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DEFENCE: CHIEF OF DEFENCE
STAFF
Down To Brasstacks
The three chiefs of staff haggle over who will serve
as key military adviser to the union Government
By Shishir Gupta
It's perhaps the most significant change in
higher defence management proposed since independence. The occupant of
the new post of chief of defence staff (CDS) will serve as the key military
adviser to the union government and introduce greater co-ordination between
the three branches of the armed forces. He will also control the country's
newly declared nuclear weapons forces. A supercrat in uniform. For months
a debate had raged over whether there should be such a post. Finally last
month, the Union cabinet decided to accept the recommendation by the group
of ministers to have a CDS. Last week, the cabinet committee on security
met to approve the name of one of the three current chief of staffs as
the CDS.
To those supposedly in the know it was a foregone
conclusion. A two-page communique announcing the appointment of navy chief
Admiral Sushil Kumar as India's first CDS had been prepared by the Naval
Headquarters even as the Cabinet Committee began its deliberations. The
navy had assumed that Admiral Kumar would fly the purple CDS flag since
he was the senior-most of the three chiefs. But apparently, the force
had overlooked the fact that the government would defer the issue over
the bitter inter-service rivalry that had broken out among the military
top brass which, if it became public, would embarrass the government.
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The
CDS will be a supercrat in uniform who will whittle down the powers
of the other chiefs of staff.
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To buy time, the government stated that the decision
to appoint the CDS would now be taken after consultation with the political
parties. But it was also clear that there was no consensus within the
Cabinet over Admiral Kumar's candidature for the post of CDS.
The fallout came quickly. At his weekly meeting
with Defence Minister Jaswant Singh, Admiral Kumar handed over a two-paragraph
letter to Singh, copies of which had been marked to the two other chiefs,
General S. Padmanabhan and Air Chief Marshal A.Y. Tipnis. In the missive,
Admiral Kumar stated that he wanted to withdraw from the CDS race as it
had "considerably weakened" his standing as the chairman, Chiefs
of Staff Committee, which was preparing the groundwork for the CDS post.
In essence, the admiral made it clear that the committee's work wasn't
functioning smoothly because it was perceived by the other two chiefs
of staff that he was angling for the post himself.
While Admiral Kumar didn't single out a particular
service as being opposed to his candidature, the letter obviously hints
at the air force, which was virulently opposed to the CDS from the very
outset, believing that it insidiously aims at the decentralisation of
its air assets. The air force feels that the CDS will marginalise its
envisaged role as a "strategic force" and that airpower will
be treated as a "support" arm for future land operations.
The force's opposition is penned in Vision 2020,
a classified internal review of defence management conducted by Air headquarters.
The document suggests that a nuclear air command should be created with
all delivery systems, including Agni surface-to-surface ballistic missile,
placed under its disposal rather than that of the CDS. "Prithvi (short-range
missile) is too short to qualify as a nuclear platform ... Agni is some
distance away from being operational ... the only vector is the aircraft
and will be so for about a decade. Given the incongruity of tactical nuclear
weapons in our nuclear doctrine, the army doesn't need, in fact, may not
have, a nuclear role. The third leg of the triad-nuclear submarine is
too far today," stated the paper.
Of the CDS, the air force says that although
he will be an interface between the government and the service chiefs,
in reality, the colour of his uniform will influence his solutions to
various problems. "More than that, he will introduce another layer
in the decision- making ladder. In the present system, the chiefs have
an advisory role to the Cabinet and the executive role for their service
for which they are accountable ... Who will be accountable to the defence
minister? The CDS or the service chiefs?" asks the document. Arguing
for a status quo, it quotes the Americanism, "If it ain't broke don't
fix it."
The inter-service rivalry is understandable,
given the high stakes involved. Projected as the first among equals, the
CDS will be the permanent chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee, making
him far more powerful than any individual chief of staff. In the current
set-up the chairman can take decisions only if the other two concur. The
CDS, however, after consulting the three service chiefs, can proffer an
independent assessment to the government. That apart, the newly formed
strategic forces will be under his command. As significant, the just-approved
Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) that integrates the intelligence wings
of the three forces will function under his direct command. In effect,
the CDS will whittle down the powers of the service chiefs although they
will be responsible for the operations and administration of their respective
headquarters.
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