Generals but equally the quality of CEO’s. Indigenous weapons platforms: Their development is only a notional priority for the General officer/politician/bureaucrat triad. Except in missiles and communication equipment where we have attained high standards, what is on offer—from rifles to battle-tanks leaves the user cold. The vexed problem of Generals/equivalent ranks preferring foreign tanks, guns and aircraft—because they are reliable over indigenous systems, while understandable, is against our security interests. That reality notwithstanding, all players involved with indigenous systems have been apathetic and for this, Generals must take their share of blame. The DRDO, whose certification is necessary before import is allowed, is not keen on import. Instead, it routinely promises the moon but rarely delivers as committed. For ‘turf’ reasons, they are reluctant in encourag-

May 2013

g COVERSTORY

ing public-private interface. • Absent synergy: Chummy photo-ops aside, the three services rarely see eye-to-eye on operational and service matters. Narrow service loyalties do not allow our Generals to think-jointfight-joint - an indication of poor synergy of outlook. • HR Issues: The messy and parochial, short-term, tenure driven implementation of officer selection norms and whimsical changes in selection criteria is a disturbing indictment of Generals and Generalship. It should have stabilised over the 65 years it has been around but hasn’t, and is open to manipulation instead of being a by-word for transparency and fair play. The silver lining? Reform is under way. • Too many Generals: The Army is not just short of 13,100 officers but is intriguingly over-staffed in senior ranks. A comparison with the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) staffing pattern is instructive. IDF has just one Lieutenant General, sixteen Brigadiers and forty Brigadier-Generals for all three services. The Indian Army; almost fourteen times the IDF had in 2010, 67 (Inspector Generals), 216 (Lieutenant Generals), 216 (Major Generals) and 866 Brigadiers with many more in the pipeline. This staffing is almost double the IDF norm; sending wrong signals to the environment and degrading standards.

Dissent

How should Service Chiefs express dissent to Government? Recent occurrences have severely vitiated the military-civil interface. The Gold Standard example that Indian Generals could look at is that displayed by General SHFJ Manekshaw, faced with what he considered unviable orders from his Prime Minister, he privately expressed his angst to her on the enabling circumstances for launching the 1971 Indo-Pak war and won her respect and approval for his tact and content. US General George Marshall who headed the World War II allied war effort, acquiesced with President Roosevelt, his political boss, on prioritisation of war effort even though he disagreed. Events later proved Roosevelt right, thereby, proving that the military mind isn’t always right on issues of war fighting as war is political in nature. •

Quality of life: It is an established fact

www.geopolitics.in

•

that serious quality of life issues separate the Generals from his subordinates and not too many Generals are taking concrete and visible steps to narrow the yawning gap. With over a 1000 suicides amongst enlisted men in the main, since 2003, and increasing numbers seeking early release, the issue is serious. Low Intensity Conflict Operations (LICO): This span externally aided terror and internally fuelled insurgency and has extracted a huge price out of the Army, which finds itself murderously straitjacketed, over-committed, under-staffed and under-resourced besides facing public ire. By its nature, this war is a decentralised; a small unit war. By implication, those who command such wars at senior levels are often at odds with younger officers who either learn from mistakes, die from them, get maimed, or cover up if such is the senior officers’ demand. These differing perceptions leave a trust void between leaders and led. Professional Military Education (PME): Induction at officer entry Academies, and training at Army Schools of Instruction is another key issue. This author had examined in clinical detail, the rot in which our premier training academies are engulfed with in an article titled Grim Portents in November 2011 issue of Geopolitics. The broad message was that we continue with antiquated selection and training norms that were current 60 years ago but today stand exposed as grossly inadequate for meeting the challenges of the modern battlefield. Grim Portents had suggested a radical revamp; establishment of oversight by appointing an ombudsman and getting the mind-numbing ‘physicality out of the syllabus, especially its unauthorised, unscheduled and destructive ‘off-parade’ avatar. Nothing much has changed, in spite, the NDA facing problems now regularly in media glare. It is equally regrettable that the military’s focus during most courses in terms of intellectual development stops at linear exams and memory testing rather than educating young minds to “think out of the tactical box”. When ‘liberal’ education is finally allowed the officer is already templated… A case of too little, too late.

(52)

•

Quo Vadis: The Army’s Training Command (ARTRAC), which was created on the US pattern to upgrade the Army’s training remains firmly and pathetically anchored in outdated norms. This has resulted in creating a well trained but hardly well educated Army which can respond to an ever changing battle scenario with aplomb, efficiency and balance. Most training establishments under ARTRAC are, of course, headed by Generals. Misdirected Media criticism: While the military does not expect or encourage media to get ‘embedded’ in the US manner, it is taken aback at the endless diatribes that especially the television medium and some ‘committed’ experts from diverse academic, media and sometimes service backgrounds hold forth on all aspects of the three services. They (the TV medium leading) regularly savage the uniformed forces with innuendos and insinuations which have often been proved false or hyped. While the media watch-dog role is necessary and keeps the forces on their toes, excess negative reportage and absence of balanced reportage that seeks to understand why things happen the way they do, has started affecting the morale of the mainstream Army; hardly a desired development in a country whose Armed Forces, man for man compare with the world’s best.

Recommendations

Conventional armies the world over are in the vice-like grip of rapidly changing war fighting scenarios; exploding knowledge bases of especially the younger generation that grew up with new media and have mastered its intricacies far more than those who are now Generals. Couple that with growing aspirations and more combat experience of the young than their seniors and you have a lethal cocktail of either potentially world class leaders or fall-outs who have the potential to implode if not mentored right. America’s senior leadership problems are, with conditions attached India’s problems also and have been candidly portrayed as such. India’s special problems have also been highlighted. Seen with detachment, it is clear that the problems affecting Generals and Generalship in the Indian context are serious and should not be disregarded. On the contrary, the Gov-

May 2013

g INTERNALSECURITY COVERSTORY

POLITICAL COMPULSIONS FACING GENERALSHIP

n Sunday morning, September 16, 1990, I opened my front door and retrieved the Washington Post off my front porch. Before I got back inside, I saw the headline “US to Rely on Air Strikes if War Erupts.” I read through the article, my anger rising. During the hours of plane interviews, Dugan1 had apparently talked to journalists about specific targets we would hit if war came-Saddam personally, his family, and his mistress. He’d talked about numbers and types of aircraft deployed in the region, declared ‘air power’ to be “the only answer that’s available to our country” if we wanted to avoid a bloody land war, and said the American public would support the operation in the Gulf-”until body bags come home” I called Scowcroft2, who was scheduled to be on CBS’s Face the Nation in a few hours. He would be asked about the story. We agreed that Brent would make clear Dugan did not speak for the administration. Then I left and went for a walk alongside the C&O Canal to cool down. A few hours later, back at home, I read the piece again. And I got angry again. I picked up the phone and called the president at Camp David. He was on the tennis court, but when he called back a short while later, I told him I had decided I might have to relieve General Dugan based on his comments in the piece. The president said I should do what I needed to do, and he would back me up. I did not take the prospect of firing the Air Force chief of staff lightly. Dugan was a good man with a distinguished career, who had been in his job less than three

months. But he had displayed terrible judgement. I worried that if I tolerated what he had done, other generals would step out of bounds, and as the nation prepared for the prospect of war, I couldn’t tolerate loose cannons in senior ranks. I made notes on the article and a list of the most serious problems arising from what Dugan had done. I decided I would call Dugan in and ask him whether the news stories were accurate. If they were, I would relieve him. I asked Joe Lopez3 to have Dugan report to my office at eight the next morning. Just before eight I met with my deputy Don Atwood and General Powell4. I told them I planned to relieve Dugan. I think Powell was surprised. He knew Dugan had made a mistake in sharing so much information with the press, but I don’t think he believed I would fire Dugan over it. He didn’t object. He left my office, but I wanted a witness in the room and asked Atwood to remain. General Dugan came in and took a seat. I went through the major points in the articles and asked the general if he’d been accurately quoted. He said he had. I told him I needed his resignation by the end of the day. He took it like a man, saluted smartly, and left. I placed another call to the president to inform him that I had indeed relieved General Dugan. I recommended General Tony McPeak5, an F-15 pilot, as Dugan’s replacement, and in short order the president nominated him and the Senate confirmed him. Some days later, McPeak

introduced me to a group of retired air force four-stars. “This is Secretary of Defence Dick Cheney,” he said. “He wasn’t the president’s first choice, either.” —Excerpts from Dick Cheney’s IN MY TIME: A Personal and Political memoir (Richard Bruce ‘Dick’ Cheney was the 46th Vice President of the United States from 2001 to 2009, under President George W Bush. He was the Secretary of Defence during the presidency of George H W Bush, holding the position for the majority of Bush’s term from 1989 to 1993. During his time in the Department of Defence, Cheney oversaw the 1991 Operation Desert Storm, among other actions.)

ernment has a national obligation to set Military Reform Commission to improve and synergise the core systems which can provide us quality Generals and thereby, Generalship across the Services. In his well written 2005 biography of twelve Generals, Major General VK Singh (Retd) showed that India has its quota of war tested and experienced Generals who command respect and always will. This author is aware of recent, radical HR efforts by the Army to improve our officer personnel management. He is also well versed with some dedicated senior field commanders who lead by example and wannabe Generals who are

top-class. Any effort, therefore, to paint the entire General officer cadre black is clearly a case of over-reaction and lack of ground knowledge as well as basic research by ‘experts’of which we have a few. This is unfortunate. In the final analysis, the General JFC Fuller formulation for great generals—courage, creative intelligence and physical fitness remains quite a few Indian Army General Officers credo, though many more are needed. Add to that the quality of what General Wavell called ‘privileged irascibility’, by which he meant that controlled ‘outbursts’ of temper are often admired, even expected of great leaders, and his final, hard learnt

point of “being able to communicate well with political superiors” and you have core DNA that makes great Generals. Our Generals will be well served to combine these attributes with the timeless ethic of ‘Service before Self’ (not the other way around) and Naam, Namak, Nishan (Honour, Salt, Flag). All that is left is to be a Mai-Baap (Mother-cum-Father) for subordinates; a message so universal and transparent that it needs no amplification. This deadly combo will certainly guarantee us the elusive Victory in War that all nations yearn for.

www.geopolitics.in

(54)

1. General Michael J. Dugan was the Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force for 79 days in 1990 and was dismissed by United States Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney after telling reporters that the US military planned to target Saddam Hussein, his family, and even his mistress in the Gulf War with Iraq. 2. Brent Scowcroft was the United States National Security Advisor under US Presidents Gerald Ford and George H W Bush. 3. Admiral Thomas Joseph Lopez, a retired United States Navy four star admiral who served as Commander in Chief, U.S. Naval Forces Europe/Commander in Chief, Allied Forces Southern Europe from 1996 to 1998. 4. Colin Luther Powell was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under US President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, the first African American to serve in that position. 5. Merrill Anthony ‘Tony’ McPeak was the 15th Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force. He replaced General Michael J. Dugan.

The author is a retired Major General

May 2013

geopolitics

INTERNAL SECURITY

CYBER THREAT ARE WE READY?

Cyber Terror poses a formidable challenge to global security and economic stability.

B R I E F S DELHI FALLS SHORT OF WOMEN COPS



In a move to upgrade Maharashtra prisons, Home Minister RR Patil has given his consent to the proposal of installing ATMs in prisons across the state. The state government is set to provide SBI ATM services in Yerwada Jail, Pune Jail and Central jail in Nagpur. The ministry has assured the bank that the police would be responsible for security. The government will make land available to banks to set up the machines and deposit rent received to the family welfare funds in each prison.

N R WASAN NEW DIRECTOR GENERAL OF NIA



NIA has appointed senior IPS officer NR Wasan as its new Director General. Wasan, a 1980 batch Andhra cadre officer, was presently serving as the additional Director General of the NIA. He was appointed after incumbent DG S C Sinha moved to the NHRC. He will hold charge until a regular DG, NIA, is appointed, or until further orders. Before being appointed Additional DG (NIA), he was OSD in Andhra Pradesh Bhawan, New Delhi.

www.geopolitics.in

H C TIWARI



NIGHT VISION GEAR FOR REBELS



J&K POLICE AT INDO-NEPAL BORDER



After Liyaqat Ali Shah controversy, the government is set to deploy Jammu and Kashmir Police personnel along with the Sashastra Seema Bal on the Indo-Nepal border to streamline the surrender of former militants. As part of the J&K government’s rehabilitation policy, the government is now set to make the Nepal border route official. The MHA is now planning to frame standard operating procedures for the surrender of former militants, after consulting J&K, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Delhi governments. J&K Police personnel will be posted at 15 points along the border and will be responsible for escorting the former militants to Kashmir.

The National Investigation Agency investigating the case of night vision equipment being procured by left wing ultras has taken a curious turn. NIA has neither found any evidence nor has it been established that seized cartons of night vision equipment recently procured were headed to the red corridor. The company, however, has been found to have forged letters in Jharkhand government’s name to procure the consignment. The NIA FIR has charged the company with waging war against the country apart from cheating and forgery. NIA now suspects that someone from the government may have a role in this case. The ministry of home affairs had recommended import of passive night vision goggles and night vision device with goggle worth `32.5 lakh through the company in end-2011 and it was also approved by Director General of Foreign Trade.

NEW LEAVE POLICY FOR PARA-MILITARY MEN CRPF

ATMS IN MAHARASHTRA PRISONS

Delhi Police faces a shortage of women cops after the December 16, 2012 gang-rape. The Home Ministry had proposed that each of the capital’s 180 police stations should have nine women personnel after the gruesome gang-rape. A proposal for recruiting 3,000 women personnel in the force has already been sent to the ministry. Delhi Police has a strength of 85,000 of which around 5,700 are women. Delhi has 87 women inspectors as compared to 1,313 men and 265 women sub-inspectors in the force out of 44,945 sub-inspectors. In 2003, Delhi Police made it mandatory that all women-related crime cases should have at least one woman investigator.

J&K POLICE

INTERNAL SECURITY



The government introduced a new leave policy to overcome rising suicide rates in the Central Armed Police Forces. The new leave policy will ensure that jawans are treated fairly against rising stress-related issues. In the last two months 14 personnel ended their lives due to personal problems. According to a Home Ministry figure, nearly 352 para-military men killed themselves since 2010. Suicide cases were mainly due to the mental illness, marital discord, depression and in few cases suicide was triggered due to work-related stress. 1,483 personnel of the CRPF and 997 in the BSF have resigned from the service in the past five years.

(56)

May 2013

FIRST WOMAN SPECIAL DG FOR CRPF

5.33% WOMEN IN POLICE FORCES



Women constitute only 5.33 per cent of police forces despite growing demands for more representation. As per the Home Ministry statistics, there are only 84,479 women out of 15,85,117 personnel working in state police forces. Besides, there are just 499 all-women police stations in the country out of a total 15,000 stations. Uttar Pradesh has 2,586 women police personnel which is 1.49 per cent of the total 1,73,341 personnel while

Bihar has 1,485 policewomen (2.18 per cent) in Bihar out of the total 67,964 police personnel. Madhya Pradesh, where the highest number of rapes took place in 2011, has 3,010 policewomen (3.93 per cent) out of the 76,506 personnel. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Chandigarh have fairly better statistics of 14.89 per cent, 10.57 per cent and 13.48 per cent of women police personnel respectively while Delhi has 7.13 per cent policewomen.

NAXALITES SET UP MILITARY SCHOOL



Naxalites have setup their own training institute in the forests of Dandakaranya, to transform tribals into professionals equipped to handle tasks related to the Central Committee. The Buniyadi Communist Training School (BCTS), a brainchild of CPI (Maoist) top gun Ganapathy, has been churning out professionally-trained Communists since 2009 with basic military skills and knowledge of hindi, social studies, mathematics and science. BCTS is said to have trained around 150 cadres so far.

MHA’S SMART CARD PROJECT



Ministry of Home Affair’s Resident Identity Card (RIC) may be further delayed due to the turf war between the UIDAI and the MHA. The Group of Ministers (GoM) formed to apprise the Cabinet on the National Population Register and Aadhaar is yet to decide on discussing the security implications of the proposed smart card with RIC officials. In its first meeting, the GoM was informed that Aadhaar was not a card but only a number and the RIC was the legal identity card.

www.geopolitics.in

(CRPF) has three sanctioned posts for SDG and two of these have been lying vacant for close to four months. At present, in the officers’ rank, the force has four women Deputy Inspectors General and an equal number of commandants.

CMS GAVE A MISS TO SHINDE’S MEETING

PIB

J&K POLICE



Country’s largest paramilitary force CRPF has appointed senior IPS officer Aruna Bahuguna as the new Special Director General. She has become the first woman officer to hold the second top post in the hierarchy of the force. She was till now serving as the Chairman of the AP police housing corporation. The Central Reserve Police Force



A chief ministers’ meeting that was being viewed as an attempt to hear views on the suggestions in the “Fifth Report on Public Order of Second Administrative Reform Commission” was skipped

by most of the chief ministers this April. Only seven chief ministers attended the meeting. The conference also saw chief ministers taking on the government over the issue of intrusion into their domain since law and order was a state subject. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who usually attends the chief ministers’ conference, was also absent along with some Congress chief ministers of Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

PRIVATE CHOPPERS FOR ANTI-NAXAL OPERATIONS



CRPF will soon use private choppers for anti-naxal operations. It has already floated bids to hire private choppers after several runins with the IAF. CRPF will, however, assume no responsibility if the choppers come under fire from insurgents. In a bid document, CRPF has specified to hire two private choppers for “supervisory

(57)

INTERNAL SECURITY

SVPNPA

B R I E F S

reconnaissance by senior officers” besides carrying troops, supplies like weapons and rations and casualty evacuation. However, the responsibility of the chopper’s safety will rest on the private company. The choppers are to be stationed at Jagdalpur in Chhattisgarh and Ranchi in Jharkhand but may be used in other naxalaffected states.

May 2013

SMILING TIGER, SPYING DRAGON Internet is the final frontier in this digital age and you no longer need to conquer and occupy other countries physically. In today’s scenario, control the infrastructure remotely through telecommunications and you can control the country. While cyber snooping isn’t new, methodical and systematic stealing and infection through Chinese manufactured hardware is giving India a big headache these days, writes DEEPA KANDASWAMY

ndia may claim to be a software superpower but increasingly it is being perceived as a soft power smiling tiger, a trusting people. It is this weakness which Chinese power and telecom companies have exploited. By selling India cheap power and telecommunication hardware—modems, mobiles, routers, optic fibre cables, power equipment, etc. they have managed to infiltrate India’s electrical and telecommunications network, especially BSNL and some private Indian players. While the world is focussing on Blackberry, India has ignored the security concerns of RAW

www.geopolitics.in

and other Indian security agencies, especially after Chinese cyber spies managed to steal sensitive documents from computers of Indian embassies, Indian Ministry of Defence, the PMO office in 2009. The Chinese also attacked the Indian Navy data centre in 2012 by incorporating virus through USB drives. The latest cyber attack by China was on the DRDO in March 2013. According to the technical intelligence wing NTRO (National Technical Research Organisation), a file was attacked to hack the email accounts of senior DRDO officials that quickly spread through the system in a

(58)

matter of seconds. Indian cyber security experts discovered thousands of top secret Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) files and other documents related to surface-to-air missile and radar programmes from DRDL, a DRDO lab based in Hyderabad, among many other establishments. As security experts began to track its origin, they discovered that all the sensitive files stolen from the infected systems were being uploaded on a server in Guangdong province of China. It may be noted that the Second World War expanded the war to three fronts: land, water and air. During the Gulf War,

May 2013

g INTERNALSECURITY

the war was fought from land, water, air and space—through remotely-controlled missiles. Land warfare or mortal combat has become outdated and is now relegated to the movies and hopefully in future, wars will be fought in cyberspace. Cyber armies and cyber spies are being trained by West and China. But thanks to its huge population, cheap manufacturing capabilities, the Chinese have a trained army of over 180,000 in cyber warfare; over 30,000 of them being cyber spies. Chinese made hardware—cheap and filled with malware—pose strategic threats to India and the world.

www.geopolitics.in

This is a very real threat and Chinese have proved they can attack anyone anywhere remotely first through the ‘Ghost Net’ operation—Chinese hackers have been stealing and modifying information in 103 countries worldwide including India. How do they do this? All Chinese made electrical and telecom equipment have ‘call home chips’ and software embedded in them. This can be directly manipulated from China. Not long ago, British Intelligence published a report saying that one of the major strategic threats the UK faced was the ability of the Chinese to shut down Britain by crippling its communications and utility networks remotely and demanded they replace Huawei manufactured equipment with locallymade equipment as the internet was riddled with Chinese traps: these are usually websites that appear to be critical of China. When you click on such links, malware is automatically downloaded onto your computer. Following the Ghostnet investigation by Canadian researchers, these researchers also produced a report titled, “Shadows in the Cloud: An investigation Into Cyberespionage 2.0”. The report dealt almost exclusively with how China has managed to infiltrate India and the Indian focus on the cyber spy ring in China. The India-focused spy ring in China has used a simple way to infiltrate Indian government, corporations, media and influential individuals. They send a simple email with a link on which you are asked to click. Once you do that, malware is downloaded on to the computer and it progresses to steal and transmit documents even when the computer is switched off. Secondly, in case, you are smart enough not to click on the links, they use social networking sites like Twitter, Blogs, Yahoo! Mail and Google Groups to infect computers apart from telecommunications and broadband network in India that run on Chinese-made hardware. Thirdly, Chinese have taken advantage of a rule we have in giving contracts —a foreign company cannot establish a presence in an area of India where they share a physical boundary. So, Chinese companies cannot establish factories in North India but can do so in South India as it is in a region where we don’t share the boundary with China. So, companies like Huawei and Zhongxing Telecom Co Ltd (ZTE), especially Huawei whose PLA and Chinese intelligence contacts are well

(59)

established, have been able to set up shop in the heart of Silicon Valley of India: Bengaluru. During 2004-2008, when the UPA government was dependent on Left support for survival, Chinese companies’ products were rushed through, at times violating laws of security like ban on sale of mobile phones without IMEI numbers in India. These phones were bought by local private operators and sold under their own brand names. BSNL bought broadband modems and routers made by Huawei with Sterlite Industries and installed them all over India. By 2007, when RAW and other agencies began to express security concerns, further contract allotments was delayed with some excuse or the other by the UPA government. The Indian government also warned private players not to sell Chinese-made electronic or power equipment under their own names. But the damage had already been done as BSNL and others did not replace the already-installed equipment in government offices and embassies worldwide immediately. Only from 2009, when the PMO office incident happened, did the government begin to take the security threat seriously. In January 2010, the Indian Navy stopped the installation of a Chinese-made radar system imported by the Indian Meteorological Department for real-time monsoon predictions. The Navy was concerned about allowing Chinese technicians to be present in sensitive zones. Intelligence Bureau (IB) had warned the Indian government about installing foreign, especially Chinese-made, telecommunications equipment in military equipment. The Indian government responded by seeking an explanation from Huawei and ZTE and asked them to allay their security concerns! In May 2010, a report in The Wall Street Journal stated that “India has given Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp. one month to disclose full details of their ownership, concerned that foreign telecom equipment makers, mainly from China, are a national security threat as they can have spying technology embedded in their equipment”. While Huawei’s initial reaction was to rubbish the concern, now they claim they will allay the concern of Indians by establishing a hardware factory in Chennai. With this announcement, the Indian government was somehow mollified about the secu-

May 2013

SOURCE: KASPERSKY LAB

rity concerns and announced they would deal with Huawei again—the same company the Obama administration refused to allow inside the US for security reasons! Most Indian CEOs from the IT and Telecom sector are completely ignorant of cyber-attacks and security risks posed by hardware. Almost all politicians—young and old—are ignorant of the security implications of cyber warfare. In March 2010, while Sachin Pilot (Minister of State, Telecom & IT) agreed that government computers and government networks had been attacked by Chinese, he rubbished claims about stealing of sensitive documents as “not one attempt has been successful”. Did he expect the document

www.geopolitics.in

to vanish for good, so he would know something had been stolen? Way back in 2005, the Prime Minster rubbished the danger posed by Chinese companies in their participation in infrastructure projects like power and ports. In 2009, he learnt differently with the cyberattack of the PMO and now with the attack on the DRDO, but in the past decade, sometimes it had to be incidents of death that convinced politicians that cheap hardware and cyber warfare are real dangers. Like the SEPCO accident in Chhattisgarh, when the chimney being built at Bharat Aluminum Company Ltd by Shandong Electric Power Construction Corp. (SEPCO) collapsed and claimed 41 lives.

(60)

Many Left-leaning Indian politicians saw it as a conspiracy to help Western companies gain lucrative contacts while banishing the Chinese! In 2006, when Chinese were barred from participating in a deep water port project in Kerala after Indian security agencies raised concerns about Chinese participation, Communist Party of India (Marxist) objected to this. In 2011, the then Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, during his China trip, rubbished the fears of Indian intelligence agencies and the Home Ministry for imposing, what he described as, needless restrictions and for being paranoid about Chinese investments and said, “We are imagining demons where there are none.”

May 2013

g INTERNALSECURITY

cards made by ZTE (formerly Zhongxing Telecommunication Equipment Corporation) which is cheap and popular in India. This pollutes the network and spreads the malware. Interestingly, the maximum number of free laptops has been procured from Lenovo, another Chinese company. So, security concerns here have been compromised.

Some common questions that can be raised are:

OPERATION RED OCTOBER

Victims of adVanced cyberespionage network This, despite the theft of sensitive documents in 2009 and 2010 in Indian embassies and Indian DRDO and PMO office. These ill-informed statements show how ignorant politicians are to our cyber security concerns. Apart from this, politicians promise election freebies like free laptops in states such as Tamil Nadu. While the company is chosen by Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu Limited (ELCOT) through the auction process and it is students who get free laptops, no security checks are run on them. Even if it contains malware, the problem begins only when students connect it to the net either by using existing network connections or obtaining data

www.geopolitics.in

1) What were classified documents doing on computers that were linked to the internet? Why aren’t classified documents kept on computers with no networking, no ports or disk drives? Isn’t this a lapse of Indian security system? The answer is simple—when something is just starting, no one decides it is classified. This happens much later, also at some point of the transfer of a file it will be shared across a network. For example, a professor in NIT gets a project for upgrading the design of a missile. His research may go into the classified folder stored on a department server, but it does not mean this information is entirely secure. So, if one has enough people to consistently cyber stalk a particular individual like the Chinese do, it is possible. 2) Is India indulging in protectionism as China welcomes Indian companies, especially IT companies? Not exactly. China allows FDI and operations in 359 locations inside China. Also, Chinese have only recently allowed Indian IT companies and that too only in places like Shanghai which are zero sensitive. Foreigners can travel to only around 1000 specified destinations inside China. This is completely unlike India. Indian companies cannot and don’t operate in Tibet, Xinjiang or the Sichuan province where most of the Chinese military establishments are located. Secondly, the Chinese require that Indian IT companies in China confine their business to offices of Western multinationals and don’t allow us access into Chinese markets. They deter Indian companies from entering the Chinese market place by making it extremely expensive for foreign companies that make no business sense to provide services or indulge in infrastructure projects in China. So, India is not indulging in protectionism while China is doing so. 3) How can cybercrimes and snooping be possible when the computer or

(61)

modem is switched off? This is where the malicious software (malware) comes in as it does the job even when it is off and transmits once it is turned on. After all, since computers cannot operate without software, we would be using it without our knowledge. While it is stupid to rubbish the concerns of Indian intelligence as overcautious, it is important that we do something about it. Can we fight the spying dragon? Yes. We need a cyber warfare policy along with privacy and security policy implemented on the ground. We have set up a cybercrime division and have some cybercrime laws. The Indian Navy has a cyber-warrior division in the offing after they were attacked in 2012 and police have cybercrime divisions. But we have a long way to go as we don’t have the hardware or expertise at which western and Chinese cyber spies operate. This is not because we lack the capability but we do lack the will. We don’t even demand that Yahoo, Google and other IT majors operating in India, apart from social networking sites, protect us by treating our privacy the same way they do in other parts of the world. In the West, one can opt out from the company’s ability to sell private data to others. Other than that, we can start by taking simple precautions by starting with replacing all Chinese made telecom, computer and power instruments with our own. This means heavy Indian investment in hardware, which is worthwhile as it will be also an investment into our security and will provide employment to thousands of young people. We need to develop a good hacker community if we don’t want India in a fire sale. We need to refuse permission for Chinese made hardware or Chinese subsidiary companies made hardware to be sold in telecom, computer and power sectors. Our networks need to be free from malware. Private Indian players should face life time ban if they don’t replace hardware that are foreign made, especially Chinese, Russian or American. We need to train our own cyber warriors, cyber spies monitoring networks and have a strong cybercrime division so action can be swift. Where there is will, we’ll find a way. The author, a senior journalist, specialises in security issues

May 2013

INDIA NEEDS A NEW INTEL MINDSET

A decentralised approach to intelligence will yield better results when tracking and hunting down an enemy made up of cells and operating via cyberspace, globalised finance, familial links and tactical alliances with other criminal and terrorist networks, argues SAURAV JHA

ureaucracies don’t fight networks. Networks fight networks. This is a lesson that the Indian intelligence setup needs to imbibe to defeat terrorist, insurgent and other anti-state activities both within and beyond the country’s borders. Given the wide ‘distractions’ available in the world today, intelligence bureaucracies are now quite susceptible to single point failure issues. The old issue of extended response times is likely to get worse in a bureaucratic setup given the rising complexity of human society itself. Top down command and control setups will increasingly find themselves hard

www.geopolitics.in

pressed to respond to the rapidly morphing and temporary alliance making adversaries that are extant today. In a world characterised by nuclear deterrence network superiority is the key. After being defeated decisively by India in the World War II style conflict in 1971 and losing half their country, Pakistani planners decided to go nuclear. Proven fission designs like the CHIC-4 handed down by the Chinese gave Pakistan the spine to try its hand at more limited wars. However, the Indian military defeated Pakistani attempts in this sphere also, as both the Siachen clashes and Kargil have shown to the world. But even as the Paki-

(62)

stani Army was trying to hone its ‘limited war’ model, its Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) along with the Central Intelligence Agency of the US was incubating Islamist terror for use against the Soviet Union. After the Soviets left Afghanistan, Pakistan began to expand its new core competence and has now extended these networks beyond Kashmir to the rest of India under a nuclear overhang. Today, Pakistan is a state which excels in creating networked criminal terrorist entities that try to get the funding for antiIndia activities from Indian soil. In many ways nuclear-derived terrorism is the most ingenious export of Pakistan since

May 2013

g DIPLOMACY

it came into existence. Of course, building troublesome networks is easier than combating them as the recent Pakistani experience itself shows. But then that is cold comfort for India. Even as India strengthens strategic deterrence, asymmetric attempts at undermining Indian state authority seem to be multiplying. Unfortunately, however, the government of the day seems to be responding by multiplying bureaucracies as evidenced by the setting up of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), post 26/11-attack on Mumbai. While ostensibly created to unburden other agencies and fast track terror investigations, we have, in the NIA yet another undermanned agency looking to justify its budget. Apparently, even in the recent Hyderabad case, where jackets saying ‘NIA’ were quite visible, the agency was given charge of the proceedings with some reluctance, even though it does have a field office in Hyderabad. But then that brings us back to the same issue. What purpose will new agencies structured similarly to other agencies with the same old muddle of branch offices, paperwork and cadre achieve? Not that much by way of prevention. And by prevention we mean the minimisation of mass casualty terror attacks on Indian soil and not merely claims about neutralised cells. Of course, over time

www.geopolitics.in

new agencies too will become adept at post-event blame trading through selective leaks to the media, besides playing the usual intra-agency ‘secretariat games’ once again aided and abetted by friends in the media. In any case, the ‘groupthink’ syndrome afflicting Indian agencies is a direct result of the fact that the officers are very literally drawn from the same group —the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) services. It is high time that civilian Indian agencies started drawing more people from the military and directly recruiting the necessary talent from the private sector. One must not forget that this is how the legendary RN Kao built up Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) into a formidable organisation during his watch. Of course, R&AW has overtime gone the Intelligence Bureau (IB) way and is becoming yet another police heavy intelligence agency. The state of affairs unfolding today is not just a question of playing out turf battles. Indian intelligence is facing an enemy that likes to divide itself up into rapidly replaceable nodes who blur the line between criminal and terrorist activity rather easily these days. While their ‘mother’ organisations make strategic alliances with crime networks involved in everything from intellectual property theft to human trafficking (the latter being particularly useful for cross border terror) the nodes make their own tactical alliances to engage in criminal entrepreneurship, masking their ultimate objectives. Although truth be told, the terror organisations of today, given their own desire for sustainability, increasingly seem keen to maximise influence and power beyond any one or two simplistic political ends. This would be particularly true of an organisation like the Lashkar-eToiba, for instance. Making the net-centric approach to orchestrating terror simple is the massive rise in telecommunications capability across the world, leading to the ‘discovery’ of the required counterparty almost virtually. Recruitment too has become easy, as has radicalisation. The biggest facilitator of terrorist activity, however, has been the increasing financialisation of the world economy with the rise of offshore banking, tax havens and lax regulation. All that a terrorist or criminal organisation today needs to start moving illicit money

(63)

through seemingly above board channels is for one bank to agree to route an initial transaction. Naturally, a horizontally structured terrorist organisation is likely to be dispersed enough to find weak links without themselves exposing their own networks elsewhere that easily. However, the money trail eventually leads to superfixers and brokers embedded within our very own society who help terrorist networks ‘jump the wires’ as it were. Without the contacts of these superfixers, who may, otherwise, occupy very respectable positions, terrorist financing and movement would not be half as easy. They are the ones who enrich themselves by facilitating in situ terrorist financing from Indian soil. It is the emergence of these superfixers that makes hierarchical government bureaucracies particularly vulnerable. Given that the intelligence cycle in our current structure ultimately leads to the concentration of decision making, brokers can much more easily obtain the necessary results by simply corrupting a senior official and causing single point failure. The worst part is that the compromised government functionary may not even realise who the broker is representing, given the latter’s diverse interests. On the other hand, the broker may actually also get away because of the great deal of ‘political intelligence’ he or she possesses. After all, the same channels that launder money from the narcotics trail can also be used to do the same from political kickbacks. This is where de-politicising India’s current intelligence setup assumes the most urgent importance. There has to be some degree of separation between the executive and the work of the intel- community to ensure that issues related to say, vote bank politics, do not get in the way of the fight against terror. Identifying the super-middlemen as it were and getting levers on them, however, requires that the intelligence agencies themselves adopt a network centric approach and start building deep ties with the private sector and between themselves at every level. A decentralised approach to intelligence will yield results when tracking and hunting down an enemy made up of cells and operating via cyberspace, globalised finance, familial links and tactical alliances with other criminal and terrorist networks. When the enemy breaks into

May 2013

FRAIL INTELLIGENCE NETWORK The 25 intelligence and security agencies in the Multi Agency Centre have held over 1,000 meetings since January 1, 2009, but have not been very effective.

PMO/CABINETSECRETARIAT Research and Analyses Wing (RAW) National Technical Research Org. (NTRO) Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC)

MULTI AGENCY CENTRE Nodal centre for all intelligence on terrorism

MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS Railway Protection Force (RPF)

HOME MINISTRY Intelligence Bureau (IB) National Investigation Agency (NIA) National Security Guard (NSG) Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Border Security Force (BSF) Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Central Industrial Security Bal (SSB) Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) Assam Rifles

MINISTRY OF FINANCE Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) Central Economic Intelligence Bureau (CEIB) Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) Directorate of Enforcement (ED) Directorate of Income Tax Intelligence (DITI)

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) Military Intelligence (MI) Directorate of Naval Intelligence (DNI) Directorate of Air Intelligence (DAI) Coast Guard

nodes, it is better to do the same for tracking him. Naturally, this will lead to a very different kind of intelligence cycle but it will also increase the possibilities for direct action though ground level coordination with small teams of law enforcement agencies. Moreover, none of the smaller nodes will know ‘enough’ to comprehend the larger picture. An analyst piecing it together would, but then they are the ones most closely monitored by counter-intelligence anyway. Such an approach will also give India a bigger bang for the buck for its intelligence rupees. At the moment the economics of the intelligence war clearly favours the terrorists given that the funding and time required for planning terrorist strikes has reduced dramatically owing to the societal changes already discussed. On the other hand, India’s intelligence agencies (to be fair in other countries as well) seem consumed by the need to source ever superior technical intelli-

www.geopolitics.in

gence gathering tools and fund liaison trips to overcome the usual lament about inadequate training. It is now time to discard this approach to create human resources. Naturally, training needs to be updated, but the fact is creating a ‘cadre’ will not address the clear and present danger of terrorist networks in any reasonable timeframe. Intelligence agencies are better off using their resources, getting the necessary talent from the private sector by tapping individuals, forums and enterprises that are already in the game because the terrorist footprint today essentially involves leveraging the rise of the techno-commercial sector. And it is not about spreading the change. Given that private corporations are the first to be probed by criminal terrorist activity and affected by even things such as contractor kidnappings which could be a terror financing source, they would have a vested interest in safeguard-

(64)

ing themselves. It is up to the Indian intelligence setup to convince them that it is better to cooperate. Interestingly, the way a terrorist organisation keeps control of its nodes is essentially ideological. Yes, many youth may be attracted by money but there is no denying that ideological orientation plays a major part. All wars are ultimately about doctrine. It is here that India’s intelligence community must fashion a doctrinaire which involves a move away from command and control to a collaborative framework that will attract patriotic Indian citizens towards contributing to national security as per their capacities. A national strategic doctrine will allow India’s intelligence community to move out of petty rivalries, become de-politicised and engender networks oriented towards a broad range of tasks. It is time that India articulates a Grand Strategy for the republic that will galvanise its people to create the networks needed for national security.

May 2013

geopolitics

diL maRoUSeF F President of Brazil

FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER

VL adimiR PUTin President of Russia

Will Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa be the harbingers of the change in the present structure of global power? manmoHanSingH Prime Minister of India

XingJin P ing President of China

JacobZUma President of South Africa

O N LO O K E R MARGARET THATCHER PASSES AWAY

Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century and is the only woman to have held the office. Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised deregulation (particularly of the financial sector), flexible labour markets, the privatisation of state owned companies, and reducing the power and influence of trade unions. Thatcher’s popularity during her first years in office waned amid recession and

high unemployment, until the 1982 Falklands War brought a resurgence of support, resulting in her re-election in 1983. British Prime Minister David Cameron said: “It was with great sadness that I learned of Lady Thatcher’s death. We’ve lost a great leader, a great Prime Minister and a great Briton”. American President Barack Obama said “With the passing of Baroness Margaret Thatcher, the world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend. Here in America, many of us will never forget her standing shoulder to shoulder with President Reagan, reminding the world that we are not simply carried along by the currents of history—we can

ITALIAN MINISTER RESIGNS ON MARINE ISSUE

Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi has resigned over his government’s decision to return the marines to India to face trial for the murder of local fishermen while on anti-piracy duty. The marines are facing trial over the shooting of two fishermen off the southern state of Kerala in February 2012

www.geopolitics.in

shape them with moral conviction, unyielding courage and iron will.” Thatcher died on the morning of April 8, 2013 in London after suffering a stroke. Details of Lady Thatcher’s funeral had been agreed with her in advance. In line with her wishes, she received a ceremonial funeral including military honours —similar to that of Winston Churchill—with a church service at St Paul’s Cathedral. It was held on April 17. The service was attended by Queen Elizabeth and 11 serving Prime Ministers from across the world. The Union flag at Downing Street and Buckingham Palace flew at half-mast as a sign of respect to her memory.

PUTIN FACES Former Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, criticised the laws adopted during Vladimir Putin’s third presidential term as “attacks on the rights of citizens” and advised the current Russian President to make adjustments to his regime. Gorbachev also criticised Putin’s inner circle as full of “thieves and corrupt officials,” who are nevertheless successful at maintaining him in power and reducing the risk of a coup or revolt. Gorbachev believes that the restrictive laws passed in recent times indicate that Putin “is tense and worried” about his capacity to maintain

TONY BLAIR FAULTS ED MILIBAND

when they were assigned to protect an Italian commercial tanker from pirates. Since the incident, India and Italy have been embroiled in an escalating row at a time when Rome is trying to secure a major deal to sell helicopters (AgustaWestland) to the Indian government. The marines were allowed home for Christmas, and then again to vote in the Italian elections in February, on condition they returned to India. On March 11, Italy said it would not send the marines back because Indian courts did not have jurisdiction over the incident, which Rome said occurred in international waters. But Italy reversed its position last week after New Delhi prevented the Italian ambassador from leaving the country.

In a veiled attack on his Labour Party Successor Ed Miliband, Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair who was in office from 19972007 and involved Britain in the unpopular invasion of Iraq, that ultimately helped end his political career - racked up a storm by saying that, the Labour party he led to three election victories was in danger of becoming a protest movement without electable policies. The statement is being regarded as his boldest foray into British politics since

(66)

resigning. In an article he wrote, Blair suggested the party looked like it was offering austerity-hit voters sympathy but few specific remedies before a 2015 general election. He wrote, “The scenario is more menacing than it seems.” He also wrote, “The guiding principle should be that we are the seekers after answers, not the repository for people’s anger.” As the conservative-led government pushes through spending cuts to welfare to try to cut a large public deficit, opposition Labour party has con condemned it for imposing hardship on those worse off in society. Blair’s comments have ruffled feathers in Labour ranks.

May 2013

O N LO O K E R BOSTON BOMBINGS CRITICISM power. Stressing that Putin should “not to be afraid of his own people,” Gorbachev highlighted the fact that what people want and expect is for “their president to restore an open, direct dialogue with them.” Gorbachev himself is not immune to criticism and is widely disliked in Russia for his role in dismantling the Soviet Union. In a 2012 opinion poll asking Russian citizens under whose rule Russia experienced positive development, Vladimir Putin came first, while Gorbachev came at the bottom, after Joseph Stalin.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has solved the Boston Marathon bombing by arresting Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, an ethnic Chechen from Russia while the other suspect, his elder brother Tamerlan, 26 was killed in a shootout. Preliminary interrogations with Tsarnaev indicate the two brothers fit the classification of self-radicalized jihadists. Tsarnaev has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction to kill, a crime that carries a possible death sentence. Suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev admitted that his elder brother was the driving force behind the attacks and that no international terrorist groups were behind them.US President Barack Obama has called the Boston Twin bombings the worst attack on US soil after the September 11, 2001 attacks —as an “act of terror”.

END TO MUSHARRAF’s DREAMS Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf returned to Pakistan after years of self-imposed exile—in hopes of reviving his political career and winning a seat at the National Assembly—was dealt a blow when he was arrested in connection with allegations of committing treason while in power. He was earlier forced to flee from a courtroom moments after judges ordered his arrest. His exit and arrest symbolised the diminished authority of a former Pakistani army chief who once dominated the nation’s political landscape. Earlier, his bid to make a triumphant comeback had garnered mass contempt throughout Pakistan. His hopes of contesting had sunk earlier when election officers barred him from contesting. His return to Pakistan also placed him at the mercy of the judiciary for whom the showdown of 2007 is still a raw wound.

KIM’s ACTIONS HEAT UP THE KOREAN PENINSULA

Kim Jong-Un succession to the leadership of North Korea had initially bought about hopes of peace in the Korean peninsula as he was thought to have a mild outlook in contrast to his late father. These hopes have been proved wrong as under his leadership, North Korea conducted its third nuclear test —said to be more powerful than the previous two. Under him, the country also successfully launched a rocket which was condemned globally as whispers spread that the North was developing a long-range ICBM. On March

www.geopolitics.in

29, 2013, Kim Jong-Un threatened the US by, “declaring that rockets were ready to be fired at American bases in the Pacific.” This declaration came in response to the B-2 flyby conducted by the US over the Korean Peninsula. The flyby also saw the North issue a belligerent threat, saying it has entered a ‘state of war’ with South Korea. Kim Jong-Un is also said to have signed off a plan on technical preparations of strategic rockets the Korean People’s Army, ordering them to be on standby. He also cancelled the armistice agreement that ended the Korean war. While Barack Obama called upon North Korea to end this aggressive approach, the US threatened to shoot down any North Korean missile.

(67)

PALESTINIAN PM FAYYAD QUITS Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad quit after months of tension with President Mahmoud Abbas. Fayyad, a former World Bank official, is credited with helping create institutions in the West Bank which would be needed if the Palestinians are to gain independence from Israel. The west expressed dismay since this turmoil comes at a time when the United States is making a concerted effort to revive peace negotiations with Israel and boost the local economy. Admired abroad, including Israel, Fayyad failed to build a strong political base within the Palestinian territories, leaving him vulnerable to attacks from Abbas’s Fatah party and the Islamist group Hamas, which governs Gaza.

May 2013

SMILING FACES: Leaders of the BRICS nations posing for photo in the just concluded Fifth BRICS Summit in Durban

The fifth BRICS Summit held in South Africa on March 27, 2013, has given rise to expectations. Will the member countries be able to set up more equalitarian and beneficial global institutions? Perhaps, not since there are some legitimate apprehensions, writes ASH NARAIN ROY www.geopolitics.in

TOWARDS A NEW INTERNATIONAL

s we step into the second decade of the 21st century and the international system, which was built after the Second World War and the one that emerged in the early years of the post-Communist world is nearly unrecognisable, thanks to the rise of emerging powers, a globalised economy and the new geometry of global power. The world is changing fast and so are its players. The transfer of global wealth and eco-

(68)

nomic power from the West to the East is without precedent in modern history. According to the UNDP 2013 Human Development Report, the combined output of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries will surpass the aggregate GDP of US, Canada and other European countries by 2020. In fact, the combined output of China, India and Brazil alone will surpass the combined figure for Canada, France, Germany, Italy,

May 2013

BRICS5’S PHOTOSTREAM

DIPLOMACY

SYSTEM UK and the US. The rise of the South, the UNDP Report adds, “is unprecedented in its speed and scale. Never in history have the living conditions and prospects of so many people changed so dramatically and so fast”. In a volume, The End of Power, Moisés Naím of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (US) writes how power within the geopolitical landscape is shifting from the West to the East and from the

www.geopolitics.in

North to the South and the shifting pattern is more than any other formation. There is a new swagger in the policy postures of the rising powers in BRICS. Their decision in the just-concluded fifth BRICS summit at Durban to establish a development bank has evoked scepticism in certain Western quarters and may set an alarm for others, as they are aware that the new bank, once fully operational, could easily rival the World Bank. By no accounts, any formation with combined foreign exchange reserves of about $4.5 trillion and a contingency reserve arrangement of $100 bn (` 5,50,000 crore approx.) to ensure the financial safety net for the member-countries can be taken lightly. It is BRICS’ first concrete step to challenge many of the international norms put in place after World War II, largely by the United States. The BRICS bank will have $50 billion (` 2,75,000 crore approx.) of seed capital shared equally between Bra-

(69)

zil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The bold move is the first concrete step towards building a new and more equitable world economic order.The reserve pool of central money would be available to emerging economies facing balance of payments difficulties. It is too early to say to what extent the BRICS development bank could erode the role of the World Bank and IMF. One thing, however, is clear: it will be extremely attractive to many developing countries that have had their fingers burnt while engaging with Western financial institutions. Ironically, it is South Africa, the ‘S’ in the alphabet soup, facing a balance of payments crisis, may find a lifeline in it. As the weakest BRICS member, South Africa stands to gain the most from the new development bank. No one expects BRICS to render Western financial institutions redundant. But even the IMF can’t ignore the saga of the emerging quintuplet. BRICS is the inevitable result of the global power shift. What is worrying, in the opinion of the Economist, is the fact that “the values that made it (West) great, have been sold on to the rest of the world”. The West “risks not the genteel decline of old age so much as collapse”, says British historian Niall Ferguson. But more importantly, the West would require to ask: are they prepared to lead the present world? BRICS has now been institutionalised. It has evolved from a mere economic concept into a multilateral cooperation mechanism. At a time when traditional donors’ aid budget seems to have frozen, BRICS has started pumping up foreign aid. Between 2005 and 2010, Brazil and India increased their foreign aid spending by more than 20 per cent. China and South Africa both upped their assistance by about 10 per cent. Russia, which had increased its own spending earlier in the decade, now is contributing about $500 million (` 2750 crore approx.)annually for development spending overseas. During the same period, US foreign aid budget grew by just 1.6 per cent. What is remarkable about BRICS’ rise is the speed. A projection made in 2008 by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that growth projections for Brazil, Russia, India and China indicated that they will “collectively match the original G7’s share of global GDP by 2040-50.” It further said that “the rising BRIC powers are unlikely to challenge the international

May 2013

g DIPLOMACY

REALITY CHECK BRICS was originally “BRIC” before the inclusion of South Africa in 2010.The acronym was essentially an economic idea that was propounded by Jim O Neill, Goldman Sachs senior economist, in a 2001 paper entitled, Building Better Global Economic BRICs. His essential point was that there would be a shift of the global economic power from the G-7 economies to these four countries. Later, the political overtones were added to the idea, the most important being that a successful BRICS would ensure democratisation of the global political power. BRICS have succeeded in making global headlines since then and more and more countries have been showing their interests to join the group. But, dispassionately seen, all its potentials that are being projected by its supporters may not actually materialise, if the present economic situations prevailing in the member countries are any indication. First, it is not a grouping of equals, so important for the success of any international ar-

rangement. The economy of China literally dwarfs the combined economies of other members. Second, much against the projections made before the current global recession, the economies of India, Brazil, Russia and South Africa are not doing all that well. Even, the rate of growth of the Chinese economy has slowed considerably in the last two years, and there are no visible symptoms of its quick recovery. As has been argued by Ruchir Sharma of the Morgan Stanley Investment, on average, the growth rate of Brazil, Russia and South Africa is likely to be around 2.5 per cent over the next few years. China’s growth rate has come down to 8 per cent from 11 per cent a couple of years ago. India will be happy to reach the 6 per cent mark of annual GDP growth. In fact, compared to the BRICS countries, Mexico and Chile in Latin America, Poland and Turkey in Europe, and Poland and Indonesia in Asia are doing much better economically and attracting more foreign investments. Against this background, in concrete

www.geopolitics.in

MEA

LEADING AHEAD: The BRICS nations are working towards a new financial institution that will be headed by BRICS member nations

terms, every member of the BRICS, contrary to its public postures, will like to link its economic with the US and US-related bodies. So much for emerging as an economic alternative! Similarly, the proposed BRICS development bank raises more questions than answers. With the possible exception of South Africa, whose ailing economy requires immediate foreign funds, neither Brazil nor India nor Russia will like this bank to be dominated by China. No wonder when China proposed in Durban that the bank may be seeded with a capital of $100 billion (` 5,50,000 crore Approx.) with China being its bulk contributor, India and Russia talked of a seed capital of $50 billion (` 2,75,000 crore Approx.)with equal contributions from each member. The latter’s opposition was understandable, because bigger contribution meant bigger controlling authority. Third, notwithstanding what our foreign office spokesmen may say, the fact remains that BRICS and IBSA (a trilateral

(70)

system as did Germany and Japan in the 19th and 20th centuries”. Two years ago, Reuters’ investment outlook summit projected that BRICS “could become as big as the G7 by 2027”. Jim O Neill, Goldman Sachs senior economist, had predicted in 2003 that the world economic structure “would have been reshuffled by 2050 and BRIC would have overtaken most the developed Western nations by that time.”But BRICS global clout has risen faster. China has already become the second largest economy and Brazil has replaced UK as the sixth biggest economy. As per original forecast Brazil was expected to achieve that distinction only by 2036. Leaders of BRICS nations used the Durban Summit to fine-tune their common positions on major international issues. They also announced the setting up of a business council and a think tank council, besides chalking out an action plan on further cooperation in nearly 20 fields, including finance, economy and trade. There were also deliberations on global economic governance. They reiterated their demand for restructuring the international monetary and financial systems and increasing the representation and voice of emerging

May 2013

JOINING HANDS: Leaders of the IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa) meeting each other in the Dialogue forum of IBSA

markets and developing countries. BRICS’ footprints will soon be seen. After all, it has come a long way since its Yekaterinburg meeting in 2009. Regional and global alliances follow neither a set ideology nor geographical specificities; they merely follow perceived economic and strategic gains. An alliance among India, Brazil and South Africa, the three countries separated by thousands of kilometers, would have been unthinkable only a decade ago. A group consisting of Brazil, Russia, India and China would have been even more unthinkable. But the way the world has moved and the fact that the centre of the world having moved east, new economic and strategic formations follow a logic of their own. BRICS is a futuristic alliance. All is, of course, not lily-white. BRICS still lacks coherence. China’s overbearing presence is worrying. On issues like commodities pricing, China and India are together while Russia, Brazil and South Africa want higher prices for their commodities. On trade issues alone, there are several sources of friction among BRICS. Cheap imports from China has crippled South Africa’s manufacturing sector. India is wary of China pushing IBSAisa-

www.geopolitics.in

tion of BRICS. IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa) countries are aware that China and Russia have no democratic credentials, nor are these two members of the P-5 (permanent members of the UN Security Council) on the same table when it comes to democratising the United Nations. In fact, at another level, India favours Russia’s resurgence, for it will create a greater balance in global affairs. Russia’s decline has facilitated China’s rise which is against India’s interests in more senses than one. India also knows that China wants IBSA to pack up. BRICS members are not partners in the sense that IBSA members are, says Oliver Stuenkel of Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo, “because they share a set of fundamental notions about global order. As emerging countries they are not yet fully integrated in today’s international structures”. In 2010, China tried to use the BRICS summit to its advantage multilaterally by expressing its desire to join IBSA. Hu Jintao attempted to push his way into IBSA but India foiled the effort. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asserted that though IBSA was a forum for South-South cooperation, all IBSA countries are democracies, thus implying that China was not and

(71)

WORDPRESS

DIPLOMACY

group founded in 2003 by India, Brazil and South Africa are not exactly complementary to each other. IBSA’s political goals, most important of which are that each of them should be made a permanent member of the UN Security Council and that the functioning of UN and its related organs should be democratised are not necessarily something that the BRICS ( consisting of China and Russia, already permanent members) shares. No wonder why the Durban declarations did not mention a word about the need of reforming the UN Security Council. Besides, as democracies, IBSA members realise how tough it is to carry out economic reforms in complex political environments, something no BRICS meeting will have in its agenda. Most importantly, unlike that of the BRICS, the IBSA members have no bilateral disputes or frictions. This being the case, common memberships in BRICS and IBSA look very odd, indeed. Prakash Nanda

had no place in a group of democracies. In recent years, Turkey has shown interest in joining IBSA. Of all the countries, India is most non-committal on expansion and the Indian position has been accepted by other leaders. Of course, at some stage the question of expanding both IBSA and BRICS will acquire momentum. As of now, the thinking is that notwithstanding its strategic attraction, expanding these frameworks to include Russia and China in IBSA and Mexico, Turkey and Indonesia in BRICS could distract from the agendas of these two groupings and undermine their cohesiveness. It could complicate the agendas of these two formations by burdening them with contentious issues. In fact, some voices are being raised that it is time to take the ‘c’ out of the acronym. China is no longer an emerging economy. It may not be a superpower in the sense that the US is and the USSR once was. But China is a power which is more important in the global pecking order than Europe and Japan. In other words, why must China be part of BRICS? The author is Director, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi

May 2013

While an unaccountable system explains India’s lack of self-sufficiency in arms, forcing the country to be excessively dependent on foreign countries, India’s opposition to the Arms Trade Treaty, far from being guided by national interest, is guided by entrenched interests, argues ABHIJIT IYER-MITRA

ASIAN ARMS TRADE AND THE ARMS TRADE TREATY

WHERE DOES INDIA STAND? (72)

www.geopolitics.in

May 2013

g DIPLOMACY

arch 2013 saw two events related to the International Arms Trade. The first was the release of the annual trend report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) based on its databases. This, like all statistical reports, is prone to heavily contradictory interpretations and is influential as it is frequently quoted in academic journals. The second was the finalisation of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) under United Nations auspices and indications are that it may materialise into binding law for some countries at least. India’s reaction to the ATT has been uniformly negative. For India, there is a profound lesson in linking these two developments; one may begin by analysing relevant segments of the SIPRI report and draw conclusions from them—specifically contrasting the Indian statistics with those of China. Then Indian statements on the ATT will be scrutinised, contrasting them with domestic media coverage in an attempt to understand the root of India’s opposition.

SIPRI report

Trends in International Arms Transfers 2012 is an eight-page report that summarises key trends over 2008-2012 period, but more interestingly contrasts them over the 2003-2007 period. The key export statistics for 2008-2012 period were that US, Russia, Germany, France and China were the top five exporters followed by the UK. Together, they accounted for well over 75 per cent of total arms exports. The major shift was that of China that moved up from a near consistent sixth spot to the fifth spot displacing the UK. Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, this has been the first time the list of top five exporters has changed. The key import statistic for the 20082012 period was that the top five importers were all Asian. India, China, Pakistan, South Korea and Singapore accounted for 32 per cent of all arms imports over this period. Combined Asia-Oceania accounted for 47 per cent of total imports, followed by the Middle East (17 per cent), Europe (15 per cent), Americas (11 per cent) and finally Africa at (9 per cent). From this point on, the report moves to a bland narration of figures accounting for each major exporter and each major importer listing out the stand out items

www.geopolitics.in

dia and China account for 18 per cent of transfers while the three European states accounted for just 2.3 per cent. The confusion that this kind of splitting of procurement from transfers creates, is best encapsulated by Sunjoy Joshi, Director of the Observer Research Foundation, who said, “For long the majority of arms were bought by low population high per capita income group countries, whereas, now it is growing countries with high populations and low per capita incomes that buy the greatest quantities of weapons”. The reality, however, is that high income countries remain both the biggest producers and consumers of weapons not by quantity but by value. This is owing to their significant lead in intellectual capital and persistent improvements in quality as a result of moving up the production ladder. These countries are also the biggest consumers of weapons given their vast geopolitical stakes and global interests. From this perspective, several figures

either in terms of cost (such as the F-35 to the UK), capability (the Akula to India), quantity (152 F-15SA to Saudi Arabia) and technology (2 Theatre High Altitude Air Defence Systems—THAAD—to the UAE). SIPRI does not get into the political implications in this report. Despite the author’s personal preference to not question underlying assumptions, note must be made here of the deliberate use of the terminology ‘transfer’. The problem with this term is that it artificially splits the market—demand and supply into internal and external. This transforms the issue from a market perspective to a proliferation perspective, irrespective of whether this was the desired effect or not. The defence budget of European countries like the UK (US$ 62.7 billion), French ($62.5 billion) and German ($46.7 billion) defence budgets are greater than those of India ($48.9 billion) and China ($106.4 billion) combined. Yet due to the applications of the ‘transfer’ jargon as opposed to weapons ‘procurement’, In-

MARKET SHARE OF TOP 5 ARMS IMPORTS CHINA 12% A

1 INDIA 12%

INDIA 9% B

B 3 C 4 D 5 E

UAE 6% C F

GREECE 6% D SOUTH KOREA 5% E

2003-2007

OTHERS 62% F

HINA 6% 2 CHINA T 5% TAN 3 PAKISTAN 4 SOUTH KOREA 5% 5 SINGAPORE 4% THERS 68% 6 OTHERS

MAJOR IMPORT REGIONS COMPARED OVER 2003-2007 AND 2008-2012 SOURCE: SIPRI

2008-2012

MARKET SHARE OF TOP 5 ARMS EXPORTERS USA 31% A RUSSIA 24% B GERMANY 10% C FRANCE 9% D UK 4% E OTHERS 22% F Top Exporters compared over 20032007 and 2008-2012 Source: SIPRI

(73)

5 4

2 RUSSIA 24% 3 GERMANY 7%

2003-2007

4 FRANCE 6%

D 3

1 USA 30%

B 2

NA 5% 5 CHINA 6 OTHERS THERS 26%

2008-2012

May 2013

g DIPLOMACY

A VIEW OF UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY

are telling: Noticeably five of the top six exporters are permanent members of the UN Security Council. These countries encompass three specific spectrum of the arms trade. The US, UK and France all represent the high value, high technology sector, while China at the other end represents one of the lowest quality and low technology segments. Russia traverses the quality-quantity matrix with technology still lagging behind the West but significantly ahead of China. The inescapable conclusion here is that irrespective of market spectrum, the P5 enjoy a 75 per cent monopoly. Acknowledging that correlation is not necessarily causation, nevertheless power equations within these three distinct production blocks have determined most security dilemmas for the major importer nations, causation cannot entirely be ruled out. The fact that Asia was the largest importer is indicative of the rebalance/pivot and it cannot be coincidence that the top five importers share land or maritime borders with China. From that point of view SIPRI’s chosen terminology divorces the symptom from the disease. On the other hand, it can equally cogently be argued that the continued presence of countries like the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Ukraine on the list of top

www.geopolitics.in

ten arms exporters proves that other factors could also be at work here, like quality, marketing niche, industrial capacity, competence etc. Another statistic that stands out is: how much air power and its accessories —like missiles—account for the bulk of international arms transfers by value? Maximum value addition in the 20082012 period has come from air power and associated transfers. Rank 20122012

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Rank 20112011

1 2 4 11 6 3 7 8 10 5

There is, however, one statistic that is not accurately represented here and that is the value of sub-systems. Notably with regards to Indian imports, Israel has gone from nowhere to by some estimates India’s top defence partner on the basis of sub-systems sales. Israel, except for the Merkava tank, does not manufacture platforms. As a result, all its sales are high technology munitions or sub-systems such as radars and targeting pods. In case of Indian imports, surprisingly Uzbkistan takes third place in the 2008-2012 period owing to the fact that the Il-76 platforms that form the basis of the Phalcon AWACS system are manufactured there. The value added of Israel in providing the all important radar and data fusion systems that account for the bulk of the cost and capability, however, do not seem to have accrued to Israeli exports. This is more than just a statistical mistake as it hides the very important role that subsystems play in modern combat and their cost to the purchasing nation. Should one look at things from a transfer-proliferation perspective, then the other critical statistic that is missing is the impact that exported weapon systems have on the importing region’s balance of power. For example, significant Chinese exports to Pakistan do little to upset the balance of Pakistani power vis-a-vis India. However the export of 152 F-15SAs and 72 Eurofighters to Saudi Arabia dangerously exacerbates the already lopsided conventional imbalance that Iran suffers.

Supplier

USA Russia China Ukraine Germany (FRG) France UK Italy Netherlands Spain Others Total

2012

8760 8003 1783 1344 1193 1139 863 847 760 720 2760 28172

20122012

8760 8003 1783 1344 1193 1139 863 847 760 720 2760 28172

Source: SIPRI Arms Transfers Database

(74)

May 2013

g DIPLOMACY

India and China

Leaving aside issues of terminology and methodology, however, the contrast between India and China is stark. Indian exports for the 2008-2012 period stood at an abysmal rate of between $65 (`325440 crore Approx) to $80 million, working out to an annual average of between $13 (`71-82 crore Approx) to $15 million. By contrast China over this same period exported $6.9 billion (`38,500 crore Approx) worth of arms - an annual average of approximately $1.4 billion (`38,500 crore Approx). From 2003-2012, India and China have consistently been the top two importers. However, while in 2003-2007 period, China accounted for 12 per cent of import value which has now halved to 6 per cent. On the other hand, India’s share has gone up from 9 per cent to 12 per cent. While this can be indicative that India somehow now faces a less favourable security environment, this is untenable given the facts on the ground. China is now both a top exporter and a top importer, while India figures at the top of the import list and very near the bottom of the exports list. Some tentative conclusion can be drawn from this. Exports largely have to do either with knowledge (innovation or duplication) or with production (industrial base, cost controls etc) and both of these needs to be fine-tuned with market knowledge. Consequently imports can be seen as symptomatic of a lack of innovation, production and knowledge of market dynamics. The classic example is China - its primary imports are high technology - process based systems that are impossible to reverse engineer. These include aircraft engines, the organic development of crystal blade technology having defeated even the best Chinese efforts at duplication. Similarly in-spite of importing a range of British (the HMAS Melbourne) and Russian (The Kiev and Minsk) aircraft carriers, China was unable to design and weld together an indigenous hull. A parallel to this can be found in 1930’s Germany, where repeated attempts to develop an aircraft carrier for the kriegsmarine failed, despite reported assistance from ally Japan that had produced several successful designs. This is indicative of a lack of innovation and or industrial capacity in one subset of knowledge or production. The exact deficit is hard to pinpoint given the

www.geopolitics.in

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA STAND “As we had stated in the concluding plenary of the Final Conference on an ATT on 28 March, the draft treaty text sought to be adopted through this resolution falls short of our expectations and a number of other key stakeholders in producing a text that is clear, balanced and implementable and able to attract universal adherence. From the beginning of the ATT process, India has maintained that such a treaty should make a real impact on illicit trafficking in conventional arms and their illicit use especially by terrorists and other unauthorised and unlawful non-state actors. India has also stressed consistently that the ATT should ensure a balance of obligations between exporting and importing states. However, the draft treaty that is annexed to the resolution is weak on terrorism and non-state actors and these concerns find no mention in the specific prohibitions of the Treaty. Further, India cannot accept that the Treaty be used as an instrument in the hands of exporting states to take unilateral force majeure measures against importing states parties without consequences. The relevant provisions in the final text do not meet our requirements.

India has been an active participant in the ATT negotiations. Underlying our participation in these extended negotiations was the principle that member states have a legitimate right to self-defence and our belief that there is no conflict between the pursuit of national security objectives and the aspiration that the Arms Trade Treaty be strong, balanced and effective. This is consistent with the strong and effective national export controls that India already has in place with respect to export of defence items. My Government will undertake a full and thorough assessment of the ATT from the perspective of our defence, security and foreign policy interests. At this stage we are not in a position to endorse the text contained as annexure to document A/67/L.58. Therefore, India has abstained on the resolution. I would request that this statement be reflected in full in the records of this Session”.

many fields of knowledge and production that fuse into the construction of a carrier. On the other hand, the Chinese cannot be faulted for their knowledge of specific market niches and some forms of production evident in the breadth and scope of their defence industry as well as the cost controls they maintain. This reflects in their export manifest which is largely aimed at filling quantitative gaps in importer nations. For example, the US built F-16 Block 50/52 still remains the most technologically advanced plane in the Pakistan Air Force, but given their exorbitant price tag, Pakistan had to order the JF-17 to fill the quantitative gap. Exports to countries like Venezuela, Algeria and Iran all show signs of markets where price sensitivity dictates the need for low cost products filling numerical gaps. Three important macro trends are visible here: • Chinese dexterity at reverse engineering. • Short government mandated gesta-

tion period between research and tangible market output. • Lack of innovation.

(75)

Excerpts of the speech on the Arms Trade Treaty given by Sujata Mehta, India’s representative to the Conference of Disarmament in Geneva during the UNGA Session.

In a sense, these three are distinct but cyclically interrelated. The lack of innovation is driven by various factors including governmental control of the direction of R&D, but more importantly the tight deadlines for R&D to fructify i.e. the short gestation period between research and output. On one hand, this produces quickly to the production line, cheap, export successes, but stunts long term quality growth and innovation. This necessitates reverse engineering as a short cut. The net result is an industry trapped in a low innovation, low cost-low quality cycle, but one that remains commercially successful and viable. India, on the contrary, betrays all the signs of a disturbing lack of both innovation and industrial base on the one hand and of costing and market dynamics on the other. The long R&D phases of the

May 2013

g DIPLOMACY

COMPARISION OF DEFENCE BUDGETS 200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0

•

• GERMANY $46.7 BN FRANCE $62.5 BN UK $62.7 BN EUROPE

INDIA $78.9 BN CHINA $106.4 BN

ASIA

Source: SIPRI Arms Transfers Database

Tejas and Arjun are indicative of the unaccountability and the lack of any form of correlation between research and output. India’s import plan, though extracted from other sources (Ernst and Young Eye on Defence 2013), are telling. Despite having the blueprints for the Bofors FH77B, as well as the domestically produced TATA SED155 self-propelled howitzer, the “field artillery rationalisation plan” now envisages procurement of five separate 155mm guns across five spate categories. By no stretch of grammar, logic or common sense can it be considered rationalisation. Far from consolidating the order to one barrel spread over five platforms depending on mobility and deployment requirements, India is heading towards five barrels over five platforms requiring five different logistics and supply chain while not creating sufficient quantity to extract ToT and with no economies of scale accruing to domestic production. The consequent failure of indigenisation and absorption, therefore, are rendered totally unviable in political, scientific and economic terms.

India at ATT

In light of the above, India’s objections to the arms trade treaty merit much closer scrutiny. Indian statements at the various conferences shaping the final document can be split in three parts: • First is lengthy preambular language congratulating the chairman on his/ her election and then congratulating itself on its total export failure referring to this euphemistically as “hav-

www.geopolitics.in

ing exercised the highest degree of responsibility”. The second is the harping on the need to target illicit transfers to non state actors. Here India repeatedly demands clarity and greater detail. The third were the recommendations. Curiously, having claimed to be a country gravely affected by illicit arms transfers to non-state actors, India, on the one hand, asks for greater detail in the formulation of these paragraphs while, on the other hand, saying that criminalisation procedures in case of being caught in the act should not be detailed.

Bizarrely, on one hand claiming detail and clarity translate to effectiveness, as far as treaty implementation on nonstate actors goes, it wants to do away with any form of detail, clarity or transparency with regards to weapons transfer between states. The clearest counter proposals that India came up with were during the July 2012 session. Around 70 per cent of these by printed word deal with procedural issues—avoiding transparency and verification mechanisms—deeming these too “burdensome and intrusive”. Contrast the extraordinarily detailed bureaucratic and procedural objections to the reporting and verification clauses, with the one line objection “better balance the obligations of importers and exporters”. At no point is this statement clarified or elaborated on, nor are counter proposals or alternates suggested. In fact, at no point is causality on how verification and reporting affect such ‘balance’ proven or attempted to be proven. It is, therefore, surprising that most press coverage in India focussed on India’s disappointment on the non-state actors section, when India was in fact at the forefront of keeping wording and detail to a minimum and specifically leaving criminalisation ambiguous at best. Scandalously enough, it specifically wanted details of broker (middlemen) registration left out—his in a country supposedly obsessed with keeping brokers out postBofors! The second most reported fact in the Indian media was the need to better balance the rights and obligations of importers and exporters. Yet again, this was no more than one sentence in each of the

(76)

interventions and statements by Indian representatives on this score and even the last statement had just one paragraph dedicated to this. At no point did India offer any constructive alternatives either in terms of ideas or wording. The bulk of India’s suggestions were in fact reserved for avoiding transparency, detail, reporting, criminalisation and verification. How this translates into better balancing of rights and obligations between importer and exporter is anyone’s guess since no causal link was made out. Media reports, therefore, are in complete contrast with Indian statements at the Conference on Disarmament. These reports played up India’s moral and realpolitik objections, but the reality is that India’s objections were procedural aimed at avoiding transparency. Garbed under national security, the most telling point was the deliberate leniency sought for brokers at one stage. This is particularly disheartening, because in this author’s reading, the loopholes in the ATT were so vast and prone to bureaucratic manoeuvre that India’s concerns of force majeure being invoked seemed comical at best. In fact, in its very first negotiating statement, India expressly supported the need to link arms transfers to human rights and avoidance of security excesses. At no other point did India express any reservations as to the human rights, gender equality and war crimes clauses, all of which are now—in the media being bandied about as the basis of India’s opposition. The main aim, then it seems, was to protect the unaccountability, incompetence and deliberate deception that has led to India pumping vast sums of money into indigenous defence R&D without result and also to shield its inability to absorb transferred technology.

India’s defence apathy

Reading between the lines of SIPRI’s report, one sees the symptoms of the disease that plagues India’s defence industry. If one goes through government’s statements in Geneva, one realises that India’s objections to the ATT were never guided by Indian interest, but rather, by the need to protect the interests of entrenched military-bureaucratic-scientific lobbies that have brought us to this sad state of affairs. The author is with Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi

May 2013

g DIPLOMACY

KOREA—WILL IT BE

www.geopolitics.in

miniaturisation attained, North Korea is still many years and a few more tests away from attaining the capability required to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile. If North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests took the world by surprise, its subsequent belligerence shocked it even more. Initially, North Korea had agreed to suspend its nuclear and missile programme in return for international aid, in what seemed to be a step towards rationality. Its previous nuclear and missile tests had invited four rounds of sanctions since 2006, which had imposed crippling restrictions on the inflow of technology, trade and commodities. These sanctions had led to a virtual collapse of its already imploding economy making it solely dependent on

its one and only ally, China. Beijing continued to supply its long time ally with oil and essential commodities across its land border, enough to keep it afloat. This time North Korea may have gone too far. Its petulant actions have angered even China, which has now not only helped draft

TURBULENT PENINSULA: (Right) Kim Jong-Un, leader of DPRK and (below) North Korea’s show of strength

BOAZ GUTTMAN PHOTOSTREAM

he two Koreas are at war. Yes, they are. In fact, they have been in a state of war since 1950, when the Korean War began. That three-year war which claimed 1.3 million lives ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a ceasefire and technically, the two Koreas are still at war with each other. Skirmishes and incidents occur with dangerous frequency along the border and the numerous disputed islands along the 38th Parallel, but fortuitously, none has plunged the peninsula into an all out war—at least not yet. But now, as North Korea ups the ante and the dangerous game of ‘I Dare’ approaches fever pitch, the Korean Peninsula is closer to an all out war than it has ever been since 1953. The reasons for this round of sabrerattling are the missile and nuclear tests conducted by North Korea. In December 2012, it successfully launched the Unha III rocket, hurling a Kwayunyongsong satellite into space. The rocket was more than a satellite launch vehicle. With just a few refinements to its terminal guidance and re-entry systems, it can be modified into an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile with a potential range of over 10.000 kilometres—which enables it to strike mainland USA, Japan, Eastern Europe and all of Asia. It followed it up with a nuclear test— its third—on February 12, 2013, deep in its remote North Eastern mountains at the test site of Punggye. This detonation, measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale had an estimated yield of 6-7 kilotons—far more than what was attained in its two previous tests. Although this test is a significant improvement in terms of explosive yield and

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un’s latest threat to attack South Korea and the United States may be seen as another example of the young leader’s erratic bluster. Nobody, however, can be sure, comments AJAY SINGH

(77)

May 2013

g KOREAN CRISIS

DIPLOMACY

1950 - 1969 After World War II, Japanese occupation of Korea ends with Soviet troops occupying the north, and US troops the south. In 1950, South declared independence, sparking North Korean invasion. In 1953, Armistice ended the three year Korean War, which cost two million lives. This was followed by a period of Rapid industrial growth, with only incident being a US reconnaissance plane being shot down.

1970 - 1999 This period saw Kim il-Sung’s son, Kim Jong-il, move up political ladder. Both, North and South Korea joined the United Nations. Later, Kim Jong-il became leader after his father’s death. The same period also had Pyongyang announce, it will no longer abide by the armistice and it sent troops into the demilitarised zone. South Korea, also captured a North Korean minisubmarine in its waters.

a fresh round of sanctions, but also agreed to support it fully. These UN-supported sanctions effectively block all of North Korea’s financial transactions, impose restrictions on travel by its diplomats and reduce import of any kind of technology into the hermit kingdom. But sanctions are a blunt instrument and need time to work. As of now, the North Korean leadership has shown no inclination of bowing to them. Tensions have been considerably heightened with the conduct of joint exercises by US and South Korean forces this April. These exercises are a regular feature and invariably evoke howls of protest from North Korea. The scale of these exercises was higher this time, perhaps as an expression of US solidarity with its long-time ally. A US nuclear submarine was deployed close to the Korean coast. An additional destroyer and minesweeper were inducted. The USAF also flew two B-2 ‘Spirit’ stealth bombers, flying nonstop from their bases in mainland USA, to drop inert munitions at the exercise locations, 6500 kilometres away. These measures were partly designed to demonstrate ‘unwavering support’ to their ally, but it evoked a ballistic reaction. North Korea, which was subjected to three years of carpet bombing by US aircraft during the Korean War, and is sensitive to US bombers, responded angrily. Kim Jong-Un warned that the US mainland and their bases in Guam (home to 6000 US troops) and Okinawa (their submarine base) were within striking range of North Korean missiles. He also ordered all missile units to be placed on the highest alert, and for good measure, shifted two long range Musadan missile units to their launch pads on the east coast, where its range could be optimally exploited.

In fact, just a few hours after the flight logical behaviour, but it is precisely this irof the US B-2 bombers, the North Korean rationality which is worrying. media released photographs—either by The war of words is intensifying, but accident or design—of a pensive Kim will it lead to actual war? Most military Jong-Un sitting in the Operations Room, analysts agree that in case of any milibeing briefed by senior generals. In the tary confrontation the North will come background was a map with the unamout second best. In spite of their numeribiguous title, “Strategic Force US Maincal superiority, the North’s antiquated land Strike Plan” on which were marked weaponry and ill-equipped troops are no the flight paths of missiles striking match for the South’s better armed targets in USA. It has also deand better trained forces. The At the clared ‘a state of war’ with South has invested heavily South Korea and that in quality and its defence moment, the world is “further provocation budget of $30.8 billion trying to evaluate the will not be limited to (approx `1,70,000 crore) psychology of the North local war, but develop is almost four times Korean leadership. North into all-out war, a numore than its cashclear war”. strapped counterpart. Korea has traditionally That is not all. It is also bolstered by a resorted to acts of miliNorth Korea has defence treaty with the tary adventurism during scrapped the ceaseUSA and the permanent periods of fire pact and nonpresence of 28,000 US aggression agreement troops on its soil. Any atinternal unrest. with South Korea, cut the tack on South Korea, will inmilitary hotlines and has variably draw the USA in to the put its forces on Status One, the fray with the full force of the most highest state of alert. It also shut down powerful arsenal on earth. the Koesong Industrial Complex, funcEven the North’s much vaunted nucletioning for years on cheap North Korean ar and missiles forces are primitive to say labour and advanced South Korean techthe least. Although it is estimated to have nology, which is a prime source of much around 10-12 nuclear bombs, they have needed currency and employment. As a not reached the levels of miniaturisation sign of increasing hostilities, a wave of required to effectively mount them on cyber attacks has been unleashed by both missiles or launch them from submarines. sides. South Korean internet, banking and Their nuclear strike capability would thus television networks were blanked out for be largely restricted to aircraft. The effihours. Computer screens went blank, cacy of their Scud, Rodong and Musadan skulls popped up. On the other side, phomissiles is also doubtful. Its short and tos of Kim Jong with a pig’s snout and medium range Scud and Rodong missiles mouthing obscenities were released to can cover most of South Korea, but its long official North Korean websites. A video range Musadan missiles, (which can taralso emerged on YouTube, showing Washget US bases in Guam and Okinawa) are ington and President Obama in the flames unproven. Even if pinch comes to shove, of a nuclear holocaust. This is not exactly and the missiles are launched in a pique,

www.geopolitics.in

(78)

2000 - 2009 While the period marked events such as South Korea giving amnesty to more than 3,500 prisoners and a EU delegation headed by Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson (highest level western delegation to visit North Korea) visiting to help shore up the fragile reconciliation process with South Korea, it also witnessed then US President George W Bush calling North Korea part of an ‘axis of evil’, along with

May 2013

g DIPLOMACY

states such as Iraq and Iran. For Pyongyang, Bush had not stopped far short of declaring war. It also saw North and South Korean naval vessels wage a gun battle in the Yellow Sea. North Korea also withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Pyongyang claimed it built nuclear weapons for self-defence. North Korea also carried out nuclear test, drawing protests from the US, China and Russia.

2010 - PRESENT DAY Sinking of South Korean ship Cheonan, allegedly by the North, raised tensions to new heights with the United States announcing new sanctions on North Korea. Kim Jong-Un took over after his father’s death as chairman of the National Defence Commission. In December 2012, a North Korean rocket launch put a satellite into orbit. The UN including China regarded this as a violation of a ban on North Korean bal-

listic missile tests, as the rocket technology is the same. In early 2013, North Korea carried out a third nuclear test, which invited UN Security Council sanctions, targeting cash transfers and travel for diplomats. North Korea also threatened the US with a pre-emptive nuclear attack and issued threats to South Korea over nearby islands and non-aggression pacts. Recently, North Korea withdrew its workers from the Kaesong joint industrial park.

it is unlikely that they would have the accuracy or precision to cause significant damage. But even then, North Korea’s nuclear and missile capability is not a threat that can be discounted. The USA has already announced that it will deploy 14 new anti-missile interceptors in Alaska and establish a missile defence radar in Japan as part of its National Missile Defence. It would also deploy ground based THAAD missile interceptor batteries in Guam and Okinawa. The intensification of its National and Theatre Missile Defence is in itself in a contravention of the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, and is likely to raise hackles in both Russia and China. At the moment, the world is trying to evaluate the psychology of the North Korean leadership. North Korea has traditionally resorted to acts of military adventurism during periods of internal unrest. In 1983, a bombing attack killed 17 South Korean officers near the Demilitarised Zone; in 1987, a South Korean commercial aircraft was downed by a missile over the South China Sea, killing 112 passengers and crew. On March 26, 2012, the South Korea Corvette; ‘Cheonan’ was struck by a torpedo (later proved to be North Korean) and sank carrying 46 crewmen with it. On November 23, 2010 they shelled the island of Yonangpyang killing five. Each of these actions has come at a time when the North Korean leadership was trying to reestablish its ascendancy over its people. Now, at a time of transition in leadership is a similar trend being followed? It does seem so. Since the crown prince, Kim Jung-Un, ‘The Great Successor,’ came into power after the much lamented death of his father, he has tried to establish his credentials and assert himself in the eyes of his people and military.

Much had been expected from him, but his cherubic looks belie an even greater irrationality. The only thing he has to offer his impoverished citizens is their country’s military prowess and these grandiose actions and announcements could be largely for effect. His deliberate defiance of the US seems to be designed to show him as a strong and fearless leader. Yet, in his inexperience, he may just play one card too many. Whether for public consumption or otherwise, one of these actions may just go spiralling out of control and precipitate the peninsula into a calamitous war. Then there is the question of their new-found nuclear capabilities. In many ways, their nuclear programme is akin to that of Pakistan. It is the only beacon of success in an otherwise dismal record and needs to be flaunted. And flaunting is what they are doing. North Korea is the only nation on earth that has endorsed its nuclear status in the Preamble to its constitution (calling itself ‘A nuclear power that is a military power and is indomitable’). It is unlikely that it will curtail its programme now, in spite of the sweeteners that are offered, as that will be seen as a sign of weakness. In fact they would merely get more belligerent till they attain something that can be projected as a symbol of victory. In fact, it has even announced the restarting of the Yonghang nuclear reactor which was shut down since 2007 in an aid-for-disarmament accord. This reactor can provide enriched plutonium for one bomb every year and will boost its programme significantly. Capping its nuclear programme is a precondition for international aid and for normalcy to return to the Peninsula, but now it seems more difficult and yet even more vital. Perhaps, the only nation which can affect some kind of control over it is China.

The Chinese leadership is reportedly furious at its recalcitrant ally for conducting the tests. In spite of its disapproval of its ally’s actions, there is only so much that China can do. North Korea banks on China to bail it out should a situation go out of control and China may be forced to do just that. The last thing that China’s delicately balanced economy needs now is a war in the neighbourhood. Also, it realises that a war will hasten the collapse of North Korea and send millions of refugees streaming into China. Worse, with Korea reunified on terms and conditions set out by a victorious South, China will come into direct control with a staunch US ally with US troops on its soil. China too does not want a war in the peninsula, but its ally is inching towards it in a dangerous game of brinkmanship that threatens to go out of control. Having gone so far down this road, Kim Jong-Un is unlikely to pull back unless he has some tangible result to show to his people. He needs a symbol to bolster his image. And in his quest for a symbol of victory he may go too far. One of the actions could just go out of control; the military may just decide to take matters in its own hands. A trawler could be sunk, a disputed island bombed, a naval engagement could take place at sea, an enclave occupied, or a missile test could go awry. Any of these actions could precipitate the already tense situation and lead to an allout war. Then the Korean Peninsula may once again erupt into conflict - a conflict which will draw world powers towards it and perhaps be fought under the dark and looming shadow of a nuclear cloud.

www.geopolitics.in

(79)

Ajay Singh is the author of ‘The Battles that Shaped Indian History’ and ‘A Spectrum of Modern Warfare’.

May 2013

BOOKREVIEW

INDIA’S

VICTORIA CROSS GENERAL

Lieutenant General Premindra Singh Bhagat was one of those army generals who was not afraid to speak his mind out. His biography, penned by his daughter, manages to give us an insight into the mind of the man, writes ARVINDAR SINGH Author: Ashali Verma Publishers: Pearson Pages: 243 Price: `375

www.geopolitics.in

Lieutenant General Premindra Singh Bhagat was an iconic figure in our Army. Not only was he triumphant in winning the Victoria Cross in World War II, in a military career spanning more than three decades, he held with distinction many an ace assignment in olive green rising to command both the Central and Northern Army Commands, in itself a unique distinction. In 1974, he was seen as the senior-most Army Commander earmarked to step into the shoes of the retiring Army Chief, General G G Bewoor, but destiny had other plans. The government of Indira Gandhi under bureaucratic misadvise and wary of an independent-minded Chief of Staff, gave an extension of service to General Bewoor denying Bhagat the top slot as he would have retired in the interregnum. Sadly, Bewoor played ball with the government and accepted the extension of service. This volume written by Prem Bhagat’s daughter Ashali Verma brings out the various remarkable aspects of the late General’s life providing us a fairly authentic picture of the man behind the personage. Prem Bhagat was born on October 14, 1918. His father, Surendra Singh Bhagat, was an executive engineer in the government of the Northern Provinces (present day Uttar Pradesh). Unfortunately, he lost both parents at a young age, and by the

(80)

time he was 20, Prem was an orphan, with only his siblings and step-mother to buoy him up—which he described in the book, they did very well. He had been admitted to the Prince of Wales Royal Indian Military College at Dehradun, and upon finishing his training at the Indian Military Academy, was commissioned into the Royal Bombay Sappers and Miners (presently known as the Bombay Engineer Group of the Corps of Engineers). Posted in Pune, Prem met the love of his life, the beautiful Mohini Bhandari. An interesting courtship followed ultimately to a happy ending with both of them tying the knot, but that was after he returned with the Victoria Cross. After being posted on the war front in Ethiopia, 2nd Lieutenant Bhagat’s 21 Field Company of the Royal Bombay Sappers and Miners was deployed to clear minefields during the Allied offensive on the road to Gondar in Abyssinia against the Italian forces. For 96 hours from January 31, 1941, he worked tirelessly clearing up 55 miles of 15 minefields from dawn to dusk. On two occasions his Personal Carrier was blown up with casualties all around and on a third occasion he was ambushed. Despite being under close enemy fire he carried on with his task undeterred. As a result of an explosion one of his ear-drums was punctured. He showed

May 2013

g gallantry of the highest order in hastening the Allied advance. It was while he was recuperating at the Military Hospital at Khartoum that the award of the Victoria Cross was announced and he was given a hero’s welcome on his return to India. Bhagat now went on to the Staff College at Camberley (UK) and got high grades in the institution. At the time of the partition of India, he wrote a lengthy essay, ‘My Land Divided’ for which the government denied him the right to publish. In the piece, he bemoaned the fact that the nation was being divided on religious lines when there was an essential oneness in our existence. His plea was that Partition was avoidable. As Commandant of the Bombay Sappers Centre at Pune he spruced up the Centre and built the firm foundation of the unit. Bhagat went on to command an Infantry Brigade and the Indian Military Academy at Dehradun. He was also Director of Military Intelligence when it was rumoured in some quarters that he and the Army Chief, K S Thimayya, were planning a coup. This was mainly the handiwork of Defence Minister V K Krishna Menon and his protégé Lieutenant General B M Kaul. However, the storm soon blew over, but not after Prime Minister Nehru once asked Bhagat when he and Thimayya were ‘taking over’ the country! In the aftermath of the Sino-Indian conflict of 1962, Bhagat was asked to be a member of the Henderson Brooks Committee which went into the causes of this rather humiliating rout which our army suffered and suggest remedial action. It is one of those tragedies of independent India that the report—believed to be a severe indictment of the then government —is still under wraps half a century after it was written, under the rather lame pretext of being a sensitive document under the Official Secrets Act. In the years that followed, he was to Command the 9th Infantry Division at Ranchi and the 11th Corps at Jalandhar. Bhagat also became Colonel Commandant of the Sikh Light Infantry. Interestingly, one of the soldiers of this Regiment who had heard of his Victoria Cross, when asked to name him, said his name was ‘Bhagat Singh Victoria’! As Army Commander of the Central Command in Lucknow, Bhagat played a crucial role during the devastating floods in the city in 1971 and was given charge of holding the 90000 prisoners of war taken

www.geopolitics.in

DPR/MoD

BOOKREVIEW

1962 AFTERMATH: The debacle of the 1962 war led to the Henderon-Brookes-Bhagat report, a severe indictment of the then government and till date classified under the Official Secrets Act

into custody after the Pakistani Army surrendered in 1971. When the new Northern Command was established in 1972, to meet the operational requirements of Jammu and Kashmir as well as Ladakh, Bhagat was asked to be its head. This Command came into existence—following the experience of 1971—as it was felt that the Western Command at Shimla was too large to man the Punjab as well as the Jammu and Kashmir border. After successful completion of the delineation talks with Pakistan, post the Shimla Agreement, Bhagat was to devote his time to two of his pet projects in the Northern Command: road building and troop welfare. He had the road over Khardungla pass at the height of 18300 ft built in record time. The Army now expected Bhagat to be its Chief, but alas, it was not to be. Post-retirement Bhagat was re-employed as Chairman of the Damodar Valley Corporation at Kolkata which looked after power generation plants as a multi-state project. He turned around the power generating body by bringing up its output from

(81)

45 MW to 700 MW within two months. After eight months at the Corporation, he urged the West Bengal Government to use more power. He was also a much loved figure and in a short period of 10 months endeared himself to all his staff in the organisation. The author covers his tragic death at the fairly young age of 56, in May 1975, which she alleges took place due to medical neglect. The book also highlights the charming personality of Mohini Bhagat, who was elegant and had a zest for life. The work is a daughter’s tribute to her father. However, Verma has unfortunately allowed it to become a hagiography. The book is also not chronologically arranged and accounts of her mother’s latter years of life appear in parts of the paperback volume. Somehow the editing leaves much to be desired and it seems at parts to be a gushing teenager’s account of an illustrious figure. Her brother, Dubby Bhagat, also does not feature as much as he should in an account of this nature. On the whole it can be described as a fairly interesting read, despite the shortcomings.

May 2013

RIGHTANGLE

TOWARDS CYBER SUPER POWERHOOD

n this issue we have carried a feature on cyber security. It is usually believed that cyber security is ensured if we provide adequate protection to the Internet and its content. But that is a half-truth. Real cyber security should also involve the undersea cables that transfer critical data and communications around the world. Unfortunately, enough attention is not being paid to this aspect of cyber security, particularly when undersea cables, better known as submarine cables, are increasingly becoming vulnerable to terrorist attacks. In March this year, Egyptian naval forces arrested three scuba divers who they say were trying to cut an undersea Internet cable off the port of Alexandria that provides one-third of all the Internet capacity between Europe and a greater part of Africa and Asia, including India. In fact, Egypt is a crucial link in global cyber security. The cable that the accused scuba divers were trying to cut is known as the South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 (SMW4). It is an 18,800-km communications line connecting Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Egypt, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria and France. Two other cable systems were also affected bePrakash cause of this incident. One was the 13000 kms long India-Middle East-Western Europe (IMEWE) between India and France. It has cable landing stations at Mumbai, Karachi, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Italy and France. The other was the Europe India Gateway (EIG) system, the first direct connection between India and the UK. It also connects Portugal, Gibraltar, Monaco, France, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman and the UAE. It may be noted that overseas satellite links account for 10 per cent of international traffic at the most, the remainder being carried by undersea fibre optic cables. In that sense, these cables constitute the backbone of every nation’s information infrastructure. There are many reasons behind the importance of submarine cables, the most noteworthy among them being the fact that they are more reliable as multiple paths are available in the event of a cable breakdown. Besides, it is said that the total carrying capacity of submarine cables is in terabits per second, while satellites typically offer only megabits per second and display higher latency. There are three ways the submarine cables could be disrupted. One is the general redundancy factor over a period of time. The second is the common phenomenon of accidental breaks caused by ships and fishermen. When a ship drops anchor near a submarine cable, it snags the cable and ruptures it. Fishermen often damage the cables when they drag them along with the fish. The second major factor behind disruptions could be natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunami. For instance, when the tsunami hit Fukushima, Japan’s communication system was gravely affected for days. The third factor, however, is

www.geopolitics.in

the most worrisome. And that is the terrorist factor. If one really wants to disrupt the Internet globally, then the best way of doing this is messing with the biggest chokepoints of all: the undersea fibre-optic cables that move vast volumes of data from continent to continent. And doing this is much easier and cheaper. Ordinary fishermen and scuba divers can be used by terrorists to do the dirty job of damaging the fibre-optic cables, the vehicles that deliver cyberspace to the masses worldwide and also the conduit for global financial transactions. It is not often realised that the Internet is responsible for financial transactions to the order of $10 trillion daily. According to Paul Saffo, a noted security expert, sabotaging the cables is not exactly a new phenomenon. He points out how in 2007, a gang of knucklehead pirates yanked up portions of two cable systems off the coast of Vietnam in the mistaken belief that the fibre-optic lines held valuable copper, which they hoped to resell on the scrap market. And in 2010, terrorists cut a cable near Cagayan de Oro in the Philippines. In the last century, the US and Soviet Union had multiple cable-related tangles, most famously in 1959 when a Soviet trawler, the Novorossilsk, caused 12 breaks in five transatlantic cables off of Nanda Newfoundland. But what makes Saffo more apprehensive now is rising Islamic fundamentalism. “It is easy to imagine anti-globalisation zealots concluding that cutting a cable is just the way to stop decadent Western culture from polluting the minds of locals in places like Egypt, Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. Unfortunately, the cables they might cut also serve countless other nations, so any disruption would have a regional if not global impact,” he writes. If cyber security is critically dependent on the security of the submarine cables, what exactly can India do? It is needless to over-emphasise the importance of the subject for India’s national security. But along with the challenges, there are huge opportunities for India to emerge as one of the world’s cyber superpowers. And these opportunities involve India entering the business of protecting and repairing damaged submarine cables in a big way. Many private companies have shown interest in this regard, particularly taking up the job of security, management and repair of the cables passing though the seas near India. But the government is not developing a coherent system to rise up to the occasion. There are inter-department tussles involving the Navy, immigration, Customs and environment. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has proposed to the government to create a one-stop window clearance so as to slash submarine cable repair time from three to five days as per international practices. At present, repairing of an undersea cable takes at least three to five weeks. This is a pity because India otherwise boasts of its multinational software-based companies and outsourcing services.

(82)

prakashnanda@newsline.in

May 2013

Postal Reg No.DL(E) 01/5363/2011-13, RNI No. DELENG/2010/35319, Publication Date: 1st of every month, Posting Date: 8-9th every month