DEFENCE and SECURITY of INDIA by Armada International & Asian Military Review

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INTERNAL SECURITY

CAN WE STOP ANOTHER ATTACK? Post-26/11, the fundamental problems that afflict Indian intelligence agencies still remain I SRINATH RAGHAVAN INDIA, US AND CHINA

TRIANGULAR DIPLOMACY Signs of a new dynamic between India, the United States of America and China are visible I C. RAJA MOHAN NOVEMBER 2009

DEFENCE and SECURITY of INDIA

DSI VOLUME 2

ISSUE 2

Rs 250

Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s strategic leadership is unable to cope with growing Maoist insurgency I AJAI SAHNI

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NOVEMBER 2009

LETTER FROM THE

editor

ne year after the coordinated attacks paralysed Mumbai last November, and changed India forever, it seems appropriate to examine whether the country’s intelligence and security system has been adequately overhauled so that a similar assault can be preempted. Sadly, despite the official pledges, the innumerable candlelight vigils, and the growing public anger, little corrective action seems to have taken place. The country’s intelligence apparatus, covering some 12 agencies, remains a picture of ineptitude; lacking in coordination and marked by an outmoded intelligence gathering system. Not so far from Mumbai are concerns of another nature. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has candidly admitted that the Maoists movement has become the single biggest internal security challenge being faced by our country. The movement which, according to official estimates, has spread across 223 districts is a story about ideological commitment, Government neglect, mismanagement, corruption and overblown rhetoric. In our perceptive and forceful cover story, DSI looks at the scale and strengths of the problem. Fuelled by small weapons and light arms being funneled across international borders, so far, this year, the expanding conflict has already caused the death of more than 800 people underscoring the inadequate attempts being made by the strategic and administrative establishment to stem the violence. Has India lost to China in the Obama Administration’s Asia policy? Many analysts see a diminished role for India in the Obama calculation when a paragraph in the recent US-Sino Joint Statement spoke of Beijing’s ability to promote peace and stability and development in South Asia. Washington and Beijing promptly tried to assuage New Delhi’s concerns about China’s potential role in the Indo-Pak equation. But the apprehension was apparent in Dr. Manmohan Singh’s comments as he made a State visit to Washington––an official tour which significantly coincided with the first anniversary of the 26/11 attacks. As the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, enters his second five-year term, high on his priority list is to bring peace to Afghanistan through negotiations with the moderate faction of the Taliban. Worn down by this protracted engagement, the American administration too is also looking at a quick and clean exit strategy. We look at the advantages of negotiating with the ideologically neutral members of the Taliban. As usual, we welcome your feedback and suggestions which you can send to dsidelhi09@gmail.com. Should you want to subscribe to the magazine please contact our marketing team at dsisubsriptions@mtil.biz and it will do the rest.

Mannika Chopra EDITOR Defence & Security of India

DSI

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has candidly admitted that the Maoist movement has become the single biggest internal security challenge being faced by India.

CONTENTS

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NOVEMBER 2009

COVER STORY

DISRUPTIVE

DOMINANCE

India's strategic, planning and security communities have not been able to grasp the scale and strengths of the Maoist movement which has now spread into over 200 districts.

INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES 6

CAN WE STOP ANOTHER ATTACK? It will take a much deeper committment from Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s political leadership to reform the fundamental flaws that still afflict out intelligence agencies.

WEAPONS

SMALL ARMS ARSENAL The growing presence of small arms and light weapons is fuelling many insurgency movements across South Asia.

DIPLOMACY

TRIANGULAR DIPLOMACY A joint statement issued in Bejing by Presidents Hu Jintao and Barack Obama accorded a monitoring role to China in South Asia and set off a storm of protests in Delhi.

NEIGHBOURS

TALKING TO THE TALIBAN Success in Afghanistan cannot be achieved without winning a high percentage of ideologically neutral fighters who are currently with the Taliban for opportunistic reasons. 2

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DEFENCE PROCUREMENT

GROUNDED POLICY A detailed Defence Procurement Procedure was introduced in 2002 to expedite procurements in a transparent and competitive environment. Seven years later that initial euphoria has given way to despondency.

CONTENTS

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NOVEMBER 2009

COVER STORY

DISRUPTIVE

DOMINANCE

India's strategic, planning and security communities have not been able to grasp the scale and strengths of the Maoist movement which has now spread into over 200 districts.

INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES 6

CAN WE STOP ANOTHER ATTACK? It will take a much deeper committment from Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s political leadership to reform the fundamental flaws that still afflict out intelligence agencies.

WEAPONS

SMALL ARMS ARSENAL The growing presence of small arms and light weapons is fuelling many insurgency movements across South Asia.

DIPLOMACY

TRIANGULAR DIPLOMACY A joint statement issued in Bejing by Presidents Hu Jintao and Barack Obama accorded a monitoring role to China in South Asia and set off a storm of protests in Delhi.

NEIGHBOURS

TALKING TO THE TALIBAN Success in Afghanistan cannot be achieved without winning a high percentage of ideologically neutral fighters who are currently with the Taliban for opportunistic reasons. 2

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DEFENCE PROCUREMENT

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NOVEMBER, 2009

CONTRIBUTORS

DSI

DEFENCE and SECURITY of INDIA NOVEMBER 2009 VOLUME 2, NUMBER 2 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

SRINATH RAGHAVAN

AJAI SAHNI

GURMEET KANWAL SINGH

MONIKA CHANSORIA

C. RAJA MOHAN

AJAI SHUKLA

Srinath Raghavan is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research and is also a lecturer in Defence Studies at King’s College London. His book War and Peace in Modern India: A Strategic History of the Nehru Years will be published later this year. An Associate Fellow at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, he has been associated with King’s College’s e-learning programme, War in the Modern World. He was also a visiting lecturer at the Royal Air Force College, Cranwell and spent six years as an infantry officer in the Indian Army, prior to his joining academia.

Dr. Ajai Sahni is Founding Member and Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management; Editor, South Asia Intelligence Review; Executive Director, South Asia Terrorism Portal; Executive Editor, Faultlines: Writings on Conflict & Resolution. He has researched and written extensively on issues relating to conflict, politics and development in South Asia and has participated in advisory projects undertaken for various national and State Governments.

Gurmeet Kanwal is Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi. He commanded an infantry brigade during Operation Prakaram on the Line of Control in 2001-03. A soldierscholar, he has authored several books including Indian Army: Vision 2020 and Nuclear Defence: Shaping the Arsenal. He is a well-known columnist and TV analyst on national security issues.

Dr. Monika Chansoria, a Research Fellow, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Centre d’études et de Recherches Internationales in Paris in 2007-08. She is the author of Chinese WMD Proliferation in Asia: US Response (KW Publishers Pvt Ltd and the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (2009).

C. Raja Mohan holds the Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the John W. Kluge Center in the Library of Congress, Washington D.C. (2009-10). A contributing editor of the Indian Express, New Delhi, he is a visiting professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. A former member of India’s National Security Advisory Board, his recent books include Crossing the Rubicon: The Shaping of India’s New Foreign Policy and Impossible Allies: Nuclear India, United States and the Global Order.

Ajai Shukla works in both the visual and the print medium. He is Consulting Editor (Strategic Affairs) for Business Standard and has been Consulting Editor (Strategic Affairs) for NDTV, a reputed news broadcaster in India, for which he has anchored prime time news and special programmes. He is currently working on a book on Sino-Indian frontier policy.

MRINAL SUMAN

RAHUL BEDI

Major General (retd) Mrinal Suman, is an expert on various aspects of India’s defence procurement regime and offsets and has been closely associated with the evolution of the new defence procurement mechanism. He is often consulted by policy makers and the Parliamentary Committee on Defence. He also heads the Defence Technical Assessment and Advisory Service of the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Rahul Bedi is the New Delhi correspondent for Jane’s Defence Weekly, UK and contributes to it on a diverse range of security and military related matters. He also the India correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, London and the Irish Times.

Maneesha Dube EDITOR

Mannika Chopra CORRESPONDENT

Mangala Ramamoorthy ART DIRECTOR

Bipin Kumar DESIGN

Parveen Kumar, Ajay Kumar, Moeen Aijaz BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

Roop Arora MANAGER INTERNATIONAL MARKETING

Vishal Mehta COORDINATOR

Ronald Micah CIRCULATION & DISTRIBUTION

Ashwani Rai PRODUCTION & PRE-PRESS

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NOVEMBER, 2009

CONTRIBUTORS

DSI

DEFENCE and SECURITY of INDIA NOVEMBER 2009 VOLUME 2, NUMBER 2 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

SRINATH RAGHAVAN

AJAI SAHNI

GURMEET KANWAL SINGH

MONIKA CHANSORIA

C. RAJA MOHAN

AJAI SHUKLA

MRINAL SUMAN

RAHUL BEDI

Maneesha Dube EDITOR

Mannika Chopra CORRESPONDENT

Mangala Ramamoorthy ART DIRECTOR

Bipin Kumar DESIGN

Parveen Kumar, Ajay Kumar, Moeen Aijaz BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

Roop Arora MANAGER INTERNATIONAL MARKETING

Vishal Mehta COORDINATOR

Ronald Micah CIRCULATION & DISTRIBUTION

Ashwani Rai PRODUCTION & PRE-PRESS

Sunil Dubey, Ritesh Roy, Devender Pandey MEDIATRANSASIA INDIA LIMITED

323, Udyog Vihar, Ph-IV, Gurgaon 122016 Ph: +91 0124-4759500 Fax: +91 0124-4759550 FINANCIAL CONTROLLER

Puneet Nanda PRESIDENT

Xavier Collaco CHAIRMAN

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INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES

CAN WE STOP

DSI

KEY POINTS

n Intelligence failures can broadly be placed under three categories: those relating to the collection of information, to its analysis, and to the response to the intelligence product. n The technological advances that underpin the phenomenon of globalisation have greatly altered the nature and scale of security threats now confronting States.

ANOTHER ATTACK?

he terrorist attacks of November 26, 2008 exposed several chinks in our national security apparatus. In particular, the intelligence agencies drew sharp criticism from the media and some politicians. ‘Intelligence failure’ became a recurrent mantra in these post-mortems. The intelligence agencies tried to counter these accusations by leaking bits and pieces of information to the media. However, these only served to further muddy the waters. Indeed, the state of the intelligence agencies has been the subject of a public debate that yields more heat than light. The Government, for its part, has tended to focus excessively, if not exclusively, on procedural reforms. Thus, in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, the Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram noted that there had been problems of intelligence coordination, and that the Government had ‘closed these gaps’. Such a diagnosis overlooks more fundamental problems that afflict Indian intelligence agencies.

One year after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks fundamental problems still afflict Indian intelligence agencies

SRINATH RAGHAVAN

Three Categories of Failures

AFP

Intelligence failures can broadly be placed under three categories: those relating to the collection of information, to its analysis, and to the response to the intelligence product. Shortcomings in collection can be attributed to the agencies; though there are more deep-seated problems here as well. Flaws in analysis and response, on the other hand, are as much failures of the political-strategic leadership as of any agency. In recent instances of serious intelligence failures, collection has been the least of the problems. Consider the case of the Pakistani incursions in Kargil in the spring of 1999. In the preceding months,

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INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES

CAN WE STOP

DSI

KEY POINTS

ANOTHER ATTACK?

One year after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks fundamental problems still afflict Indian intelligence agencies

SRINATH RAGHAVAN

Three Categories of Failures

AFP

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AFP

INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES

AFP

Indian artillery men lift the turrets of their 155mm Bofors guns as they prepare to fire at enemy positions from a gun emplacement during the 1999 Kargil War. (Right)Home Minister P. Chidambaram with NSG Director-General N.P.S Aulakh during a function to celebrate the 25th NSG Raising Day in New Delhi

the intelligence agencies circulated several reports indicating the possibility of increased artillery shelling and infiltration in the Kargil sector. As early as June 1998, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) reported, “increased activities at the border and continuing endeavour to infiltrate a large group of foreign mercenaries”. It also reported “increased movement” of the Pakistan Army in posts opposite the Kargil sector. In November 1998, the IB reported that Pakistan was providing military training to Taliban, who were likely to be infiltrated into Kargil area in April 1999. Clearly, there was no absence of intelligence inputs. A similar pattern can be seen in connection with the attacks of 26/11. In late September 2008, the IB issued warnings that the Taj Mahal hotel was on the list of a small set of high-profile targets selected by the Lashkar-e-Taiyyaba (LeT). The Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) too learnt from communications intelligence that the Lashkar had carried out reconnaissance of several targets including the Leela Kempinski. On November 18, RAW intercepted a satellite phone conversation, tracing it to a location about 60 km off the coast of Karachi. Subsequently, the LeT operatives hijacked an Indian fishing trawler. The Coast Guard, which had been alerted earlier, checked this vessel but let it pass. Again, significant intelligence inputs were available to the security agencies. Be that as it may, the collection capabilities of our agencies need considerable upgradation. The technological advances that underpin the phenomenon of globalisation

have also altered the nature and scale of security threats now confronting States. The intricate and rapidly flowing circuits of the contemporary financial world also nurture and assist shadowy groups. The recent investigation undertaken by the Italian police in relation to the Mumbai attacks highlights these developments and their impact. The attackers and their Pakistanbased handlers used a US-based Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) for real time communication. The VOIP number was owned by a Belgian firm, which in turn had leased it to an American telecommunications company. The VOIP account was activated by money transfers via an Italian franchise of Western Union under a false name and identification. These moves were carried by two Pakistanis based in the northern Italian city of Brescia.

Differing Capabilities and Skills Anticipating such threats will require an entirely different array of capabilities and skills. Given India’s immense pool of talent in information technology and related areas, developing the requisite technological capabilities should not be too difficult. Similarly, there is no dearth of personnel with the necessary skill-sets. But the existing structures of our agencies are not really geared to tap into these resources. For one thing, the Central agencies tend to rely considerably on the Indian Police Service to provide personnel on deputation. The calibre of these officers tends to be high, but they are unlikely to possess the qualifications that intelligence operatives and analysts require today. The ‘revolving door’

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INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES

AFP

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INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES The problems with intelligence are by no means specific to India: they can be observed in cases of intelligence failure across countries. Nevertheless, we could institute some precautionary measures.

The level of information personnel policy also An Indian National Security that is now available in undercuts the acquisition Guard commando abseils ‘open sources’ is far greater of such qualifications. from a helicopter onto the The existing procedures rooftop of Nariman House in than what any agency can realistically cope with. To be for recruitment need to Colaba; (Right) An Indian Army sniper climbs up the sure, these sources may not be reconsidered. be very useful for Many Western intelli- scaffolding on the Gateway immediate security gence agencies look for of India opposite the Taj concerns. But they are personnel in the open Mahal Hotel last November market. They openly compete with other useful to benchmark the quality of employers in attracting the most suitable information from covert sources. Besides, talent from colleges and universities. For they are particularly valuable for underanother, the agencies could consider standing the broader, longer-term strategic leveraging the capabilities of the private picture. To cope with the explosion of sector for some tasks. Here too, the information in the open domain, many experience of Western agencies is instructive. intelligence agencies regularly organise Furthermore, the agencies need to open workshops and conferences bringing acquire better area specialists: people who together the best researchers in the have a strong background in the language discipline. The Canadian Security and and culture, history and politics of Intelligence Services, for instance, have a different regions. Unfortunately, area dedicated ‘academic outreach’ programme studies is a third-rate discipline in much of with its own budget and website. In contrast to the problems of collection, Indian academia. The problem can be circumvented by a more imaginative those pertaining to intelligence analysis recruitment policy—one that invests in the and response are more difficult to fix. training of young, talented individuals in Redrawing organisational charts are the best schools abroad. Besides, officers unlikely to be useful beyond a point, for should be actively encouraged to the real problems lie elsewhere. Consider again the failures in Kargil and undertake serious higher academic work. Finally, the intelligence community Mumbai. In the run up to the incursions, needs to expand the range of its activities. intelligence assessments of the future

AFP

”

behaviour of Pakistan rested on extrapolations from patterns of past behaviour. This form of inductive reasoning is the most prevalent mode of making predictions about the way the world works. The trouble is that it encourages a bias towards assuming continuity rather than deviance. But there is no sound methodology for divining such abrupt shifts in behaviour, especially when the adversary is extraordinarily careful to conceal them. It could be argued that the best response would be to proceed on the worst-case assumption. Such a response, however, is bound to pose high costs — costs that might come to be seen as unnecessary. For instance, if the Indian Army had tried to plug the gaps along the Line of Control in the winter of 1998-99, it would certainly have resulted in casualties owing to the weather. Further, it is probable that the Pakistanis might have put off the operation owing to the Indian moves. This, in turn, might have led the Indians to rethink the wisdom of incurring such costs when the anticipated development did not occur. This is the paradox of a “self-negating prophecy”. Even if agreed in principle, the worst-case approach cannot be sustained in practice. This point is borne out in a different way by the failure in Mumbai. The fact is that apart from the more pointed warnings mentioned above, the Navy and other agencies also received a stream of more generic warnings through the year. This appears to have resulted in a ‘crying wolf’ syndrome. It is easy to accuse the Coast Guard, the Navy and the Maharashtra police of not taking the warning seriously. But the last especially had a serious

DSI

problem of capacity. Adopting the worstcase scenario approach for each warning would have required far more resources and cause far more inconvenience. In fact, after the R&AW warning about the Leela, hotels like Oberoi did introduce restrictions but eased them just a week before the attacks. It is also worth emphasising that these warnings were issued by the agencies and were not accompanied by a threat analysis based on all available inputs. Part of the problem, is that intelligence reports are usually inconclusive. By the time they become conclusive the event is already upon us. Reforming this system might be desirable; but it will also introduce delays. Moreover, increasing the frequency and number of intelligence assessments might be counterproductive; for the decisionmakers seldom have the time to read all the intelligence material.

Batting Average These problems with intelligence are by no means specific to India: they can be observed in cases of intelligence failure across countries. Nevertheless, we could institute some precautionary measures. For a start, it might be useful to view intelligence performances not as success or failure but as a “batting average” over time. This will require our agencies to study their own historical records and estimate the ratio of success to failure in making predictions. This will not be a flawless number; but it will give us a reasonable idea of their comparative performance. These could be complemented by commissioning research by independent experts who would be given full access to records after a thorough process of vetting. The British intelligence agencies have been the pioneers in this regard. An authorised history of MI5 written by the Cambridge historian, Christopher Andrews, has recently been published. Similar histories of the MI6 and the Joint Intelligence Committee are due to be released next year. Apart from history, it is important to sensitise intelligence professionals and consumers to social sciences methodology and to the cognitive pitfalls that usually accompany intelligence failures. All of these will require not just resources but a much deeper commitment to reform from the political leadership. For there will be considerable institutional resistance. Let us hope that it won’t take another “surprise attack” like Mumbai for the government to start focusing on these inherent problems of intelligence.

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OUR TITAN IS A MUST - WITHOUT IT NO MODERN AIRCRAFT CAN FLY And why exactly the joint venture?

Boeing and JSC VSMPO-AVISMA Corporation, integrated into the Russian Technologies State Corporation, announced the opening of Ural Boeing Manufacturing (UBM) joint venture in the town of Verkhnyaya Salda, Sverdlovsk Region. The new plant equipped with the state-of-the-art equipment and technologies will machine titanium stampings for the most advanced aircraft in present-day civil aviation - Boeing 787 Dreamliner – and for Russian airliners. The plans and areas of activities of the new JV were outlined in the interview given by Sergey Viktorovich Chemezov, Director-General of the Russian Technologies State Corporation.

The point is that so far we lack experience in machining that we need and another reason is that without a joint venture we would find it difficult to get such machines and other equipment. Yesterday we launched the world’s most advanced machining complex. It has cutting-edge unique equipment. Among other things, the technologies employed at UBM will provide the Corporation with valuable expertise in machining of titanium and in the nearest future will enable it to start production of finished stampings. Anyway, it is our immediate objective. Sergey Viktorovich, what is that unique equipment like?

Russian Technologies State Corporation Director General Sergey Chemezov Sergey Viktorovich, everybody knows your biography perfectly well. But, to build secretly over the Urals in the times of crisis one of the most upto-date enterprises in the world, and jointly with the Americans at that, – that is what I call the very prowess! How did you manage?

In Russia we have a very accurate saying in this respect, “A spoon is dear when lunch time is near”. That is true that we, I mean VSMPOAVISMA and Boeing, didn’t publicize, to put it mildly, the construction. We planned to time the opening of this, using your precise wording, one of the most up-to-date enterprises in the world, or according to some opinions the most up-todate enterprise in the world, to coincide with the US presidential visit to Russia. I believe the motives behind our actions are obvious and clear to everybody. As to the idea of creating our Ural Boeing Manufacturing joint venture, that is its exact name, we agreed with Boeing to establish the JV as far back as in 2006, and in 2007 we signed an agreement to that effect. The construction of the new plant, its staffing, personnel training and equipping with five-axis machines took two years. We are very pleased that we were in time to open it during the new US President’s first visit to Russia. Our JV is indeed a union of business leaders from Russia and the USA – Russian Technologies State Corporation, represented by the world’s largest titanium producer VSMPO-AVISMA, and Boeing, the world leader in aircraft industry. As an industrialist, I believe that economic ties are no less instrumental in developing relations between the two great powers than political contacts. And in certain cases such ties even predeter-

mine them. We are proud to be contributing to the development of mutually beneficial economic ties between the two countries. And what is the interest of VSMPO-AVISMA, the world’s largest titanium producer, in a join venture with American Boeing?

The fact is that the most cutting-edge aircraft, Boeing 787 Dreamliner, will never take off without Russian titanium, which is the lightest and strongest metal. Russian titanium flies with all other Boeing aircraft as well: 737, 747, 767 and 777. And, of course, it is used in advanced models of Russian aircraft. We have agreed with Boeing a portfolio of orders and secured it with long-term contracts until 2015. Contracts worth billions of

US dollars have already been implemented. We never let Boeing down and Boeing has been doing likewise. I hope this situation will hold in the future! Boeing, VSMPO-AVISMA and Russian Technologies pooled efforts to set up a potent mutually-beneficial alliance. It is capable of tackling the most challenging industrial tasks of the 21st century up to the world quality standards using state-ofthe-art technologies. Trading in titanium bars is quite easy, but what is more – unprofitable. That is why from the very beginning of its cooperation with Boeing the VSMPO-AVISMA Corporation has been gradually moving towards a changeover to production and sale of valueadded products of a more profound processing. The creation of the machining complex is a logical follow-up to that policy.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Boeing Executive Vice President Scott Carson (left) & Russian Technologies State Corporation Sergey Chemezov during the opening ceremony of UBM

They are the most advanced five-axis machines of MAG Cincinnati for tough applications, for instance titanium processing. In a word – high-tech. I don’t want to bore you with technical terms. I’ll just say that the machines can cut a sphere out of a titanium slab with an accuracy of one-third of a human hair’s breadth. I think that is quite enough to appreciate their potential. But what is also important is that the previous US administration, referring to the then applicable prohibitive measures, many times refused to export modern equipment to Russia. President Obama has abolished this discrimination by his decision. We are grateful to him for this move. Sergey Viktorovich, I am sure that you have heard a numerous opinion that by covering over 40% of its titanium demand with Russian supplies, American Boeing supposedly gets hooked on Russian titanium. What do you make of it?

That is not so. It should be remembered that Russia is not only a supplier of titanium, but also a source of knowledge, know-how and ideas required for manufacturing of up-to-date American aviation equipment. For example, American and Moscow offices of Boeing are staffed by a lot of high-skilled employees who take direct part in the development and manufacturing of the above Dreamliner. This is not surprising. Today, a competitive high-tech product created without an international cooperation is hard to imagine. The very Russian aircraft Sukhoi Superjet 100, which was internationally presented most recently at Le Bourget air show, was developed in cooperation with Italian Alenia Aeronautica and Boeing. The suppliers of the Superjet main systems include French Snecma and Thales, German Liebherr, American Honeywell and other leading Western companies and firms.

Russian Technologies Director General Sergey Chemezov (right) & Boeing Executive Vice President Scott Carson (left) introduce Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to the products of the new Joint Venture What tasks is the JV faced with and how is it going to integrate into the VSMPO production chain?

UBM will perform primary machining of titanium stampings produced by VSMPOAVISMA and what is particularly important in the immediate vicinity of the JV. Final machining is planned to be carried out at the Boeing plant in Portland, USA, and other processing enterprises of subcontractors. Moreover, titanium chip scrap from machining will be immediately shipped back to VSMPO-AVISMA for recycling. It will make it possible to create a unique closed-cycle chain to support the manufacture of titanium semi-finished products, stampings and other kinds of products. So, I would like to wish the new venture well-coordinated work and new contracts. I wish us, I mean both the Russian and American parties, new models of aircraft and space equipment, naturally with Russian titanium, and also American and Russian cutting-edge technologies. For reference

The Russian Technologies State Corporation was established in November 2007 to assist Russian organizations, working in various industries, in developing, producing and selling high-technology products on the domestic and foreign markets, in conducting applied research into promising areas of scientific and technological development and in manufacturing application of stateof-the-art technologies with a view to bringing Russian designs to a higher level, speeding up and making more cost-effective the

creation thereof. The Russian Technologies State Corporation comprises Rosoboronexport, United Industrial Corporation Oboronprom, CJSC RusSpetsStal, Corporation VSMPO-Avisma, JSC AVTOVAZ and other organizations. The VSMPO-AVISMA Corporation is the world’s largest producer of titanium bars and other semi-finished products from titanium alloy. It is Boeing’s major partner from Russia supplying over 40% of all the titanium products. VSMPO-AVISMA is integrated into the Russian Technologies State Corporation. Boeing is the world’s leading aerospace corporation and number one producer of passenger aircraft. Moreover, Boeing develops and produces military helicopters, electronic and defense systems, missiles, satellites, modern information and telecommunication systems. Boeing holds a leading position in ballistic missile defense, manned spaceflights and space launching services. The Company also provides a package of services in maintenance of and after-sale services for aviation equipment. The Company has customers in more than 90 countries worldwide. Boeing is a US major exporter in terms of the volumes of sales. Chicago-based Boeing employs over 160,000 people in 70 countries worldwide. Since 1992 Boeing has been in close cooperation with Russian aerospace enterprises, IT and air companies. There are 1,200 engineers from Russian leading enterprises contracted to Boeing’s design centre.

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OUR TITAN IS A MUST - WITHOUT IT NO MODERN AIRCRAFT CAN FLY And why exactly the joint venture?

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Boeing Executive Vice President Scott Carson (left) & Russian Technologies State Corporation Sergey Chemezov during the opening ceremony of UBM

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DISRUPTIVE DOMINANCE AJAI SAHNI

KEY POINTS

Given existing capacities, current strategies have little possibility of inflicting decisive reversals on the Maoists. n India’s strategic leadership is unable to focus on the urgent tasks of capacity building at a pace and a scale that this conflict demands. n

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. —Benjamin Franklin

n apocryphal story attributed to a conversation between two German generals during the First World War (versions of the narrative are sometimes dated to the Crimean War, more than half a century earlier) has one of them commenting, “The English soldiers fight like lions.” To this, the other responds, “True. But like lions led by donkeys.” As thousands of State Police and Central Paramilitary Force (CPMF) personnel are flung, without a visible plan or purpose into an escalating war (notwithstanding any euphemisms politicians may prefer)

against the Maoists, it has become increasingly vital to determine the thinking within India’s strategic leadership. The wilder imaginations within this group have thrown their weight behind visions of high-resolution imagery and aerial operations by the Indian Air Force, backed by the Army on the ground. Happily, however, air and military operations, at least, have been unambiguously struck down both by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram. However, the idea of surgical strikes in the densely forested Maoist heartland, executed by combined teams of Special Forces (SF), are yet to be divested of their seduction. The Centre and various States continue to conjure up grandiose campaigns targeting the Maoists in a coordinated and massive offensive across the worst affected areas in the country. Perhaps taking a page out of the American ‘success’ in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s ‘success’ in the SWAT Valley, there has been much ill-advised kite-flying about an attack on the Maoist ‘central guerrilla area’ in the Abujhmadh Forest in Chhattisgarh, backed by sci-fi visions of high resolution aerial, satellite and thermal imagery with air support for ground troops.

Increasing Techno-Warfare Advocates of such techno-warfare largely miss the fact that Pakistan and USA, with the massive collateral damage they routinely inflict on civilian populations,

AFP

India’s strategic leadership is unable to focus on a cogent policy to deal with the Maoists who are active in 223 districts spread across 20 States

have little, if anything, to teach India on counter-insurgency. Incidentally, the IAF has repeatedly sought permission to shoot at Maoists in self-defence, as its helicopters fly transport and surveillance sorties over the affected areas. (Public statements by Defence Minister A.K. Antony and Chidambaram suggest that is the policy though formal permission is yet to be granted.) This is a slippery slope and while offensive air operations against the Maoists have explicitly been ruled out, the IAF is reportedly preparing for a

still-undefined expanded role in fights in the Naxal strongholds. In the meantime, there has been too much of tom-tomming of the massive operations to be launched shortly by the Centre, in coordination with the States. Selective leaks to the media have emanated steadily from a multiplicity of agencies and it is very clear that any operations launched now will not surprise the Maoists. Indeed, while some signs of disarray, especially between State and Central Forces, are visible, there is evidence

that the Maoists have been Indian policemen guard just six districts, principally around Abujhmadh in the systematically preparing for a Salwa Judum Bastar division of Chhattisgarh the imminent onslaught for (People’s Army) relief overflowing into months and have already camp at Bhairamgarh, and neighbouring Gadchiroli initiated their operations to Jharkhand district of Maharashtra. The thwart and circumvent the State’s strategy. Worse, the State’s strategy impact this will have on the Maoists, has been progressively diluted, as it who, by the Home Minister’s own becomes obvious that the quantum of admission, are now active in as many as forces required for the operations across six 223 districts across 20 States, should be States are simply not available. Abruptly, more than obvious. Crucially, if an overwhelming force is sources suggest that the operations have been reinvented as a focussed campaign in in fact concentrated in these narrow areas,

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By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. —Benjamin Franklin

Increasing Techno-Warfare Advocates of such techno-warfare largely miss the fact that Pakistan and USA, with the massive collateral damage they routinely inflict on civilian populations,

AFP

India’s strategic leadership is unable to focus on a cogent policy to deal with the Maoists who are active in 223 districts spread across 20 States

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INTERNAL SECURITY It is crucial for the Government, in confronting this strategy, not to fall into the trap of focussing inordinately on ‘kills’. For years now, the Maoists have had a far greater capacity for violence than they have actually demonstrated.

THE MAOIST MANIFESTO hough the enemy is itching to suppress our Party and movement by deploying a huge force in all our areas, he has severe difficulties in implementing this at present. He has plans to increase the number of Central Forces in the next few years, to set up and train special forces like the Cobras, but in the immediate context it is quite difficult for the Centre to send the forces required by each State to control our movement. Keeping this in mind, we have to further aggravate the situation and create more difficulties to the enemy forces by expanding our guerrilla war to new areas on the one hand and intensifying the mass resistance in the existing areas so as to disperse the enemy forces over a sufficiently wider area; hence the foremost task in every State is to intensify the war in their respective States while in areas of intense enemy repression there is need to expand the area of struggle by proper planning by the concerned committees. Tactical counter-offensives should be stepped up and also taken up in new areas so as to divert a section of the enemy forces from attacking our guerrilla bases and organs of political power.

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Maoist Mobilisation This outcome, however, could provide no more than scant and fleeting comfort to the State. While the saturation of forces has been maintained over the past months, this has in itself become an issue for further Maoist mobilisation. If the CPMF presence is diluted, the area will once again be vulnerable to the Maoists’ disruptive dominance. Even if Lalgarh is effectively secured

—Extracted from the circular released by the Politburo on June, 12, 2009

owever, strong the enemy’s military power may be and however weak the people’s military power, by basing ourselves on the vast backward countryside – the weakest position of the enemy – and relying on the vast masses of the peasantry… and creatively following the flexible strategy and tactics of guerrilla struggle and the protracted People’s War–as a full meal is eaten up mouthful by mouthful, exactly in the same way–by applying the best part of our Army… against different single parts of the enemy forces and following the policy and tactics of sudden attack and annihilation, it is absolutely possible to defeat the enemy forces and achieve victory for the people in single battles. It is thus possible to increase the people’s armed forces, attain supremacy over the enemy’s forces and defeat the enemy decisively.

—Extracted from the CPI-Maoist document on Strategy & Tactics AFP

then after an initial and bloody campaign that will cost the lives of many Security Force personnel and significant collateral casualties in areas where civilian populations intersect seamlessly with Maoist formations, the Maoists can be expected to simply and quickly walk away from the fight. While holding territory has definitive advantages, it is of no extraordinary significance in the overall Maoist strategy. Even for those unfamiliar with Maoist strategy and tactics, this should have been evident after Lalgarh. While the media spoke of liberated areas and an imminent showdown between the entrenched Maoists and the State forces that were eventually deployed, former Director General of Police, Punjab, and antiterrorism expert, K.P. S. Gill writing in Kolkata’s Telegraph said: “…the slow build up over months of State denial, appeasement and progressive error; paralysis in the face of rising Maoist violence; and the final, almost effortless resolution, as the rebels simply melted away in the face of the first evidence of determined use of force.”

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apparently incomprein perpetuity, the rest Villagers walk past the hensible to elements within of West Bengal—and deadbody of a CPI (M) areas of progressive Maoist supporter, allegedly killed by India’s strategic, planning and security communities. consolidation across the Maoists, in Dherua, located Home Secretary G.K. Pillai, country—will provide 130 km from Kolkata certainly one of the better limitless recurrent opporofficers in the Indian Administrative tunities for future theatrics. And so it will be in Abujhmadh, in case Service, declared with Panglossian the projected operations are actually optimism: “We hope that within 30 days of initiated. The strategic reality is quite the security forces moving in and simple. Unless a certain critical mass of the dominating the area, we should be able to security forces can be deployed across restore civil administration there.” It would, areas of current and potential Maoist indeed, be quite miraculous if the State is violence, all available dispositions of able to restore civil administration to vast existing forces will prove irrational. If there expanses of rural India where the Maoists is a concentration of State forces on have no presence, but where the entire particular nodes, the Maoists will disperse apparatus of governance has vanished; and intensify operations in other areas; if some of these areas are little more than a there is a dispersal of State forces, these will stone’s throw away from Delhi. There has, of course, been some be subjected to persistent and corrosive attacks at their points of vulnerability even subsequent dilution of this war rhetoric, as there is a steady expansion of areas of particularly after the Home Minister, on November 12, correctly dismissed Maoist disruptive dominance. Astonishingly, much of this remains Operation Green Hunt, the much talked

about concerted operation against the Maoist rebels' jungle bases, as a “pure invention of the media” (Ironically, the Minister omitted to mention the significant and continuous leaks from the Home Ministry that had fed distorted public perceptions). He expanded on what was to be expected. “In the months ahead there (will be) merely a more coordinated effort by the State Police to reassert control over territory or tracts of land where regrettably the civil administration has lost control. And for that purpose the Centre will assist them in every manner possible, particularly by providing paramilitary forces and sharing of intelligence.” None of the Government’s posturing was, however, lost on the Maoists who appear to be preparing themselves for a full scale civil war, not only with the Special Forces, but also with the Army and with clear expectations that, when push comes to shove, they may have to deal with the Air Force as well. The now-notorious

circular released by the Maoist Politburo on June 12 , explicitly notes that the State’s repression, will be far more brutal, deadly and savage in the political circumstances created by the General Elections of May 2009, than under any other regime hitherto witnessed (see box). These contrasting perspectives arise out of the subjective experience of the Indian State in a vastly contradictory context. To senior officials based in Delhi, insulated behind layers of security, juggling battalions of forces, allocating hundreds of crores of rupees randomly with a squiggle of a pen and pronouncing on the future of entire regions on a moment’s consideration, the experience of the State remains that of a great power. The Maoist, on the other hand, intentionally encounters the State at points of its greatest infirmity. Maoist strategies and tactics are, moreover, uniquely tailored to exploit and augment these infirmities, stepping into a widening

vacuum of governance and systematically expanding its boundaries through a slow process of attrition to establish a disruptive dominance that prevents the State’s agencies from delivering even the rudiments of governance, development and welfare. In this, the Maoist approach is complex and while it certainly uses extreme violence to great effect, it is not exhausted by it. As the programme and constitution of the erstwhile People’s War Group’s (PWG’s) People’s Guerrilla Army (PGA) declares: “The PGA firmly opposes the pure military outlook which is divorced from the masses and adventurism. It will function adhering to the mass line.” The mass line explicitly rejects the Left adventurism often attributed to the earlier Naxalite movement of the 1967-73 phase and insists that the military aspect of the revolution are contingent on mass mobilisation, “We see not only weapons but also people. Weapons are an important

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—Extracted from the circular released by the Politburo on June, 12, 2009

—Extracted from the CPI-Maoist document on Strategy & Tactics AFP

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INTERNAL SECURITY The envisaged massive operations, reflecting little by way of plan or purpose are at best a faith in demonstrative violence, based on the hope that this will cow down the enemy. This is not a calculus of war; it is sheer fantasy.

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Balance of Power

The balance of power—that is the key and variable that the Maoist seeks to gradually and painstakingly transform. Today, the Maoist is under no illusion that he is an equal to the State and to its armed might (see box, pg 17). It is crucial, in confronting this strategy, not to fall into the trap of focussing inordinately on ‘kills’. For years now, the Maoists have had a far greater capacity for violence than they have actually demonstrated. In vast areas of their activity, they deliberately choose to calibrate violence at low levels or to avoid armed violence altogether, in order to build their mass base. On the other hand, the State has often looked upon the problem overwhelmingly in terms of fatality rates—and this lies at the core of current and increasingly panicked assessments. With fatalities in Maoist-related violence expected to rise beyond a thousand by the end of 2009 (at least 749 had already been killed as of

AFP

factor in war, but not the decisive factor; it is people, not things, that are decisive.” Importantly, as it builds up its mass base through secret organisations as well as over-ground united front activities, the strategy of protracted conflict, as one group of commentators notes, “Postpones the decisive battle and calibrates its challenges to a calculus of risks–until the balance of power has shifted overwhelmingly to the side of the revolutionary forces.”

October 6, 2009, according to Indian security personnel station areas of around 90 districts in 13 States… With South Asia Terrorism Portal search the scene of a increasing sophistication in data), Chidambaram has bomb blast in Bundu,a fabrication and deployment rightly observed that the CPI- village near Ranchi, of Improvised Explosive Maoist had “improved upon Jharkhand, which killed Devices (IED), it has inflicted its military wares and four civilians more casualties on the security forces...” operational tactics”. With more and more SF personnel Further he said, “The recent decisions taken by its Politburo (referring to the June and civilians being killed, there is inevi12 document) indicate that the CPI-Maoist table and increasing pressure to rack up is determined to expand its activities into higher numbers of Maoist kills through newer areas, on the one hand, and comprehensive operations as currently intensify its mass resistance in the existing envisaged. Given current State capacities areas, on the other. Violence, the most and levels of preparedness, as well as visible aspect of Naxal menace, has been the Maoist strategy, any excessive consistently witnessed in about 400 police emphasis on simply neutralising Maoists

can only result in enormous inefficiencies in the use of force—in other words, large numbers of civilians and SF personnel killed—without establishing any enduring gains. The existing balance of power cannot support operational dominance of Maoists, even as they acquire increasing capacities to inflict their disruptive dominance over widening areas. The envisaged massive operations, reflecting little by way of plan or purpose are at best a faith in demonstrative violence, based on the hope that this will cow down the enemy. This is not a calculus of war; it is sheer fantasy. Even as colossal deficits in leadership, manpower, training,

technology and counter-insurgency orientation persist in the SFs—both Central and State—operations are being intensified. The consequence can only be that more SF personnel will lose their lives and the gains will remain dubious.

Abysmal Police-Population Ratio It is crucial to review the relevant State capacities in this context. First, the policepopulation ratios for the whole country in early 2008 stood at a bare 125:100,000 in early 2008. According to the Prime Minister’s statement at the Conference of Directors General of Police on September 15, 2009, this has now risen to about

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145:100,000—still abysmally low, compared to the required ratios for peacetime policing at well over 200, and ranging in some western countries to over 500 per 100,000. Moreover, this is a primitive, illtrained and ill-equipped force and, in most States, it has little capacity or orientation to deal with full-blown insurgency. Worse, these numbers reflect sanctioned strengths and not the actual strength available on the ground. Thus, there was more than a 14 percent deficit against a total sanctioned strength in 2008. The situation in the States worst affected by Naxalism is infinitely worse. Bihar has a police:population ratio of just 60 and a deficit of over 33 percent against the sanctioned strength. Orissa has a sanctioned ratio of 97 with a deficit of nearly 19 percent. In Jharkhand, the ratio is 136:100,000 and the deficit is 21 percent; Chhattisgarh has 128:100,000 with a deficit of 26 percent; Andhra Pradesh has 96:100,000 with a deficit of 11 percent and West Bengal has 92:100,000 showing a deficit of 25 percent. The crisis of leadership is worse. At the cutting edge ranks of Deputy Superintendent of Police to Senior Superintendent of Police, deficits in Andhra stands at 19 percent; in Bihar at 35 percent; in Chhattisgarh at 28 percent; in Jharkhand at 51 percent; in Orissa at 34 percent and in West Bengal at 25 percent. In the ‘fighting leadership’ ranks of Assistant SubInspector to Inspector, deficits in Andhra are at 15 percent; Bihar has 39 percent; Chhattisgarh 41 percent; Jharkhand 18 percent; Orissa 34 percent and West Bengal 30 percent. Crucially, sanctioned strengths in most leadership ranks are severely inadequate and will become progressively so as recruitment to the lower ranks accelerates. The overall system does not appear to be geared to respond to these predicaments. In the worst case, for instance, Orissa has a current sanctioned strength of as many as 207 officers in the IPS ranks, but has just 84 officers currently available. The State had requested the Centre to allocate a trifling eight IPS officers from the graduating batch of 2009; the Centre allocated just four—a number that will be significantly exceeded by those retiring this year and against the current deficit of as many as 123 officers. The State Government is, of course, doing its own substantial bit to add to the chaos. The State Services Examination for entry into the police at the rank of Deputy

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Balance of Power

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Given current State capacities, no proposed strategy can offer the possibility of a decisive victory or even enduring gains against the Maoists Clarity of purpose and the objective is integral to the success and even the potential of any strategy or plan.

in the Maoist-affected Superintendent of Police (Above) Rescue workers inspect areas was a mere 37 has not been held since the train carriages of the Tatabattalions, yielding a total 1976. Forty eight posts Bilaspur Passenger Express in the IPS ranks are derailed after Maoist rebels blew of just 14,800 men on the ground. There is now reserved for promotees up the railway tracks in the talk of 70 battalions being from the State cadre—not Singhbhum area of Jharkhand sent to these areas— a single officer is currently (Right) Folk singer and Naxal available for these leader Gaddar performs during a though it is not clear whether this will be an reserved posts. Man- protest in New Delhi power deficits are, of course, infinitely additional 70 or an augmentation of compounded by extreme shortfalls in current force to this number. We would, in technical, technological and training other words, have either 70 or 107 variables, by irrational deployment of battalions allocated under the Centre’s forces and by persistently imprudent projected operational plans, that is, 28,000 political inter ventions. The outcome is or 42,800 CPMF personnel for the six worst that current capacities of police forces in affected States with a total area of 1.86 the afflicted States are simply insufficient million sq km and a total population of to design an effective response to the over 446 million. This is like trying to irrigate the desert with dewdrops. Maoist challenge. Of course, the Centre’s operational strategy will seek to concentrate this force Battalion Approach The Centre pretends to come to in areas of specific Maoist dominance, the rescue with its battalion approach to recover these areas and then bring and there is much talk of a massive deploy- them under civil administration. But the ment of CPMFs. The reality is sobering. Maoist will simply refuse to confront the Prior to the much advertised current State in its areas of strength and the State mobilisation, the total allocation of CPMFs cannot, given its existing capacities,

maintain a permanent saturation in the recovered areas. Where the State’s deployments are heavy, the Maoists will simply walk away, as they did in Lalgarh. Where the State forces are dispersed or their presence is eventually diluted, they will be selectively targeted in a campaign of attrition. From any realistic perspective, the current intensive operations are consequently doomed. But how can you judge an operation that has no manifest strategic objective? Recall the purposeless massing of troops under Operation Parakram, launched on December 16, 2001, after the Pakistan-backed terrorist attack on India’s Parliament. More than 680 soldiers were killed, without a single shot being fired, by the time Operation Parakram was called off on October 16, 2002, with the unsupported claim that its undefined objectives had been achieved. So, indeed, will be the case with the current anti-Naxalite mobilisation. As the Cheshire Cat said to Alice, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”

Crucially, the other bogus strategy— bringing development and civil administration to areas currently under Maoist disruptive dominance—also has no possible future for comparable reasons. There has been a long-standing myth that India suffers from too much governance and that its bloated bureaucracy needs to be rationalised and drastically reduced. This is another bit of the most extraordinarily contra-factual nonsense that has taken firm root in the Indian imagination. The reality is, that India’s administrative capacities are collapsing, not just qualitatively—because of the rising incompetence and corruption of the system—but even in terms of minimal quantitative variable. Thus the United States, with its belief that the best Government governs least, has as many as 889 Federal Government employees per 100,000 people. India’s Central Government employs just 295 per 100,000 and a large proportion of these are flogged in a number of public sector enterprises and units entirely unconnected with core governance. The railways, for instance, is the largest single Central Government employer, accounting for over 42 percent of the total pool. If railway employees were to be excluded from the strength of Central Government employees, this would leave us with a ratio of just 171 Central Government employees per 100,000. Moving on to the State and local

Government employees, we find that, in the US, these account for another 6,314 per 100,000. In sharp contrast, Uttar Pradesh has 352, Bihar 472, Orissa 1,007, Chhattisgarh 1,067, Maharashtra 1,223; Punjab 1,383 and Gujarat, 1,694. Worse, in India, the overwhelming proportion of Government employees is in the lower cadres, Class III and IV, as against the ‘thinking’ element of the State in its higher echelons. Even in the latter category, qualitative profiles including modern and administrative skills, training and technological competence are severely limited. The fact is there is no plan or programme, given current resource configurations that can address the cumulative developmental deficits in India in any timeframe that is relevant to counterinsurgency goals. Given current State capacities, it must be clear, no proposed strategy can offer the possibility of a decisive victory or even enduring gains against the Maoists and current pronouncements are intended, at best, to project a political posture and, at worst, to massage the political vanity of particular leaders. Clarity of purpose, the objective—and not merely the visible impact of the use of force—is integral to the success and even the potential of any strategy or plan. While there is evidence of some crystallisation of will and an emerging consensus within the national leadership, this is still periodically undermined by ill-conceived qualification.

”

Take, for instance, the nonsense spouted from the highest offices in the land about the Maoists being ‘our people’. Is the law of the land only to be applied to foreigners? Are thieves and bandits, rapists and murderers languishing in India’s jails not our people? Should they, on this ground, be exempted from responsibility for their transgressions? What provision of Constitution, law or morality confers impunity on the Maoists simply because they are our people? But even as we regurgitate the vapid rhetoric of ‘developmental solutions’, ‘our people’, ‘our children’, ‘our brothers and sisters’, there is an unconstrained and excessive rhetoric of the use of force. Special Forces are, for instance, being fashioned in the image of all manner of the predatory beast—cobras, jaguars, grey hounds (the grey hounds are perhaps the most benign of these images, the species being notable more for speed than for aggression). But is this the image of the State we want to project––to our people, to our enemies and to the world? Two things are abundantly clear here. The first is that, given existing capacities, current strategies have little possibility of inflicting decisive reversals on the Maoists. Secondly, the Maoists have to be fought and defeated. India’s strategic leadership has not displayed the wisdom to reconcile these realities and to focus on the urgent tasks of capacity building at a pace and a scale that this conflict demands.

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GURMEET KANWAL

MONIKA CHANSORIA

The increased presence of small arms has fuelled militant and insurgency movements across South Asia

There are approximately 640 million small arms across the world, of which, only about 226 million are in the possession of the armed forces and law enforcing agencies. n Chinese weapons gained immense popularity among insurgent groups as they are competitively priced. n

outh Asia, arguably the second most dangerous global hotspot after West Asia, with the intractable and spreading radical extremism in the Af-Pak area, is rapidly nudging towards number one position. One of the major reasons for this dubious distinction has been the large-scale proliferation and easy availability of small arms and light weapons (SALW). In South Asian alone, the burgeoning trade in SALW, mostly illicit, has spawned more than 250 militant and insurgency movements in which small arms constitute the core weapons in the arsenal of extremist elements. According to available UN estimates, there are approximately 640 million small arms across the world, of which, only about 226 million are in the possession of armed forces and law enforcing agencies. India, with a small arms arsenal estimated at 6.3 million, stands sixth in the global ranking. About one percent of the global holdings, that is, 6.4 million weapons—nearly the size of India’s arsenal—are believed to be in the hands of militants, insurgents, terrorist groups and networks and other non-State actors. The extent of SALW can be gauged from the fact that at least 22 UN peacekeeping and rescue missions have been launched in scenarios where the

foremost weapons of war used by the opposing forces are essentially SALW. Indeed, the presence of SALW has escalated ever since the end of the Cold War, when the era of major inter-State wars, normally classified as conventional conflict, has been gradually drawing to a close. Its place was taken by intra-State subconventional conflict in which the intensity of conflict and the levels of violence are low but violence is sustained over a much longer time period. Indeed, it has been the impact of personal and man-portable weapons which became the primary reason for the expansion of the definition of “small arms” by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) nearly three decades ago. NATO reclassified small arms and light weapons as “all crew-portable direct fire weapons of a calibre less than 50 mm… (including those with) a secondary capability to defeat light armour and helicopters.”

South Asian Epicentre As the epicentre of diverse armed conflicts, ranging from asymmetric warfare, ethnic conflicts to separatist movements, South Asia has witnessed an exponential proliferation of SALW in recent decades. The Indian Subcontinent’s susceptibility to this increase can be attributed to the fact that SALW are the most readily available option for non-State actors to engage in intra-State asymmetric warfare and State-sponsored proxy wars. Additionally, technological sophistication has made SALW increasingly more compact and lighter also adding ominously to their firepower. When the rapid-fire Soviet Kalashnikov and the US M-16 variety of automatic assault rifles and hand grenades, which had constituted the standard inventory of

Cadres of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) stand guard at a hideout camp in Tinsukia district in Assam AFP

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MONIKA CHANSORIA

The increased presence of small arms has fuelled militant and insurgency movements across South Asia

Cadres of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) stand guard at a hideout camp in Tinsukia district in Assam AFP

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WEAPONS the Terai region along the border with India also gradually increased and some of these quite naturally found their way across the open and porous border into UP and Bihar. The employed improvised explosive devices (IEDs) planted by the Maoists were based on explosives stolen from road construction projects. In the case of Sri Lanka, the civil war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan armed forces drove the small arms predicament of the island nation. Widespread proliferation of small arms began in 1987. Soon the LTTE managed to weave an international network to procure SALW through its sympathisers in the diaspora. The LTTE also added to its arsenal by seizing stockpiles from the Sri Lankan Army. It has been estimated that as much as 80 percent of LTTE’s arsenal came from the Sri Lankan Force’s stocks. In the mid-1980s, the LTTE diversified its arms acquisition so as to exploit all possible sources and routes. Its agents began networking with the arms dealers in Southeast Asia. They used many small ports and jetties in Myanmar for receiving and for the trans-shipment of weapons. Chinese AK-56, US M-16s, LMGs, MMGs, Singapore-made assault rifles and 2.5-inch mortars dominated the LTTE munitions stores. The LTTE soon established linkages with groups inimical to Indian security and became a leading contributor to small arms proliferation in India. Also, LTTE operations in Myanmar received increased attention once the going got tough for them in Tamil Nadu. The LTTE is reported to have established a naval base in Twante. Phuket in Thailand became a crucial exit point and an arms bazaar for Chinese small arms. Following the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the consequent crossborder flow of weapons, an estimated 30 percent of the SALW provided by the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI to the Afghan resistance were diverted for other purposes. During 1980-84, old Chinese made rifles began to replace Kalashnikovs in Afghanistan. With more than 50-70 trucks moving every day, around 65,000 tonnes of weapons passed through the northern areas. Meanwhile, the circulation of Kalashnikov rifles increased manifold in Pakistan as it sponsored, armed, equipped and trained the Taliban to take over in Kabul. The gun culture had long existed in the North-West Frontier Provience (NWFP) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the adjacent tribal areas with most weapons coming in from Darra

These countries potentially form a valuable source of SALW. After the formation of Bangladesh, many firearms used during that war were never fully accounted for and continued to remain in circulation. According to Major General Syed Recovered arms, Muhammad Ibrahim (retd.) from the Bang- belonging to rebels from Jammu ladesh Army, as many as 128 crime syndicates Kashmir Freedom Force, being in his country were displayed at an using 400,000 illegal SALW. In fact, gun- Indian Army camp related violence facilitated the spread of organised crime, undermined the region’s fragile democratic politics and fuelled sectarian violence. The insurgency in the Chittagong Hill Tracts over the past few decades further added to the demand for small arms. The easy opportunity for money-laundering resulted in the emergence of Bangladesh as the main transit point for at least five major militant groups that are active in Northeast India, especially the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA). It is also a convenient transit route for the flow of illegal weapons from Southeast Asia. Nepal, which was earlier another conduit for small arms proliferation in South Asia, has now become an end user itself as the Maoists’ People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is a big buyer of SALW. The Maoist insurgency launched in 1996 spurred the spread of small arms in Nepal. The PLA guerrillas supplemented their modest arsenal with hundreds of weapons seized in raids on police outposts. The number of weapons in

AFP

Unaccounted Firearms

ARMS ROUTE l With 50-70 trucks crossing the Northern areas (Af-Pak), around 65,000 tonnes of weapons pass through this area daily l Nepal has now become an end user itself as the Maoists’ People’s Liberation Army is a big buyer of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW). l Phuket in Thailand has became a crucial exit point and an arms bazaar for Chinese small arms.

MAP: ARCHANA

soldiers for several decades, came into the hands of non-State actors, their ability to reduce the asymmetry with that of the security forces increased manifold. In fact, it gave the extremists an advantage in conducting hit-and-run guerrilla tactics. Though India itself is far being from an island of calm, it is, more worryingly, hemmed in by an arc of instability. Festering insurgencies in surrounding countries have added to India’s woes. Ethnic insurgent groups from India’s Northeastern States have been seeking sanctuaries both in Myanmar and Bangladesh. In fact, Myanmar plays an unwilling host to as many as 33 armed ethnic insurgent groups. Its Army has been fighting these groups for many decades and has cooperated with the Indian Army in launching joint operations to destroy sanctuaries and militant bases across India’s border.

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Source: South Asia's Fractured Frontier: Armed Conflict, Narcotics and Small Arms Proliferation in India's Northeast/ Binalakshmi Nepram

Adamkhel—an area that boasts of having 2,600 arms shops and five gun factories. Approximately, seven million small arms stoked the embers of the Afghan conflict.

China as a Key Supplier The Chinese angle to the SALW proliferation in South Asia cannot be ignored. Chinese weapons have gained immense popularity among the insurgent groups in the region as they were competitively priced and low-level officials offered counter-trade agreements. The Chinese weapons pipeline continued to feed the Afghan conflict and permeated into Myanmar’s underground markets along the Thai border. Beginning with the Type 56 rifle, China produced and offered for sale five different varieties of rifles (Type 56, 68, 79, 81 and 5.56 Type CQ), allied light machine guns and sub-machine guns. China also became the prime official supplier to Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Pakistan (including anti-aircraft and antitank weapons). Significantly, large numbers of weapons of Chinese origin have been seized in Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh.

The Chinese have also supplied small arms to Indian insurgent groups in Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura for many years up to the late-1970s. Thereafter, while Chinese SALW continued to be recovered by the Indian Security Forces in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and in the Northeastern States, their origin could not be pinpointed directly to official Chinese sources as these came in mostly through the Thailand-Southeast Asian route. Whether this is a deliberate attempt by the Chinese Government or the PLA to destabilise India or it can be attributed to corruption at lower levels, has not been easy to be ascertain. In a statement with far reaching consequences, India’s Home Secretary, G K Pillai, said in a seminar on November 8, 2009, that the Maoists in India were receiving small arms from China. “Chinese are big suppliers of small arms,” Pillai asserted. Earlier, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram had also said in an interview in October that the Maoists were acquiring weapons through Bangladesh, Myanmar and possibly Nepal since the Indo-Nepal

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Unaccounted Firearms

MAP: ARCHANA

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Source: South Asia's Fractured Frontier: Armed Conflict, Narcotics and Small Arms Proliferation in India's Northeast/ Binalakshmi Nepram

Adamkhel—an area that boasts of having 2,600 arms shops and five gun factories. Approximately, seven million small arms stoked the embers of the Afghan conflict.

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WEAPONS

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THE AK-47 LEGEND “I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work -for example a lawnmower.” –Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK-47 (2002)

AFP

KILLER STATS

63,000 hand grenades; 7 border is porous. The Mikhail Kalashnikov, the inventor of easy availability of the AK-47, shakes hand with Russian million rounds of ammunition; 6,200 land mines SALW further fuels President Dmitry Medvedev on his and IEDs and 37,000 kg of their demand as India 90th birthday recently explosives have been continues to counter long drawn-out insurgencies and a ‘proxy recovered from various hideouts in J&K war’ waged through State-sponsored during counter-proxy war operations. This despite the fact that there are no ordnance terrorism by a perfidious neighbour. factories in J&K. India’s Northeastern States, too, have The Numbers Add up in India India has witnessed around 152 militant witnessed insurgency since the past four movements since Independence. Of these, decades owing to a well organised network 65 are believed to be active in one form or for smuggling weapons. The National the other. It is widely recognised that Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN, IM Pakistan is still the primary source of small and K groups), introduced the United arms that are India bound, using SALW as Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) to the political and military tools against New Kachins, a resilient tribe from Myanmar. In Delhi. Islamabad facilitates smuggling of fact, it was widely reported in 1986 that SALW both through sea and land routes to Paresh Baruah, a top commander of the ISI-supported terrorist organisations and ULFA, had travelled through north-west Myanmar and paid the Kachins a sleeper cells across India. The funding for SALW is organised through substantial sum of money to begin training hawala channels from private sources—from and to arrange for the supply of weapons other countries including Saudi Arabia, via from the arms bazaars in Thailand and Bangladesh and Nepal—through crime smuggling networks operating on the and extortion and from religious institutions Myanmar-China route. As camps in the Chittagong area in for social purposes. The transfer of small arms takes place through formal and Bangladesh became operational by 1989, clandestine routes and through legal and they facilitated entry into Assam through the Cachar and Barrack Valley corridors. By black/grey markets. Since 1989-90, Indian Security Forces the mid-1990s, the Bangladesh connection have seized huge stocks of arms and revealed its real potential. Using Bangladesh ammunition along the LoC in J&K alone. as an exit point, the ULFA managed to Between 1990 and 2005, as many as 28,000 establish contact with arms dealers in assault rifles of the AK-47 series; 1,300 Thailand and as far as Romania. This was machine guns; 2,000 rocket launchers; possibly the beginning of contacts with arms 365 sniper rifles; 10,000 assorted pistols; dealers in Cambodia from whom ULFA

n Kalashnikov’s design has spawned many copies, such as the Chinese type 56 n There are 50-70 million AK-47s worldwide n At least 82 Governments include them in their military armouries n The AK-47 is produced in at least 14 countries, including Albania, Bulgaria, China, Germany, Egypt, Hungary, India, Iraq, North Korea, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Venezuela n The average price of the weapon is about $400, though in some African countries they are sold for as low as $12

started accessing huge numbers of weapons. It paid for these in hard currency primarily banked in Nepal. At Cox’s Bazaar, another prominent transit route for weapons, ULFA cadres coordinated their arms acquisition and operational strategies with the NSCN and other insurgent groups that had bases in the area. With left wing extremism on the ascendant across central India and no end in sight to long-standing insurgencies in J&K and the Northeastern States, the proliferation of small arms has become a major security challenge for India. In this dial-an-AK-47 age, those who have the money can acquire SALW quite easily from unscrupulous wheeler-dealers across the globe. When indigenously produced country-made pistols and revolvers are added to the clandestinely acquired small arms’ numbers, India emerges as a leading light weapons. The Government of India’s intelligence agencies must pool in their resources and work in tandem with the State Governments and their agencies to identify the sources, the funding channels and routes of small arms proliferation so as to systematically bring this growing menace to an end through political, diplomatic and, where necessary, military means. Also, India must work towards nudging the SAARC countries and those in its extended neighbourhood towards endorsing the Arms Trade Treaty at the UN so as to be able to more comprehensively confront this mounting challenge.

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TRIANGULAR

DYNAMIC Signs of a new triangular diplomacy between the U.S. and India and China have become visible

KEY POINTS n President Obama representing an economically shattered America defers to China at India’s cost. n By giving a monitoring role to China in South Asia Obama has set of a storm of protest in India. n On his recent Washington visit Prime Minister Manmohan Singh lays out his own preception of Asia.

s the U.S. President Barack Obama returned from his exhaustive Asian tour and prepared to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in November, a prestigious Washington think tank predicted that India will in a few decades be the world’s third largest economy lagging behind only China and the United States. Pointing to a rapidly changing global redistribution of power, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said

Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh is accompanied by U.S President Barack Obama as he walks the red carpet during his recent State visit to America AFP

C. RAJA MOHAN

that the combined Gross Domestic Product of China, the United States and India will “be 70 percent more than that of the other G 20 countries combined” by the middle of this century. The report added that “in China and India alone, the GDP is predicted to increase by nearly $ 60 trillion—the current world GDP” over the next four decades. Explaining the resulting implications for the hierarchy of international powers, the Carnegie report said, “After nearly a century as the world’s pre-eminent economic power, the United States is projected to relinquish this title to China in 2032”. The report concludes that while the United States might remain the preeminent power on the world stage; but it will have to share power with a rising China and make some space for an emerging India. It appears that we don’t have to wait for decades to see the power play between Washington, Beijing and Delhi. The signs of a new triangular dynamic between the United States and the two Asian giants have come into view over the last few months. When he travelled to Asia in midNovember, Obama, representing a weakened America owing a mountain of debt to Beijing, could not but defer to a

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DYNAMIC Signs of a new triangular diplomacy between the U.S. and India and China have become visible

Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh is accompanied by U.S President Barack Obama as he walks the red carpet during his recent State visit to America AFP

C. RAJA MOHAN

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rising China. The talk of a Group of Two— a global condominium between China and the United States—has gained ground in recent months although Beijing has never really endorsed the notion.

AFP

DIPLOMACY SINO-US JOINT STATEMENT

THE KASHMIR ANGLE AND THE STRATEGIC CHALLENGE he Sino-US joint statement issued at the conclusion of American President Barack Obama’s T visit to China, where China and the United States

Storm of Protest For India, the talk of a condominium seemed to become a reality when it saw Obama’s formulations about China’s role in South Asia at the end of his summit with President Hu Jintao. The expansive joint statement issued in Beijing by Presidents Obama and Hu Jintao declared that “China and the United States are ready to strengthen communication, dialogue and cooperation on issues related to South Asia and work together to promote peace, stability and development in that region.” This set off a storm of protest in India, which sees its relations with its South Asian neighbours in a seemingly separate category. Rejecting the notion of a Sino-U.S. condominium over the Subcontinent, the Indian foreign ministry insisted that, “A third-country role cannot be envisaged nor is it necessary” in the resolution of its disputes with Pakistan. The Chinese foreign office moved in quickly to suggest that it had no intention of mediating between India and Pakistan

For India, the talk of a condominium seemed to become a reality when it saw Obama’s formulations about China’s role in South Asia.

”

and that the Kashmir dispute was a bilateral one between the two South Asian nations. As the U.S. media amplified the Indian concerns, it was quite clear that the issue would figure prominently during Prime Minister’s Singh’s visit to Washington in late November. For Delhi, Obama’s statements in Beijing reinforced the concern that Washington was now moving towards a “China-first” strategy in Asia. This was in total contrast to George W. Bush’s strategy in Asia. Bush’s premise

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agreed to work to strengthen dialogue and cooperation in South Asia has caused much disquiet in India. It is very unfortunate that in his attempts to please his hosts President Obama has given them more than he needed to. If you read the communiqué carefully, I do believe that the first few lines pertaining to South Asia are acceptable. It is the second part where it mentions that China and United States will work together for ushering a stable era of peace and security in South Asia that has raised hackles in India. For two powers to decide how a third power will have a relationship with another country in its region is completely unacceptable to India. The problem with President Obama is that he is conscious of the great vulnerability of the United States with regard to what he has called the worst recession of generations. He sees China as the major and critical factor coming to America’s rescue in its grave moment. The Chinese have $ 800 billion plus in US Government Securities and they are behaving like a creditor nation. Therefore their posture, their persona, their body language and their strategic power is obvious for anyone to see. China’s rising power is palpable and the Chinese are conscious of that power. It is in this context that we should see what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in his address to the Council for Foreign Relations. He said that he had noted the Chinese assertiveness, which had surprised him and more importantly, he said that India would have to take this assertiveness into account. This means that our foreign, security, defence, economic and other policies will now have to be, I will not say re-cast but will have to be altered in terms of substance and nuance to reflect this change across the Himalayas in China. It was rather surprising that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chose to say that a country’s GDP growth alone is not enough and that India has very strong achievements by way of democracy, freedoms and liberal system. In doing so he has commented on the Chinese political system and that is very uncharacteristic of Dr. Manmohan Singh. Perhaps it is the result of an accumulated kind of anger and frustration at the manner in which the United States has tried to placate China at the cost of India. India considers and must consider China as a strategic challenge in the years ahead. Yet China is India’s largest trading partner at $ 52 billion in 2008-09. At the same time, the Indian and Chinese positions

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with Chinese President Hu Jintao during the BRIC and SCO Summits in Russia early this year

was that helping India’s rise will not only help limit Beijing’s expanding influence in Asia but also shift the global balance of power in favour of ‘freedom’. Changing this premise would naturally leave little room for building a strategic partnership between Washington and Delhi. A day before his meeting with Obama, Dr. Singh laid out his own perceptions of Asia. Addressing the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Singh declared that Delhi and Washington must “work together with other countries in the region

to create an open and inclusive regional architecture in the Asia-Pacific”. Dr. Singh emphasised that the rise of China is a reality and that the world must come to terms with it. He argued that the answer lies in engagement and cooperation with Beijing. “We have tried to engage China and they are one of our major trading partners. We have border disputes we are trying to solve that and both have agreed that while that is pending we should keep the peace,” the Prime Minister said.

At the same time, Singh introduced a nuance into the thinking about China. On the one hand, he insisted that the world has a stake in ensuring that the rise of China must be peaceful. On the other, he publicly wondered about his inability to understand China’s new assertiveness on the border with India. Although China figured prominently in his talks with Obama, Dr. Singh underlined that India has no desire to either seek U.S. support against China or contest the terms of Sino-American cooperation. He was ever

on Climate Change, on the Doha Round of talks and the approach to the Copenhagen conference are very similar. So there are similarities at one end and challenges at the other. The Chinese have realised that the Indian threshold of tolerance has been breached. Their Foreign Office has just made a statement that it does not mean to interfere in India and Pakistan’s resolution of the Kashmir issue. That has been the Chinese position for a long time. But the proximity of India to the US with the signing of the Indo-US Nuclear Cooperation Agreement has rattled the Chinese. The Chinese believe that their rise is sought to be balanced or countered through a strategic encirclement of China by the combined efforts of United States and India. The joint statement was picked up by separatist leader Mirwaiz Omer Farooq to say that China is a stakeholder in the Kashmir issue. Infact, it is only the Mirwaiz who has picked up that statement; none of the other separatist leaders have endorsed it. Some of them have even questioned that if there is an intrusion into Kashmir by Afghanistan, it will also become a stakeholder. The fact is that 38,000 sq kms is under illegal occupation of China since 1962 and that 5,180 sq kms of the Shaksgam Valley of the composite State of Jammu and Kashmir were handed over by Pakistan to China in 1963. China had agreed in the 1963 agreement that after the settlement of the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India, it will reopen negotiations on its (Kashmir) boundary issue. China is committed to the problem of Kashmir being a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan. The Chinese position on Jammu and Kashmir has been exacerbated by its introducing this factor of issuing visas (for Kashmiris) on a piece of paper stapled on a passport. It is totally unacceptable to the Indian Government that China is issuing such visas to citizens of India on the basis of domicile, ethnicity and religion in the last few months. India will have to play it, as the Prime Minister said, by taking into account whatever is happening externally and ensure that India’s security is not compromised in any way. At the same time, India has to ensure that all avenues are kept open for enhancing the nature and depth of the relationship, both with China and the United States. India’s relationship with either China or the US is not at the cost of the other. The Indian leadership has made it absolutely clear that it will have a multi-vector foreign policy and security policy. —Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak (retd), is a defence and security affairs analyst with a special interest in Kashmir. He has served as Deputy Director of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses and is currently Additional Director, Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi. He spoke to Shubha Singh

so subtle in suggesting that he might play the U.S. card if Beijing keeps pushing Delhi.

Indispensable Partnership On his part, Obama was quite keen to assuage the Indian sensitivities, suggesting that the decision to receive Singh as the first State guest at the White House was a deliberate one aimed at demonstrating the importance of the U.S.-India relationship. At the end of his talks with Singh, Obama argued that the partnership with India was ‘indispensable’ to the

construction of a stable world order and that the United States ‘welcomes and encourages’ ‘India’s leadership role’ in promoting peace and stability in Asia. Obama also sought to dispel the impression in Delhi that his Administration may not be committed to implementing the nuclear deal that Singh had negotiated with his predecessor. Declaring full support for the civil nuclear initiative, Obama said, “As nuclear powers, we can be full partners in preventing the spread of the world’s most

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rising China. The talk of a Group of Two— a global condominium between China and the United States—has gained ground in recent months although Beijing has never really endorsed the notion.

AFP

DIPLOMACY SINO-US JOINT STATEMENT

THE KASHMIR ANGLE AND THE STRATEGIC CHALLENGE he Sino-US joint statement issued at the conclusion of American President Barack Obama’s T visit to China, where China and the United States

For India, the talk of a condominium seemed to become a reality when it saw Obama’s formulations about China’s role in South Asia.

”

DSI

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with Chinese President Hu Jintao during the BRIC and SCO Summits in Russia early this year

so subtle in suggesting that he might play the U.S. card if Beijing keeps pushing Delhi.

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It is inevitable that a rising China will play a larger role in the subcontinent; similarly an emerging India will have a growing voice in East Asian affairs.

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deadly weapons....and pursuing our shared vision of a world without nuclear weapons.”

Security Priorities

AFP

Chinese President Hu Jintao escorts U.S. President Barack Obama past a guard of honour during a welcome ceremony in Beijing

Even more important from the Indian perspective was the joint statement’s formulations on Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are the principal security priorities for India and currently for the United States. The joint statement said, “The two leaders reiterated their shared interest in the stability, development and independence of Afghanistan and in the defeat of terrorist safe havens in Pakistan and Afghanistan”. One of the major outcomes from Singh’s visit to Washington has been the signing of a new security initiative, “to expand collaboration on counter-terrorism, intelligence sharing and capacity building”. Obama’s convergence of interests with Singh comes at a time when India was worried about the conversations between Washington and Beijing on Af-Pak issues and Beijing’s rising profile in the South Asia. Whatever might have been India’s motives to seek strategic reassurances from Obama and the manner in which his Administration offered them, they are not adequate to deal with the extraordinary triangular dynamic between Washington, Beijing and Delhi. As China and India rise, America has no option but to steadily accommodate their interests. It is also equally important to note that exclusive spheres of influence are no longer sustainable amidst the relative decline of the United States and the strategic gains of China and India. It is inevitable that a rising China will play a larger role in the Subcontinent; similarly an emerging India will have a growing voice in East Asian affairs. What Asia needs, then, is more substantive and sustained bilateral and multilateral talks among Washington, Beijing and Delhi on building comprehensive regional security.

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It is inevitable that a rising China will play a larger role in the subcontinent; similarly an emerging India will have a growing voice in East Asian affairs.

”

deadly weapons....and pursuing our shared vision of a world without nuclear weapons.”

Security Priorities

AFP

Chinese President Hu Jintao escorts U.S. President Barack Obama past a guard of honour during a welcome ceremony in Beijing

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AJAI SHUKLA

KEY POINTS

n Success in Afghanistan cannot be achieved without winning over the high percentage of ideologically neutral fighters who are currently with the Taliban. n The Taliban brand is expanding geographically in non-traditional Taliban strongholds like northern and western Afghanistan.

he many controversies surrounding the recent elections in Afghanistan have illustrated the pitfalls in giving too free a rein to President Hamid Karzai. At the Bonn Conference in 2001, Karzai was appointed President of Afghanistan because he alone fulfilled the two major conditions that were considered essential at the time: being a Pashtun and being reliably anti-Taliban. But Karzai’s failure to unite Afghanistan’s many factions has squandered the gains of 2001, rejuvenated a routed Taliban and added urgency to what is now the central question of the Afghanistan debate: how to handle a dialogue with the Taliban?

The various contenders in the Afghanistan power play approach this question in different ways. Islamabad, for obvious reasons, has consistently advocated a dialogue with the Taliban’s Quetta-based Rahbari Shura to bring it into a power-sharing agreement in Kabul. Now others are echoing similar ideas. In August, US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, declared, “We and our Afghan allies stand ready to welcome anyone supporting the Taliban who renounces the Al Qaeda, lays down their arms and is willing to participate in the free and open society that is enshrined in the Afghan Constitution.” The Secretary of State’s offer at least carries the provision that the Taliban must first lay down their arms. The British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, was unconditional in declaring that he supported negotiations with the Taliban insurgents who wanted to join the peaceful political process. So, too, was German Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, in urging talks with the Taliban. Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, himself is planning to hold a Loya Jirga (Grand Council) to reconcile with the Taliban. This

A Taliban fighter sits next to a heap of weapons after surrendering his arms

AFP

Moving beyond troop level tactics, it will take a more coordinated, calibrated, politico-military strategy to contain the Taliban

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A Taliban fighter sits next to a heap of weapons after surrendering his arms

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Moving beyond troop level tactics, it will take a more coordinated, calibrated, politico-military strategy to contain the Taliban

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is after months of urging Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah to bring the Taliban to the table with Karzai’s elder brother, Wali.

The fundamental logic that governs alignments, alliances and power in Afghanistan revolves around survival.Winners in Afghanistan traditionally ride to power on a wave of defections.

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AFP

And in New Delhi, on the October 8, India’s Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, declared that India would support Afghanistan in “reintegrating individuals with the national mainstream…the existing process under (Afghanistan’s) National Committee for Peace for reintegrating individuals with the national mainstream must be both enlarged and accelerated. We support the Afghan Government’s determination to integrate those willing to abjure violence and live and work within the parameters of the Afghan Constitution…” By unhappy coincidence, the very next morning, the Taliban successfully bombed the Indian Embassy in Kabul. The Ministry of External Affairs quickly began damage control, clarifying to media persons that India’s position had “not really changed”. New Delhi would not support a dialogue with the Taliban, but only with Afghan factions that were willing to respect the Afghan Constitution. “So how exactly do you define who are the Taliban?” I asked a senior Indian foreign ministry official. “The Taliban consists of fighters who are trained, financed and supported by Pakistan,” the official replied. Going by that yardstick, at least 70 to 80 percent of the militants currently fighting for the Taliban are not really the Taliban. However, reading between the lines, New Delhi has it broadly correct. While talking to the Taliban hard core would be a surrender of Indian interests, success in Afghanistan cannot be achieved without winning over the high percentage of ideologically neutral fighters who are currently with the Taliban, largely for opportunistic reasons. Unless those fighters are weaned away and the ideologically committed Taliban weakened, the Pakistan-supported hard core seems headed for power in Kabul. New Delhi has clearly reached that conclusion but for reasons of political acceptability, it has sugar coated its acceptance of this crucial dialogue as talks with “those willing to abjure violence”.

Switching Sides Washington, on the other hand, is being prodded by Islamabad to open a direct dialogue with the Taliban’s ideological

fringe, epitomised by Mullah Omar’s Rahbari Shura. In August, Pakistan’s military spokesman, Maj. General Athar Abbas, told CNN that Pakistan was in contact with Mullah Omar and could bring him to the negotiating table with the United States, an offer that is still under serious consideration in Washington. This could give Mullah Omar and, by extension, Islamabad, a share of power in Kabul. With a Washington-Mullah Omar dialogue likely, perhaps already begun, time is running out for tempting the “nonideological” Taliban to break ranks with the ISI-backed hard liners. But a coordinated, calibrated, politico-military strategy could still be stitched together giving the opportunists the incentives for aband-

oning the Taliban. Why would they do that? They would have to be lured with the time-tested Afghan carrot: remaining on the winning side. The fundamental logic that governs alignments, alliances and power in Afghanistan revolves around survival. After decades of almost continuous warfare and turbulence, Afghans see no glory in dying in battle for even the most desperate of causes. Fighters expect their leaders to trim their sails with the changing political winds, to switch allegiance in time, to avoid unnecessary casualties and to always remain on the winning side. Winners in Afghanistan traditionally ride to power on a wave of defections. Examine the records of most Afghan

AFP

Who exactly is the Taliban?

Afghanistan waited to see commanders today. Except (Above) Afghan policemen what Karzai would offer. for a tiny hardcore, most inspect the site of an I remember meeting fighters who sport Taliban explosion near the Indian turbans today have fought Embassy in Kabul; (Left) More one such commander in a small village near Ghazni over the years for a range of than 40 Taliban insurgents other factions. Many of handed in their weapons to the in November 2001. Mohathem have operated as Government after the Taliban mmad Jan was a Pashtun, the leader of 15 fighters Khalqi or Parchami commander, Ghulam Yahya from his village and the communists in the 1970s Akbari, was killed in neighbouring one. Just a and then fought the Soviets October, 2009 week before our meeting, through the 1980s as USfunded Mujahideen. In the 1990s, when he had been a Talib, but as the Taliban the communists faded away and the leaders evacuated Kabul and fled towards Pakistan-aided Taliban was on the march, Kandahar, Mohammad Jan and his scores of commanders switched sides and fighters stayed on in their villages. They grew their beards. After the Taliban were knew the Taliban’s time was up. And so, in routed in 2001, the beards went off again. time-honoured Afghan fashion, they Then commanders across southern waited for the Northern Alliance to come

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is after months of urging Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah to bring the Taliban to the table with Karzai’s elder brother, Wali.

The fundamental logic that governs alignments, alliances and power in Afghanistan revolves around survival.Winners in Afghanistan traditionally ride to power on a wave of defections.

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AFP

Switching Sides Washington, on the other hand, is being prodded by Islamabad to open a direct dialogue with the Taliban’s ideological

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Who exactly is the Taliban?

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NEIGHBOURS A Hazara man looks on as he walks home to his cave in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. The Hazara community has faced intense persecution by the Taliban

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to them with an offer. I sat with Mohammad Jan on a worn Afghan carpet on the roof of his house, enjoying tea, dried mulberries and apricots, while he recounted a list of those who he had fought for since the Soviet jihad. Mohammad Jan had switched sides six times already, even fighting briefly for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, before joining the Taliban as they swept north towards Kabul. It is not just Afghanistan’s smaller commanders who switch sides opportunistically, fighting now for this warlord, now for another; the same is true for the big guys. Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum is the country’s top “aaya Ram, gaya Ram”, having fought for (and against) literally every side in Afghanistan in the last 35 years. No Afghan will easily forget Dostum’s switch to Taliban when he was poised outside Mazar-e-Sharif, giving them the city and the freedom to perpetrate an orgy of bloodletting.

AFP

General Stanley McChrystal’s new, highly acclaimed operational strategy will no longer focus on fighting theTaliban.

At the end of 2002, I went back to Ghazni to meet Mohammad Jan. To my surprise he told me that Karzai’s people had not yet contacted him or the other local commanders around Ghazni. Instead, Karzai had done the unthinkable by sending his own governor to Ghazni, who rode roughshod over the locals. That’s not done in Afghanistan. Outsiders don’t normally muscle into your area. They bribe, cajole and entice local commanders with the promise of a better deal. I never met Mohammad Jan again but, from the run of play, he would certainly have rejoined the Taliban. And, equally certainly, if he believed the Taliban’s clock was running out, he would be looking again for alternatives. It is the multitude of small commanders like Mohammad Jan that a new strategy for Afghanistan must target, employing an admixture of incentives like money and the promise of local administrative and economic power.

Needed: A Radical Game-Changer Instead, the debate in Washington appears focussed mainly on troop levels. The belief appears to be that, as long as the US stays the course, as long as President Barack Obama steps up troop levels, victory will eventually follow. In fact, American aims cannot possibly be achieved using current methods. Over the last four years, troop numbers have increased each year; so has the US expenditure. Each of these years, the coalition casualty count has risen inexorably: already 400 soldiers have died in 2009, more than double the 2006 casualty count and thrice as many as in 2005. Taliban tactics have now graduated to frontal assaults on US outposts. Clearly, incremental troop and budget increases have failed to change the trend. And to change the eventual outcome, a radical game-changer is needed. The US military believes it has that game-changer. General Stanley McChrystal’s

new, highly acclaimed operational strategy will no longer focus on fighting the Taliban. Instead, his focus will be on the Afghan people. A surge of up to 40,000 additional US soldiers will live in Afghan villages where they will join the lives of the common people, they will patrol on foot rather than in mine-protected vehicles and intelligence officers will concentrate on identifying and winning over local notables, rather than focussing only on the Taliban. But implementing this will quickly run up against the fundamental operational culture of an Army where, since the American Civil War, strategy, tactics, organisational structures and equipping policies have centred around one God: firepower. The US military has long believed that overwhelming firepower must be the shield that saves GIs, marines and sailors in battle. Pressing the trigger first and keeping it pressed longest is deep in the DNA of the American soldier. Generals

Petraeus and McChrystal will discover that their strategy for winning Afghan hearts will be continuously fouled by US operational practices.

Historical Antipathy A troop surge, therefore, of the kind that President Obama is currently considering, is hardly likely to win friends, especially given Afghanistan’s historical antipathy towards occupiers. But it remains essential for stepping up military pressure on the Taliban, with a view to encourage side switching. Afghan perception currently sees the Taliban on the ascendant. And, in these circumstances, money can’t buy commanders. More worryingly, the Taliban brand is expanding geographically. The Taliban’s operations during the last few weeks in northern and western Afghanistan—not traditional Taliban strongholds—are directed towards projecting the image of

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Taliban power all across Afghanistan. Karzai likes to point out that the Taliban does not control even a single provincial capital. But the Soviet Army, too, controlled right up to every provincial capital when they pulled out of Afghanistan. It is this perception of an ascendant Taliban that the coalition must reverse, even temporarily, for opportunistic Taliban commanders to begin reviewing their options. This would ideally be achieved by a full-blown American surge operating in tandem with Pakistan’s offensive in Waziristan. But that seems unlikely now. General McChrystal is believed to have submitted four options: the smallest increase calls for an increment of just 10,00015,000 troops, most of them trainers for the Afghan National Army (ANA). The other options call for 20,000, 30,000, and 40,000 additional troops respectively. US press reports indicate that the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, has recommended caution and that the White House is inclined towards the smallest possible increase. This increase in trainers must quickly build up the capability of ANA and Afghan National Police (ANP) and their numbers must be stepped up to above 400,000. The prospect of reaching accommodation even with moderates within the Taliban runs up quickly against a range of biases. The most hackneyed of them remains, “a moderate Taliban is a contradiction in terms”. But a quick look through a list of Kabul’s existing power brokers places things in context. The Northern Alliance, a long-standing anti-Taliban bastion, contains factions like the Jamaat-e-Islami which has an approach as fundamental as the Taliban. Every Afghan knows that chieftains like Mohammad Fahim and Karim Khalili were directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians in inter-faction fighting. The President’s brother, Wali Karzai, stands credibly accused of drug dealing and warlording. Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek warlord, remains a truly chilling figure even in that blood-soaked landscape. In such circumstances, where the moral differentiator is already so heavily blurred, there is hardly a moral argument for refusing a dialogue with moderate sections of the Taliban. There is, however, a strategic argument for such an approach: many of yesterday’s “good guys” are today’s Taliban; if they can be won back, the growing prospect of Mullah Omar calling the shots in Kabul will recede for the present.

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NEIGHBOURS A Hazara man looks on as he walks home to his cave in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. The Hazara community has faced intense persecution by the Taliban

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AFP

General Stanley McChrystal’s new, highly acclaimed operational strategy will no longer focus on fighting theTaliban.

Petraeus and McChrystal will discover that their strategy for winning Afghan hearts will be continuously fouled by US operational practices.

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GROUNDED

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Despite repeated reviews and revisions, the new provisions introduced in the Defence Procurement Procedure appear to be highly convoluted and imprecise

MRINAL SUMAN

KEY POINTS

n Foreign vendors find the Defence Procurement Procedure highly discouraging and ambigous. n The current procedure has failed to help develop India’s indigenous defence industry and is highly tilted in favour of the public sector.

Consequent

to the acceptance of the Report of the Group of Ministers, constituted after the Kargil War, a new set-up was established in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to handle capital procurements in October 2001. Concurrently, detailed guidelines were issued in the form of a Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) in October 2002 with the stated objective of expediting procurements in a transparent and competitive environment. The said procedure has undergone four revisions

since its promulgation. The current version, the Defence Procurement Procedure–2008 (DPP-2008) was put into effect in September 2008. Belying all hopes, however there has been no discernible improvement on the ground. Seven years later, the initial euphoria has given way to despondency, both amongst the armed forces and the industry. Every proposal remains embroiled in bureaucratic functioning and procedural quagmire. No major contract has been successfully concluded since 2001 in a multi-vendor open competition. Every inked contract has been on a singlevendor, Government-to-Government basis, confirming a total inability of the system to deliver. Despite much trumpeted claims of transparency, every single deal has been questioned for probity and irregularities. In fact, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has been scathing in his comments. The cancellation of the Eurocopter deal at an advanced stage, ostensibly on the grounds of a flawed evaluation procedure, has dented the credibility of the system internationally. Indeed, foreign vendors find the whole environment highly dissuasive and are reluctant to participate. For example, Boeing and Bell both declined to submit their

proposals for combat helicopters for the Air Force. Bell even opted out of bidding for light utility helicopters for the Army. The current procurement procedure has also been faulted by the Indian defence industry basically on two counts. First, it has failed to help develop India’s indigenous defence industry. Even the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has conceded that the present Buy and Make route has not helped in building up higher technical capabilities. Secondly, the procedure is highly tilted in favour of the public sector. Invariably, the production agency (PA) selected to receive technology for indigenous manufacture is a public sector undertaking. Consequently, the role of the private sector remains limited to the supply of some lowtech items to the public sector. It is with a view to streamline procurement and integrate the private sector in the defence production process that the MoD issued a set of amendments to the DPP-2008 on November 1, 2008. The professed objective of these amendments is “to provide encouragement to the indigenous defence industry to play a major role in meeting the needs of the armed forces, ensuring transparency and accountability in all procurement cases and liberalising offset provisions to enable vendors to fulfill their obligations.”

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Despite repeated reviews and revisions, the new provisions introduced in the Defence Procurement Procedure appear to be highly convoluted and imprecise

MRINAL SUMAN

KEY POINTS

Consequent

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DEFENCE PROCUREMENT PROCEDURE In addition to introducing a new categorisation of procurement proposals to encourage joint ventures, the new amendments also contain certain enabling and amplificatory provisions.

The latest amendment has further spelt out the functioning of the monitors in detail and their role has changed from one of pure oversight to a receipt of complaints and conduct of follow-up enquiries.

New Provisions Presently, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) categorises all acquisition proposals into three categories: Buy; Buy and Make and Make. Buy implies the outright purchase of the complete quantity required, Buy and Make entails the initial purchase of a limited quantity in a fully built up form, followed by licensed production in India of the balance requirement; and Indian Prime finally, Make cases Minister, refer to the indigenous Manmohan development of Singh, and the equipment. Under the DPP, the Govern- Defence Minister, A.K. Anthony, ment has now pose with Chiefs introduced another of Indian Navy, category called Buy & Army and Make (Indian). Airforce at the Based on a Combined Capability Definition Commanders Document (CDD) Conference prepared by the Service recently Headquarters (SHQ),

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DAC can now select a project under the new Buy & Make (Indian) category. CDD will outline the requirement in operational terms and briefly describe the present capabilities determined on the basis of the existing equipment and manpower. The SHQ should on its part also indicate long-term requirement in terms of numbers, time schedule, immediate fund availability and the critical technologies (as identified by the Defence Research and Development Organisation) to be absorbed by the Indian vendor. Under the guidelines, indigenously manufactured products must have a minimum 50 percent indigenous content on a cost basis. The Indian partner should absorb the identified critical technologies, 50 percent of which will be in respect of items for which engineering and manufacturing documentation will be provided to the Indian vendor to enable him to carry out fabrication, assembly and testing. For acquisitions covered under the new Buy & Make (Indian) category, requests for proposals (RFP) will be issued only to Indian public and private sector companies which have been assessed to possess the requisite technical and financial capabilities to undertake such projects. It will be left to

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them to negotiate the transfer of technology and finalise co-production arrangements with foreign manufacturers. The shortlisting of Indian companies will be made on the basis of a detailed project proposal submitted by them in response to the CDD. Companies will be required to outline the roadmap for development and production of the item, either by themselves or through any production arrangement with a foreign producer. In turn, the proposal must also spell out details of the proposed workshare and transfer of technology, both in range and depth. Once the RFP is issued to the selected companies, the current procedure described for the Buy and Make category will apply. Two other provisions will also aim at co-opting the defence industry in decision-making process:

First, to dovetail the future needs of the armed forces with the industry, a public version of the perspective document outlining the technology perspective and a capability road map spaning 15 years will be put up on the MoD website. Second, in acquisition cases, where participation by the Indian industry is considered probable, the representatives of industry associations will be invited by the Categorisation Committee to seek their views and issue clarifications, if any. However, these representatives will not be present during the decisionmaking meetings. Changes have come in other areas too. In 2006, An Integrity Pact (IP) for all procurement schemes over Rs 100 crore was introduced. The policy provides for the appointment of independent monitors by the Government to oversee the

adherence to the pact. With regard to their role, the current policy simply states “As soon as the monitor notices, or believes to notice, a violation of this pact, he will so inform the Head of the Acquisition Wing.” However in its latest amendments, the MoD has further spelt out the functioning of the monitors in detail. Their role has changed from one of pure oversight to that of a recipient of complaints and conduct of follow-up enquiries. The names and addresses of the monitors nominated for each case are now required to be given upfront in the RFP itself. On the receipt of the complaint with regard to violation of the IP, the buyer has to refer it to the monitors for their comments and enquiry. If required, the monitors can peruse the relevant records. Then an enquiry report has to be submitted to the Director General

Acquisition for his final decision. Another enabling provision relates to offset contracts. Although no subsequent changes are allowed in respect of offset components or value, change in the offset partner may be allowed in exceptional cases, when considered desirable to enable the foreign vendor to fulfill his offset obligations.

Amplificatory Aspects In order to remove ambiguities in some provisions of the DPP-2008, the MoD has issued amplificatory amendments, which are: n Issuance of request for information (RFI) has been made mandatory to seek required inputs to make broad-based Services Qualitative Requirements (SQR). This will be done both by corresponding with a maximum number of manu-

facturers and putting the details up on the MoD website. Earlier, the words used were ‘may be’, which had led to multiple interpretations. Besides, seeking of information regarding range and depth of transfer of key technologies has also been allowed now. n The formulation of the SQR has been further clarified. The SQR must express the user’s requirements in terms of capability desired with minimum required verifiable functional characteristics. It has two connotations—the SQR should be capability-centric and functional characteristic should be verifiable. n In order to ascertain that the SQR will result in multiple vendor competition, all new proposals being put up to the DAC will contain details of essential verifiable functional characteristics vis-à-vis technical parametres of the equipment available in the world market. n As stated earlier, the current procedure mandates that all procurement schemes exceeding Rs 100 crore will compulsorily have an IP signed between the procurement agency and the vendor. However, it was not clear whether the value as indicated by the procurement agency was the sole criterion. Doubts used to be raised as to the applicability of this clause in case a vendor pegs his commercial proposal marginally lower than the threshold of Rs 100 crore. It has now been clarified that an IP will be required if the indicative value intimated by the procurement agency is more than Rs 100 crore. n In case of offsets, there used to be a doubt whether repeat orders placed under an ‘option clause’ can be subjected to offset obligations. It has now been explained that

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A F-16IN combat aircraft, a medium multi-role fighter plane, manufactured by Lockheed Martin. (Right) A M777 155 mm Light Weight Field Howitzer

offsets will not be applicable in ‘option clause’ cases, where the same was not envisaged in the original contract. Addressing a seminar on defence acquisitions in New Delhi on October 27, 2009, the Defence Minister, A.K. Anthony, claimed that the new amendments aim at “promoting and facilitating wide participation of the defence industry, while enabling transparency and integrity in all acquisitions”. However, an indepth appraisal of the amendments reveals that except for increased transparency, very little is expected to be achieved.

Peripheral Value Certainly, by making the issuance of a enhanced RFI mandatory, the Government has taken a major step towards enhancing transparency. Similarly, a broad-based and capability-centric SQR will generate more competition and not prejudice the selection of competing technologies. However, the sharing of the perspective equipment plan with the industry is likely to be of academic and peripheral value for three reasons. Firstly, as pointed out by the CAG, a 15-year Long

An indepth appraisal of the new amendments reveals that except for increased transparency, very little is expected to be achieved.

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Term Integrated Procurement Plan of the armed forces for the period 2002-2017 was finalised only in 2006, whereas it should have been approved well before its commencement. It shows a total apathy towards long term planning. Two, all perspective plans undergo frequent changes, both for operational and extraneous reasons. Finally, funds are allotted to the MoD on an annual basis. A procurement plan

without assured financial support means little. Given the above limitations and constraints, the industry is unlikely to commit resources purely on the basis of a provisional perspective plan. However, the positives include the clarification regarding the applicability of the IP which will certainly prevent smart vendors from keeping their quote marginally lower than Rs 100 crore to escape signing the pact. As regards the enlarged role of independent monitors to oversee enforcement of the IP, it is unlikely to improve the credibility of the procedure. Although their appointments are to be made in consultation with the Central Vigilance Commissioner, their competence to spot irregularities in complex and intricate defence procurement mechanism will always remain suspect. Moreover, they cannot be expected to be independent as their continued employment depends on their pro-Government deportment. Worse, they are required to submit their report to the authority against whose organisation the complaint has been lodged. Understandably, most vendors

consider the role of independent monitors to be totally perfunctory in nature.

Promotion of Indigenous Industry However, the introduction of consultations with the industry prior to the categorisation of acquisition proposals is a long overdue measure. This step will help the Categorisation Committee to take a well-considered decision, fully informed about indigenous competence. Unfortunately, the most hyped new categorisation of Buy & Make (Indian) is perhaps the most flawed policy change. The Government’s muddled thinking is revealed by the fact that while the amendment equates the new category with the existing Buy and Make procedure, the official press release calls it ‘akin’ to the Make procedure. There are other major problems and ambiguities in the proposed procedure. For example, under the normal Buy and Make route, indigenous production follows the purchase of a certain quantity of selected equipment after competitive evaluation. In other words, facilities for licenced production are set up in India

only after the outright purchase is concluded. However, the new Buy & Make (Indian) route entails the issuance of RFP to multiple Indian vendors, asking them to field their equipment for trials. It implies that all participating Indian vendors will have to form joint ventures with foreign original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and finalise arrangements for indigenous manufacture well in advance of submitting their technical and commercial proposals lest the successful OEM starts playing truant later on. It is going to be a highly uncertain route. Inexplicably, the primary onus of initiating cases under Buy & Make (Indian) category has been put on the SHQ. It is not clear as to why and on what basis should a SHQ propose such a route. Moreover, the SHQ is required to identify the critical technologies that should be absorbed by the Indian partner, albeit in consultation with the DRDO. It is a very tall order and much beyond the competence of any SHQ. Most importantly, it is going to be highly impossible to monitor and ensure the transfer of technology as envisaged in

the contract document. As the indigenous value addition has been fixed at 50 percent by cost, foreign vendors will continue to supply critical components from their own facilities. Thus, the Indian value addition may remain limited to low-tech manufacturers and associated services. The MoD does deserve credit for its continued efforts to streamline the procurement procedure through regular reviews. Whereas amplification of certain provisions to remove ambiguities is a welcome step, the euphoria created by the media is totally misplaced, newspaper headlines like ‘Indian Defence Industry Poised to Grow’ not withstanding. One is reminded of the excitement generated in 2006 when Make (Hi Tech) Policy was introduced to promote the indigenous development of projects based on proven or matured technologies. It has been a total non-starter. Not a single project has been initiated under this category during the last three years. It is now feared that the Buy & Make (Indian) category will also meet the same fate, as the procedure spelt out appears to be highly convoluted and imprecise.

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A F-16IN combat aircraft, a medium multi-role fighter plane, manufactured by Lockheed Martin. (Right) A M777 155 mm Light Weight Field Howitzer

An indepth appraisal of the new amendments reveals that except for increased transparency, very little is expected to be achieved.

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consider the role of independent monitors to be totally perfunctory in nature.

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a n

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defencebuzz

RAHUL BEDI

Indian Army’s 64 Armoured Regiments operate T-90s Main Battle Tanks

Augmenting India’s Firepower THE Indian Army is initiating a process to acquire 300 light tanks to augment its firepower in mountainous terrain above 3,000 m along the frontiers with nuclear rivals China and Pakistan. As part of its revised doctrinal, “cold start” strategy of going on the offensive in a limited war scenario, the Army also wants light tanks for employment in battlefield reconnaissance in desert region, in urban and semi-urban environments and in riverine terrain similar to that along the eastern, Bangladeshi border. To meet this requirement for 200 wheeled and 100 tracked light tanks weighing 22 tonnes, the Army has recently issued a request for information (RFI) that requires them to be capable of deployment in peacekeeping operations and high intensity urban conflicts with multi-role weapon systems including gun and missile systems. The platform needs to be “highly maneuverable” with surveillance and communication capability to endow it with more flexibility. Both the wheeled (8X8) and tracked light tanks need to have a low silhouette to make them less visible to the enemy and to possess all-weather, night fighting and amphibious capability.They also need to have high ground clearance, defensive aid suites to provide protection against laser, thermal and radar guided munitions and should be nuclear,

biological and chemical (NBC) protected. Logistically, these tanks will be far easier to transport in the Air Force’s IL-76 aircraft. They will significantly increase the Army’s flexibility and capability to operate in harsh terrain like the 5,000 m high Ladakh plateau and the Sikkim region where incursions by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), across the undemarcated Line of Actual Control between the neighbours, are on the increase. Military planners say that in all likelihood a number of the light tanks will constitute part of the two mountain divisions, presently under raising for deployment along the Chinese frontier in the Northeast. The proposed divisions will also be equipped with attack helicopters and lightweight howitzers, presently under procurement, are aimed at dealing with the incipient PLA threat. Though it’s too early to confirm their deployments, military planners suggest that two additional armour regiments to the existing 64 can be raised to accommodate around 90-100 light tanks for attachment to the new divisions. The remaining 200-odd tanks can constitute reconnaissance regiments attached to the Army’s two principal Strike Corps based at Ambala, 200 km north of Delhi, and at Jhansi 400 km, southeast of India’s capital.

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Presently, the bulk of the Indian Army’s 64 armoured regiments operate a mix of over 2, 800 Russian and locally built T-72 M1s and T-90s Main Battle Tanks. Around 11 regiments still operate retrofitted T-55s, which are in the process of being replaced by T-90s and upgraded T-72 M1s equipped with full and partial solution fire control systems (FCS) to provide them the night fighting capability which they lack.

The Gorshkov Plot Thickens THE Defence Minister’s A. K. Antony’s mid-October visit to Moscow has, once again, failed to resolve the murky controversy over the revised cost of refurbishing the INS Vikramaditya (ex-Admiral Gorshkov), the 44,750 tonne Kiev-class aircraft carrier, that the Indian Navy (IN) is acquiring for the price of its refit. But what has finally been resolved, after years of obfuscation, is the mystery over the endless rumpus surrounding the escalating cost of the carrier’s retrofit. The answer recently provided in a Right to Information (RTI) response revealed that the decision to acquire the Gorshkov was taken incredulously after a mere “visual examination” of the damaged ship in an “as is condition”. This conclusively nails the IN’s concerted campaign that has consistently blamed Russian perfidy alone for the carriers’ increasing cost estimated eventually to rise to an astronomical $ 3 billion. But, as always, in these times of what passes for Government austerity, no one is listening or will ever be held accountable. Responding to the RTI application submitted by the anti-corruption activist S. C. Aggarwal, the IN admitted that it had inked the deal to procure the carrier in 2004 on the specious “thought” that mere repairs costing $ 974 million will render the carrier operational.Thereafter, the Russians agreed to supply the IN the fire-ravaged and rusting carrier commissioned in 1982 and badly damaged following a boiler room explosion in 1994, for that price. An additional $ 526 million was negotiated for 16 MiG-29 KuB fighters, including four trainers that were to comprise the carriers’ air group in the overall $ 1.5 billion deal announced with much fanfare and billed as a ‘bargain’. But it was only after the carrier underwent a detailed inspection of its hull structure, systems and cabling that the IN realised that “entire replacements” and not

INS Viraat in retrofit mode mere repairs were required to resurrect the carrier currently undergoing its extensive retrofit at the Sevmashpredpriyatiye shipyard in northern Russia. “As per the contract signed in January 2004, the original package was drawn up based on a visual examination in an “as is condition” wherein it was found that the majority of the equipment and systems could be repaired while the electronic equipment could be renewed,” declared Vice Admiral S.P.S. Cheema of the Integrated Headquarters, Ministry of Defence (Navy) in his RTI reply. But these “additionalities” had resulted in enhanced project costs. Adm. Cheema also stated in his response that these were also responsible for postponing the carrier’s delivery to the IN by four years to 2012 or even the following year. Since 2007, Russia has steadily raised its price to retrofit the carrier, claiming the extent of repairs were grossly underestimated. The IN’s riposte was that the Russians were the villains in the deal, determined to hold India to ransom. Over the years, senior IN officers have been leaking stories to the media that without the carriers’ blueprints and necessary technical drawings, Russian

engineers had originally estimated that it would require 700 km of cabling, but once work began this figure was revised to 2,400 km.The IN, they maintain, was blameless but are mysteriously silent when they are quizzed over their role in evaluating the repair work involved. Various other essential repairs to the carriers such as the specialised, angled deck and other systems too appear to have come as a complete surprise to the IN, which originally had been unmindful of its own flippancy and casual attitude while selecting the vessel and confirming the contract as a steal. It seems all the assertions made by successive IN chiefs that a detailed audit of the carrier has been conducted were dubious; and hysterical threats, by at least one Admiral to pull out of the deal, are little more than feeble rhetoric. Delays in the INS Vikramaditya’s arrival has forced the IN to yet again retrofit INS Viraat, the Navy’s sole aircraft carrier for the fourth time to keep it diffidently in service till at least 2014. The 23,900-tonne Centaur-class carrier, formerly the HMS Hermes, that turned 50 this November 18, entered the IN service in 1987. It now has upgraded radar, fire control systems, combat aircraft landing aids and communication suites. Additional plating to its hull, an overhaul of its twin steam turbine propulsion system and re-tubing of its boilers has completed the retrofit of the carrier which was laid down in 1944 and commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1959. In the IN, the carrier has undergone three upgrades, including a major one in 1999-2000, which included equipping it with the Israel aircraft industry’s Barak-I, an anti-missile defence system, improving its ski jump to complement it to the Sea Harrier fighters and electronic warfare and communication systems.TheViraat has also got new hangar fire curtains and a revamped lift system to reduce reaction time in the event of an attack and flood alarms. Ironically, the IN also faces serious shortage of the Sea Harrier Mk.51 fighters to operate off Viraat’s deck. Merely eight single-seat Sea Harrier Mk.51s and three twin-seat Sea Harrier Mk.60s, of the original 30 BAE Services naval fighters inducted into the IN 1984 onwards, today remain operational with the majority lost in accidents. The first batch of four MiG-29 K/KuB fighters, equipped with multi-functional Doppler radar and advanced optic electronic systems scheduled for delivery earlier this year, are also not likely to arrive before the year-end or by early 2010. The remaining 12

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MiG-29 KuBs will arrive 12 to 14 months thereafter. But they will take time to be inducted into service, operating from the IN’s shore-based facility at Goa till the Vikramaditya joins the IN.

Special Force To Get Better Equipped THE Army is procuring an unspecified number of 7.62 mm General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMGs) and 9 mm pistols for its Special Forces (SF) and parachute units to provide them more firepower for anti-terrorist and counter-insurgency operations.

close quarter battle weapon. The RFI for 9 mm pistols requires them to be equipped with night-fighting equipment like laser illuminators and high intensity flash lights, as replacement for the decade-old Beretta 9 mm pistols they currently use. Army sources say that a two-star officer has recently been appointed Additional Director General, SF to hasten equipment procurements for these elite units and to ‘fine tune’ their somewhat indeterminate role and employment. Over the years, Indian Army SF units have been deployed largely in tactical rather than broader, strategic roles that was originally envisaged for them. But the changing regional security environment, with an increasing number of terrorist strikes capped by Mumbai’s siege last year, was ushering in a doctrinal change in the employment of these elite troops. In a related RFI, the Indian Army is also seeking a thermal weapon sight for assault rifles for over 350 infantry battalions. The sight should be an uncooled system capable of being mounted on a Picatinny Rail and able to capture and transmit digital images to a personal digital assistant up to 2 m utilising cable or wireless technology using standard data interfaces.

IAF Needs Imported Trainer Aircraft THE Indian Air Force (IAF) is demanding the immediate import of some 200 Stage-1 trainer aircraft to cope with the crisis in its pilot training schedule. This follows the recent grounding of its entire fleet of locally constructed Hindustan Piston Trainer-32 (HPT-32) initial trainer aircraft following a series of fatal accidents. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is evaluating the IAF’s request to cope with the training crunch till the State-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) can design and construct the single-engine Hindustan Turbo Trainer-40 (HTT-40) it has proposed by 2015. “The IAF has little or no faith in delay-prone HAL’s ability to develop a basic trainer and deliver it on time and consequently were pushing the MoD to make off-the-shelf purchases quickly in order to sustain its pilot training timetable” a senior officer said declining to be named as he was not authorised to speak on the matter. Officials say that recurring problems with the HPT-32s which has registered some 100 emergencies in recent years led to their grounding in August 2009,

7.62 mm General Purpose Machine Guns In the recently issued request for information (RFI) to oversee weapon makers, the SF is seeking a “light weight, easy to carry and operate” GPMG with a 1, 200 m range, one with which a paratrooper can ably execute “static line and free fall parachute jumps”. SF sources say, that the successful employment of 7.62 mm GPMGs by US and NATO forces on counter anti-insurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq has prompted the proposed purchase as Indian Army SF units are increasingly being assigned an anti-terror role after the November 2008 strike on Mumbai by ten gunmen in which over 160 people were killed. Presently the Army’s SF’s seven battalions or around 5,000 personnel are equipped primarily with the Tavor 21, Israel assault rifles, as their primary

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abruptly terminating Stage I of the IAF’s basic pilot training. Ten HPT-32s have crashed over the past decade, the most recent being on July 31, in which two instructors from the Air Force Academy (AFA) at Hyderabad were killed. Earlier, in May 2008, a female IAF cadet died after fuel leaked into the HPT-32’s engine causing the aircraft to crash. Such incidents, officials say, confirm the recent Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAGs) assessment of the training aircraft being “technologically outdated and beset by flight safety hazards”. “In spite of the loss of 11 pilots and 15 aircraft, it (HPT-32) continues to be used today. Further, HPT-32 does not aid in the smooth transition of trainees to the next stage of training,” the CAG declared in its audit last year. IAF sources say that the propeller-driven HPT-32 with two side-by-side seats has officially recorded 70 ‘incidents’, many of them fatal between 1988 and 1995. For nearly three decades, 40 to 50 IAF cadets have trained annually on the HAL-built HPT-32s before graduating to the locally constructed HJT-16 Surya Kiran Mk.I intermediate flight and weapons training aircraft. Thereafter, fighter pilots have moved onto the Surya Kiran Mk.II and the BAE Systems Hawk-132 Advanced Jet Trainers (AJT) which were inducted into service in November 2007 to complete their instruction. But with the HPT-32s grounded, a handful of AFA cadets are now being trained directly on Surya Kiran’s Mk.Is, a measure that not only ‘thwarted’ training schedules but has also placed undue pressure on the aircraft. Delivery delays by the HAL of locally assembled Hawk 132s, has also adversely impacted IAF fighter pilot training schedules. HAL has so far delivered only three of the 42 Hawk 132s it has been contracted to build under license to the IAF, 12 aircraft less than its earlier commitment vindicating the Air Force’s lack of faith in the State-owned aircraft company.

Desperate Attempts to Plug Artillery Gap THE Army’s Artillery Directorate is being forced to consider the retrograde acquisition of additional Soviet-designed 130 mm M-46 field guns, developed in the 1950s from surplus stocks lying with the former Soviet Republics, to augment its fast depleting fire power. Official sources say that the interminable delays in acquiring new Howitzers to replace and supplement the 410 Bofors 155 mm/39

More Soviet M-46s field guns to be acquired as an intermediate measure calibre guns, acquired in the late 1980s, was driving the Army to consider taking this backward step to induct the nearly 60-year-old towed M-46s in a desperate attempt to plug its artillery shortfall. India was the largest export customer for the M-46 guns with an estimated 800 purchased in the late 1960s onwards, later successfully employed in the 1971 war with Pakistan.Thereafter, under the Field Artillery Rationalisation Plan finalised in the late 1980s, the Army aimed at acquiring a mix of around 3,600 155 mm/52 cal and 155 mm/39 cal towed, wheeled, tracked and light howitzers by 2020-25. They were to be used for some 180 out of 220 artillery regiments. The new guns were intended to replace the six different calibres the artillery presently operates. But all attempts to execute these artillery modernisation plans have been syst ematically stymied by both the Army and the MoD due largely to vacillation, complex and unrealistic bureaucratic procurement procedures and allegations of corruption. Under the most optimistic scenario it will take another five to eight years to vindicate this artillery requirement till which time the Army will remain largely dependent on the FH 77B Bofors guns, many of which had been cannibalised to keep the rest operational. The remaining firepower will be provided by the relatively small number of M-46 130 mm guns unsatisfactorily upgraded

by Israel’s Soltam to 155 mm/39 cal. On its part, the controversial Soltam upgrade programme to retrofit 180 M-46 130 mm guns remains mired in controversy. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has been tasked to inquire into the “alleged irregularities” in awarding the $ 45,524,137 contract by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government in 2001. The outcome of the CBI inquiry, however, is pending nearly five years after the investigation was ordered by the incoming Congress-led administration: alongside, the operational efficiency of the upgraded guns remains questionable. Artillery sources say that the principal problem with the upgraded 130 mm guns is their inability to hit targets at a distance of 40 km to 41 km as agreed upon in negotiations. A senior artillery officer says their range is “substantially less” than what has been promised by Soltam and that the entire upgrade programme is thus “over ambitious”. There are additional problems that the upgraded guns face with their barrels and breech block. But the omnipotent Israeli lobby has successfully managed to “persuade” the Army to approve the upgrade much against its better judgment and the retrofitted guns’ substandard performance. And, ironically many years later, the Army is now being forced to consider acquiring more 130 mm guns as yet another ‘intermediate measure’.

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