In Bucking Army Seniority, Modi Takes a Leaf from Pakistani Playbook

So India has now decided to tail Pakistan. Following Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s decision to go down the seniority list and appoint the officer fourth in the seniority list  as chief of army staff, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, has gone down the list to select the officer third in the Indian list of seniority as the army chief, Lieutenant General Bipin Rawat..
Sharif also simultaneously appointed the senior-most in the Pakistani list, Lt Gen Zubair Mehmood Hayat to the rank of Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. In  keeping with the trend, we are hearing that Lt Gen Praveen Bakshi might be elevated to the position of chief of a tri-service defence staff.  As Mohan Guruswamy has pointed out in a Facebook post, this would entail Bakshi superseding Rawat, who has just superseded him.
Supersession at the apex level of the army has not been unusual in Pakistan. But the Indian decision to appoint  Rawat, the current vice-chief, as army chief  in succession to General Dalbir Singh Suhag has been met with controversy. The principle of seniority is a hallowed one in the Indian army, and each supersession is remembered as victimisation of a deserving officer like P.S. Bhagat or S.K. Sinha.
It is a bit difficult to accept the government’s claim that Rawat was chosen solely on the basis of his merit. When you reach the rank of an army commander, you have already gathered a life-time’s experience in soldiering. The army chief is not an operational commander who needs to be experienced in counter-insurgency. He is a supervisor – the battlefield commander is the regional army commander. Look at the 1965 war, where Lt Gen Harbaksh Singh commanded the western front, or the 1971 war where Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora commanded the eastern front. If we could push through reforms in our defence system, we would actually have theatre commands and the army chief, as is the case in China, the United States or other countries, would be merely responsible for provisioning and training the force.
Yet, for the present we cannot deny the government its reasoning process. Prime Minister Modi and his cabinet committee on security felt that Rawat had all the requirements they wanted. They may be wrong, but that doesn’t take away their prerogative to take a decision along lines they consider the most optimal.
In doing what the government did, it has followed a laid down procedure –  five army commanders and the serving vice-chief constituted a panel of names which were put up to the CCS for selection. There is no requirement that the senior-most officer be selected, hence the need for a panel. However, over the years, in a bid to avoid controversy over appointments, the governments of the day have gone with seniority. Actually, for no government appointment is strict seniority a good idea – not just for the army chief, but in other departments as well. Ideally, we should do away with the seniority system, provided it is done through a well-thought through design and understanding of the longer-term implications.
The army promotion ladder is steep and is already plagued with another problem—the “zero fault” syndrome, where any error can lead to losing your place in the queue.  As is well known, only people who actually do things are likely to make errors. So, the zero-fault approach leads to an over-cautious officer cadre, which is not good when you want a war-winning military.
Another factor that deserves consideration is the need to give the incumbent of a top office in the military a term of at least four to five years. The current two-year tenure is simply inadequate, with the incumbent taking six months to sit firmly in the saddle and the last six months in planning his retirement. But if longer terms are to become the norm, so will larger scale supersession.
It is true that all this sounds nice in theory, but we live in a deeply divided society where caste, religion and even sub-caste affiliations colour a person’s view. This is evident in the army itself, where chiefs are accused of promoting personnel from their own respective arm and regiment. V.K. Singh was accused of promoting Rajput regiment officers and now Dalbir Singh Suhag is charged with promoting officers from the Gurkha regiments. In such an environment, biases are not just imagined, but real. Besides such biases are the human ones where sycophancy and a desire to please the bosses can be passed off as capability.  An unflinching look at our politics and society would suggest that, perhaps, it is a good idea to go by seniority alone till we become more complete “Indians” and our approach to government and governance is more professional.
That said, there is a problem in appointing Bakshi as CDS after Rawat has been named army chief. Whether it is the Arun Singh committee in 1990, the Group of Ministers recommendations in 2001 or the Naresh Chandra committee in 2012, they have all seen the CDS/permanent chairman chiefs of staff committee as the primus inter pares – or first among equals. He is meant to be the principal and single-point military adviser to the government. In view of that, the Naresh Chandra committee suggested that he be selected from among the serving army, navy or air force chiefs. Hopefully the government will not just make a token appointment. The country desperately needs a CDS figure – not a decorative figurehead – whose office must be fully empowered; just what powers the CDS must enjoy have been listed out by various official committees in great detail. Announcing a CDS without those powers, as some in government have mooted, is to rob a serious recommendation of its substance.
thewire.in December 20, 2016

China's looking at its Trump card

The unusual run-in that President-elect Donald Trump has had with China is a matter of great concern and should not be ignored. It began with a phone call to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on December 2, breaking the protocol that had operated for 37 years, when no US president had spoken to his Taiwanese counterpart.
US scholar Oriana Mastro notes in a blog post that the call could well have been unintentional, but typical of Trump, he resorted to bluster in defending the call, asking whether China had asked the US “if it was OK to devalue their currency, heavily tax our products going into their country or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don’t think so.”
On Saturday and Sunday, the world watched bemused as Trump las­h­ed out at China for seizing an American drone that was doing some hydrographic/surveillance work on the high seas off China. After criticising China for stealing the drone, Tru­mp raised the ante by declaring that China could keep it, thus, blocking an easy resolution to the issue. Trump’s signaling on China is unpredictable. Earlier in the month, he appointed Terry Branstead, the governor of Iowa as the Ambassador to China. Branstead has excellent ties in China reaching up to Xi Jinping.
Speaking at the Halifax Security Forum several weeks ago, US Pacific Commander Admiral Harry Harris observed that “Capability x Resolve = deterrence”. The element of resolve seems to be missing in the US responses to Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea. Obama admin’s weak response is underscored by the fact that the drone was captured in Philippine’s exclusive economic zone and outside even the so-called nine-dash line that China claims as a maritime border. With the TPP dead in the water, a key weapon in the Obama administration’s ‘pivot’ to Asia appears to have lost steam. Its policy seems confined to rotating F-22 fighters through the region.
China is not unaware that it was the period in the wake of Nine Ele­ven, when the US was focused on Iraq and then Afghanistan, that it had an unchallenged rise in the South-east Asian region. It was aided by the 2008 economic melt-down which the Chinese handled well with their massive stimulus to enhance their relative standing in the world system. Even so, as a country that is simultaneously a great power and a rising one, it needs to ensure that the old super-power is not hostile to it.
The Trump presidency could offer a period of opportunity. An erratic president, with a poor grasp of policy could stumble in a range of areas, giving Beijing a free run not only in South-east Asia, but Central and West Asia as well. On the other hand, notwithstanding the rhetoric, it could be that Trump is softening Beijing for a deal.
China is not the kind of country to get into a deal due to pressure or in a hurry. It is quite capable of pushing its interest in a long-term framework and battening down the hatches while waiting out the Trump era. On the other hand, it could cause considerable trouble for the US through its linkages in Afghanistan, Central Asia and Iran. But with a slowing economy, there are domestic compulsions for Xi Jinping not to get locked into a confrontation with the US.
Dealing with China is an extremely complex issue. The Chinese world view is very different from that of the US and its allies, and its policy-making process quite opaque. The Trump style disdains complexity, but unless Trump reveals some of the genius of Ronald Reagan, simplistic answers to complex issues will pose great danger to the global order.
As outlined in his campaign, it would appear that hostility to Islamist radicalism, rather than China, forms his core belief. In this, he sees Israel as his close ally and the battle to come in civilisational terms. In line with this, Russia is part of the solution, rather than a problem. There are other indicators suggesting that his focus will remain in the Middle-East — the nomination of retired generals like Mike Flynn as NSA and James Mattis, former Centcom chief, as Secretary of Defense.
If this is so, don’t be surprised if Trump is willing to cut a deal with China along the lines of the “New Type of Great Power Relations” mooted by Xi Jinping in his first meeting with Obama in Sunnylands in 2013. Xi’s view involved (1) no conflict or confrontation, and treating each other’s strategic intentions objectively; (2) mutual respect, including for each other’s core interests and major concerns; and (3) mutually beneficial cooperation, by abandoning the zero-sum game mentality and advancing areas of mutual interest.
In geopolitical terms, this could mean Trump reverting to the American position on Taiwan and accepting Chinese primacy in the South China Sea. The problem is trying to understand what the Chinese would be willing to offer the US in exchange. Let’s be clear, Trump the businessman, is unlikely to offer a free lunch.
December 20, 2016

How Trump will whitewash the White House

Through tweets, statements and misstatements, the nature of the forthcoming Trump presidency is slowly revealing itself.But perhaps the best way of assessing the next US administration as of now, is to look at the selections that Trump has made for the Cabinet and the White House. 

Disruptors

So far he has appointed 22 people and it is no surprise that of 17 of them are white males, some of them older like himself; while the women in the team have relatively unimportant portfolios.

The other feature is that they are mainly rich executives and businessmen with little or no experience in the portfolios they will handle.

Among these are Rex Tillerson the former boss of Exxon Mobil, now Secretary of State designate, or Steven Mnuchin, the nominee for the Department of Treasury who is a former Goldman Sachs executive, Commerce Secretary nominee Wilbur Ross who is a billionaire investor or Dr Ben Carson, Secretary for Housing and Urban Development designate, who is a neurosurgeon. 

Just what kind of a government Trump intends to run is evident from the fact that many of the appointees are known critics of the very departments they have now been chosen to head.Of course, there is still the matter of Senate confirmations in the coming year.

The New York Times has categorised the cabinet as comprising of disruptors like Scott Prutt, Oklahoma state attorney and climate change denier who has been chosen to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

Or former Texas governor Rick Perry who once wanted to abolish the Department of Energy, the outfit he has been asked to head. In choosing them, Trump wants them to change things, not run them as they were.

In other words, disruption is expected from them, though just how much disruption the huge and complex bureaucracy can take is a matter of conjecture.

The next category are deal makers like Tillerson and Mnuchin, who have never worked with government before, but are leaders in their respective field and have proven executive ability and should, over a period of time, master their respective departments.

With business and finance backgrounds, they know how to cut a deal in a complex environment and understand the importance of gain and loss.

Variables

Whether this presages a period in which the US reaches out to potential opponents like Russia, China and Iran and works out ways of getting along with them, or not, is something that remains to be seen.

In foreign policy there is only so much that is under your control - some variables are under the control of your adversaries, existing and potential.

In any case given the present situation, deals will not be easy for everyone to stomach.

Western Europe will not be particularly happy with a deal that get Putin off their backs, in exchange for accepting that Ukraine, Belarus and Syria are part of his sphere of influence.

Then, there are loyalists like former Republican party head Reince Priebus and the incoming NSA, Lt General Michael Flynn who stuck with Trump through the thick and thin.

There is the category of establishment persons who are close to the right-wing of the Republicans and have ties with the US Congress.

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President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a thank you rally in Ladd-Peebles Stadium

Among these are Nikki Haley, Michael Pompeo the incoming CIA chief and Elaine Chao, the wife of Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.

Finally, there is the category of former military personnel who can prove to problematic - Flynn, defence secretary designate, Lt General James Mattis and Marine General John Kelly to head Homeland Security.

As it is, the generals who are well-known figures will tend to overshadow the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff who is the principal military adviser to the President. 

Establishment

Presidents in the past often sought out technocrats or people with substantive experience in the field they were dealing with, but now we have retired generals, top executives and leaders in the world of finance.

Such people also have notoriously big egos and you can be sure that they will clash. 

To some extent this is by design as it will enable Trump to control them.

Further, we need to pay attention as well to sub-cabinet appointees who will run the powerful divisions of the various departments.

Trump has put in transition or 'landing' teams into the departments which clearly indicate that his goal is to live up to his promise of providing an administration which in is opinion will not be influenced by the 'special interests' in Washington.

In other words, a combination of disruptors, deal-makers, loyalists and establishment personnel.However, many of these figures will come from a very different pool of people i.e. not the Washington establishment which Trump shuns, but further afield. 

Mail Today December 19, 2016

'Bordering' on inadequacy

The attack that killed seven military personnel in Nagrota has been a serious breach. At one level, it may be dismissed as part of a pattern of attacks we have witnessed since 2013. At another, there should be concern that in this case, the penetration has taken place in an area that houses the headquarters of one of the biggest corps of Indian Army. It is a far more serious than the Uri event, and yet we are hearing nothing from the fire-eaters who celebrated the 'surgical strikes' to avenge it."
To say that this is a wake-up call for the Army would be futile because the wake-up calls have been coming since the strikes on Pathankot and Uri. The government's response has been to promote deterrent counter strikes. It is necessary but insuffici­ent. What is also needed is a revision of standard operating pro­c­e­dures for perimeter security in the hundreds of camps, pickets, cantonments and bases that are strung out along the border in J&K. Both the components of Indian counter-militant strategy — deterrence and defence — must be robust and innovative, just as the attackers are.
The Mumbai terror attacks of 2008, which claimed 166 civilians, caused a wave of revulsion across the world. Uncomfortably for Pakistan, it also revealed how the tentacles of the jihadis were entangled with the Pakistani deep state. Names of various Pak military officials like Sajid Mir surfaced, Islamabad brushed it away by arresting some of the LeT functionaries involved and slow-tracking their trial. The US obtained information through its own channel through Daood Gilani, aka David Coleman Headley. So, the ISI took recourse to a new technique to keep up the pressure on India — avoid mass-casualty civilian attacks which would bring huge pressure on India to launch a military strike, and carry out a succession of low impact attacks on Indian military or police targets and confine them to the J&K area.
These unfolded after 2012 across the International Border (termed wo­r­king boundary in Pakistan) in Jam­mu, parallel to National Highway 1A. The pattern was roughly similar — small groups of men would cross the border, which is guarded by BSF, don military fatigues, hijack a passing vehicle and hit a target, usually a police station or a military post and die in the process. However, the attack on Nagrota is more serious.
For one, it is further inland and for another, it should have been better protected, considering it is the location of the headquarters of India's largest corps. On September 26, 2013, a few days ahead of the Manmohan Singh-Nawaz Sharif meeting in New York, militants dressed in army fatigues struck a police station at Hiranagar, near Kathua, killing several policemen. Later they attacked an army camp before being gunned down.
On November 27, 2014, just as PM Modi was meeting his Pak counterpart at Dhulikhel, Nepal, four gunmen who had come across the border clashed with an army patrol in the Arnia sector of Jammu leaving three soldiers and five civilians dead.
On March 28, 2014, two days after a Modi election rally near Jammu, three militants hijacked a vehicle and attacked an Army camp at Janglore and killed a jawan, before getting killed. On July 27, 2015, three gunmen dressed in army fatigues who crossed the border, turned south to Punjab and fired on a bus near Dinanagar, near Gurdaspur. They hijacked a car and attacked a police station killing three civilians and four policemen. For the first time, the militants came in from Jammu and deliberately
str­uck a target in Punjab.
This pattern was repeated on January 1-3, 2016; gunmen crossed the border in Jammu, hijacked a police officer's vehicle to reach the Patha­n­kot Air Force base to launch an attack. Despite advanced intelligence, the perimeter was breached and two army personnel were killed. The repeated penetrations of the border do raise the question about the efficiency of India's border manag­ement and perimeter security practices, even as they roil efforts to normalise relations between the two neighbours. Officials usually come up with various explanations and promise high-tech solutions, like automated machine guns and laser curtains to foil attackers. The pro­blem is the serrated nature of the terrain, which is cut by rivers and nallahs leading out of the mountains and flowing towards Pakistan. They provide several channels of ingress which are familiar to smugglers.
But the problem is often with the quality of equipment and the forces, namely the BSF, being used to guard the border. As for perimeter security, the government should understand that this involves substantial costs and be ready to provide money to build walls not only around the bases and cantonments, but within them to foil easy movement of militants who might get through. There is also need to come up with a standardised concrete guardhouse which is sufficien­tly protected and provides easy line of sight for the guarding forces. The DRDO, which focuses on futuristic projects, should consider designing taut-wire sensors and physical barriers which are rugged and reliable.
Mid Day December 6, 2016

Trump's call to Sharif doesn't indicate any real change to US foreign policy with India

It will take roughly a year to know the true direction of the incoming Trump Administration in the United States.The phone calls and conversations that are making waves today - with Nawaz Sharif and Tsai Ingwen - are no indicator of which way the US will go under his presidency. 

The policy will only assume shape after Cabinet appointees have gone through their confirmation hearings and sub-cabinet officials selected and appointed.Given that some choices could be controversial, the confirmation process may prove to be long and arduous.

Strategy

Donald J Trump never really expected to win the election and had not done the elaborate preparation for taking up the job like his rival Hillary Clinton.

In any case, a Clinton administration would have appointed a large number of Obama officials who are currently in a state of shock because none of them expected to be out of a job so soon.

The special thing about foreign policy is that there are only some variables you can control. No matter how powerful or determined a US President, his policy still depends on developments abroad, as well as the actions of other countries, some friends and others rivals.

There is likely to be little change in American grand strategy which has sought to ensure that no regional hegemon (supreme leader) arises in Europe, Persian Gulf and East Asia.

The thing about foreign policy is that there are only some variables you can control. No matter how powerful or determined a US President, his policy still depends on developments abroad.

To this end, leading the alliance in Europe is important, just as it is to prevent the rise of Iran in the Persian Gulf.

Saudi Arabia simply lacks the population base to be a regional hegemon of any kind. 

Russia’s resurgence is really a defensive reflex and not a bid to restore the glory of the erstwhile Soviet Union.

The real challenge is in East Asia where China is determined to challenge the American sway and has successfully breached the ASEAN.

Critics of Obama say that the eight years of his presidency have featured inaction, inattention and withdrawal from global affairs.

While the decision to pull out from Iraq was understandable, the speed of the withdrawal from Afghanistan has had widespread repercussions.

Likewise it would have been foolish of the Americans to go in too deep into European ventures like Libya and Syria, but its own pivot to Asia proved to be anemic.

Obama did little to check Russia and instead reached out to make peace with Iran and Cuba.

The emergence of Francois Fillon as the centre-right candidate for next year’s presidential elections in France, combined with the inclination of the US President- elect to make a deal with Russia could upend the verities of the Obama era which had sought to cordon Russia from Europe through economic sanctions.

Outreach

A US-Europe-Russia deal has vast implications. It will almost certainly involve handing over Syrian affairs to them, in exchange for Moscow backing off in Ukraine in exchange for the Americans acquiescing in the occupation of Crimea and lifting the sanctions.

NATO expansion into Ukraine and Georgia would be checked and the US would permit Assad to regain control of Syria with the commitment of fighting the ISIS. People who complain about the amorality of all this forget that the US and China were supported the Pol Pot regime because of their antipathy for Vietnam.

This is what big power politics is all about. The outreach to Russia could have another important result - the pullback of the Russia drift towards a proto-alliance with China.

This will have important implications for the One Belt One Road project, as well as Chinese military modernization, which still relies on Russia for crucial elements such as jet engines and high quality air defence systems.

Fallout

The one area which remains an unknown is Iran. Conservative elements close to Trump have a deep antipathy to Iran and Cuba. In the case of Cuba, it is motivated by Cuban exiles that have deep roots in the conservative establishment.

In the case of Tehran a great deal of it arises from Israel and its powerful American supporters who view the current regime as an existential threat.

However, the US knows that any going back on the nuclear deal could have serious consequences, notably a breakdown of the big-power consensus that led to the Iran nuclear agreement.The US would find it difficult, if not impossible, to resume the economic sanctions that had, to an extend, brought Iran around.

There could be a negative fallout for India as well. Our big geopolitical riposte to the OBOR—the Chah Bahar project could come undone.

In addition, our energy security could be affected in view of our huge purchases of Iranian oil. New Delhi would have to make choices here and they are not likely to be simple.

Not going with the Americans could have repercussions elsewhere, while tailing them could seriously damage our standing in a region which is vital to our security. But again, making choices and shaping policies is what big power politics is all about.  

Mail Today December 4, 2017

All eyes on Donald Trump's America

Halifax, a major port in the east coast of Canada, has hosted an annual security forum for the past nine years. This year, the event was held a week after the US Presidential elections that delivered a stunning verdict in favour of Donald Trump.
Since most of those who attend the forum are people who deal with security issues — officials current and retired, policy wonks, media commentators, military officers —the subject of almost every discussion was the forthcoming Trump presidency, and in view of his positions, the future of NATO, Canadian-American relations, and the role of Russia.
Uniquely, the Halifax Forum hosts only people from democracies around the world, principally the Atlantic region, but also Japan and other parts of the world. The presence of a strong bipartisan US delegation — comprising of luminaries like Senator John McCain, the losing Vice Presidential candidate Tim Kaine, Senators Dan Sullivan and Jeanne Shaheen, PACOM chief Admiral Harry Harris, the controversial head of the National Security Agency, Admiral Mike Rogers — provided the backdrop to the discussions.
In the fabled American policy community — the Beltway elite of Washington DC — as it were, there is a sense of alarm, and even panic at what the Trump presidency would be like. Some measure of it comes from the fact that many of them opposed Trump, and some from the fact that they may have lost possible appointments in the incoming administration. But it is couched in laments about the coming collapse of the liberal order.
Discussion focused on a range of issues such as the future of democracy to whether Trump’s attack on alliance partners for ‘free loading’ and his relationship with Vladimir Putin presaged a new and difficult era for the US-led alliance system in the Pacific and the Atlantic. Many issues were posed as questions: Will Trump make a deal with Russia, getting it to back off in Ukraine in exchange for giving it a free hand in Syria? Would the Americans walk away from the Asia Pacific and Atlantic alliances? What would happen to the world order and rules based international system that the US had created and led for 70 years?
The message from the top American interlocutors was that as of now, the US was firmly committed to the alliances and that the reality of office would push Trump back to the centre of the political spectrum. Analysts offered a range of reasons why things may not change that much: US has enduring interests which will not change. If Trump deviated from fostering them, he would be brought to heel very soon by the US Congress and the people. Other Presidents, too, speakers recalled, took radical postures before they assumed office, but moderated their stance thereafter.
But that almost appeared to be more by way of wishful thinking. The appointment of outliers like Lt Gen Michael Flynn as national security adviser, Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, Mike Pompeo as CIA chief, and Stephen Bannon as the chief strategist, signal that Trump aims to do what he said he would do.
Host Canada expressed its worries about the upending of the deep security and economic links between the two countries. An aggressive protectionist approach of the Trump administration could target some key Canadian exports like softwood, lumber and livestock. The US would seek tighter IPR rules which would affect not just Canada, but countries like India as well. Canadians haven’t forgotten that the US actually shut its borders with Canada in the wake of 9/11, signalling that when it came to security, homeland US came first. Till then, many Canadians had believed that North American security was integrated.
Among those eagerly watching the situation are the Japanese. They are heartened by the recent meeting between the US President-elect and the Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. Trump’s attitude towards America’s foreign commitments will have a major impact on Japan. He has given confusing signals, alternately calling for the US to pull out from its Japanese and Korean commitments, to suggesting — and then denying that he did so — that Japan and South Korea ought to develop their own nuclear weapons. The details of the Abe-Trump meeting are not known and, as for South Korea, it has been reassured by the NSA-designate Gen Flynn that the US valued its alliance with them and remained committed to dealing with North Korean nuclear weapons.
But so far, there has been little on the European and North American front. No senior leader or delegation has met Trump and the President-elect remains silent on the issues that the Europeans fret about. Any radical shift of policy here could actually upend the world order as we know it, considering that it is the America-Western Europe combine which has had preponderant economic and political clout to enforce it.
As for other regions like South Asia, ASEAN, West Asia or Africa, there is little talk. Trump appears to be unfamiliar of the world outside his own country, Europe and Japan. Perhaps it is all for the good.
Mid Day November 22, 2016