Civil-Military Relations: Differing Perspectives

There are a number of theoretical constructs that have been propounded to explain Civil-Military Relations. However, these concepts, be it Huntington’s “Objective Civilian Control”, or Morris Janowitz views on “Subjective Control”, and there are others as well, basically interpret and differentiate the interplay between the degree of civilian dominance and military autonomy.

Introduction

At the present time, there is an ongoing controversy in the public domain with regard to our Higher Defence Management as the Services are unable to agree on how to proceed forward with the Government’s stated aim of establishing Theatre Commands. We are told that Raksha Mantri has asked the CDS to convene a meeting of the three services to thrash out the matter so that a consensus can be reached on how to proceed forward. This direction by the RM is a clear pointer to the distressing state of civil-military relations prevailing within our country.

In any democracy civilian control over the military, which implies the control exercised by our elected representatives through the government, is the very foundation on which civil-military relations are based. Therefore, one would expect when the Services have divergent views, the politicians would step in and give concise directions on how the Services are to proceed. In roughly similar circumstances in the United States, for example, the US Congress broke the logjam through the Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1986. This brought about sweeping changes to the  Department of Defense by reworking the command structure of the United States Military. More recently, in China, on President Xi Jinping’s directions, transformational changes to the PLA’s organizational structure were undertaken. So, to clearly understand why our Ministry of Defence (MOD) is unable to push through such reforms, we perforce must examine its functioning and set up.

In essence, however, Civil-Military Relations are a messy affair, not just here, but worldwide. The Goldwater Nichols Act, for example, took a year to be passed and nearly another four to five years to be implemented. There are a number of theoretical constructs that have been propounded to explain Civil-Military Relations. However, these concepts, be it Huntington’s “Objective Civilian Control”, or Morris Janowitz views on “Subjective Control”, and there are others as well, basically interpret and differentiate the interplay between the degree of civilian dominance and military autonomy.

Leaving aside the theoretical aspects, the one thing on which there can be no disagreement is the fact that success or otherwise at tackling vital national security issues depends on, what Raj Shukla in his paper “Civil-Military Relations in India” (CLAWS, 2012), calls “the pattern of institutional interaction between the civil and military components of a nation’s polity.” Most importantly, in our context, this is essential not just because the military is responsible for protecting our national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and must, therefore, deliver the maximum bang for the buck, but more so, because defence spending, while at its’ lowest in the past seven years,  is still  13.73% of all government expenditure at Rs 4.78 Lakh Crores. Not an insubstantial amount in any way.

In the opinion of Steven Wilkinson, author of  Army and Nation: The Military and Indian Democracy Since Independence, our military has been defanged and “coup proofed” by a series of measures put in place by the bureaucracy and its political masters.

Historical Precedent

It is important to remember the Spanish philosopher, George Santayana’s, words of wisdom that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, we would also do well to recall the maxim that “there’s a reason why your windshield is bigger than your rear-view mirror. Where you’re headed is much more important than what you left behind”. Therefore, seventy plus years on, historical precedent means little, because we have had enough time to have absorbed lessons from the wars we have fought since and adapted our HDO accordingly. Suffice it to say that Prime Minister Nehru had an inherent dislike for the military and was apprehensive of what it could do, especially after seeing what was happening in our neighbourhood.

In the opinion of Steven Wilkinson, author of  Army and Nation: The Military and Indian Democracy Since Independence, our military has been defanged and “coup proofed” by a series of measures put in place by the bureaucracy and its political masters. These include a steep decline in its precedence and perks, diversifying its ethnic composition and giving overriding powers to the civilian bureaucracy within the Ministry of Defence in every aspect of military functioning, including the selection of senior ranks.

In addition, large paramilitary forces under the Union Home Ministry have also been formed to “ring-fence” the military and for use as countervailing forces against it, if required. Finally, the lure of post-retirement crumbs, such as an ambassadorship, governorship or membership of the Armed Forces Tribunal has ensured that the senior hierarchy remains quiet and continues to toe the Government line. All of this has weakened the military to a large extent making it a less attractive career, which is why it has been attempting to cope with large deficiencies over an extended period of time.

The Kargil Conflict of 1999 caught us by surprise, and in its aftermath, there were calls for drastic changes to the existing system. It was obvious that the existing defence paradigm of the Indian state was obsolete while we were in the 21st century, our command and control structures were still in the 20^th century. The Government established the Kargil Review Committee headed by K Subrahmanyam to go into the issue of reforms and its subsequent recommendations were handed over to a group of ministers for examination and implementation.

Amongst the recommendations made, the three that were of most importance pertained to the necessity for integration of the services both with each other and with the MOD; the creation of a chief of defence staff (CDS); and joint operational commands. Like nothing else, the Kargil Conflict showed up the serious lack of synergy amongst the three Services of Armed Forces as well as a lack of coordination between the Armed Forces and Civil authorities. It must be pointed out that while some of the lesser recommendations were implemented, including facetiously attempting to fool the political establishment by renaming the Service Headquarters, it has only been after nearly two decades that any serious movement towards reforms has been undertaken with the appointment of the CDS and the Department of Military Affairs (DMA). It is still too early to comment on their efficacy.

Characteristics of Civil-Military Relations in India

It may come as a surprise to some that the Raksha Mantri and the civilian bureaucrats in the MOD, apart from handling the three Services and the Coast Guard, also deal with a number of civilian manned and run agencies such as DRDO, OFB and Veterans Welfare etc. The total number of civilians paid from defence estimates exceeds 500,000. To put it in perspective it is larger than the active strength of the Pakistan Armed Forces.

Anit Mukherjee in a paper titled The Absent Dialogue (Seminar 599-2009)  suggests that there are three main characteristics that our Civil-Military Relations present, which explains to a large extent the ongoing interaction between the two. These are:

• Strong administrative, procedural and bureaucratic controls over the armed forces. Where this differs from other democracies in this respect is the complete lack of expertise on defence matters among the civilian bureaucrats. As a result dialogue between both sides is constrained and, as is to be expected, they are more focused on the process than the outcome. This lack of knowledge also ensures that they are unable to “arbitrate between competing parochial interests”, and are also unwilling to take responsibility or be held accountable for controversial decisions.
• While consulted, the military is excluded from the crucial decision-making forums, thereby denying them a role in the policy-making process. The CDS has only been granted the position of a member of the Defence Planning Committee (DPC) as well as in the Strategic Policy Group (SPG), both headed by the NSA, which is the “principal mechanism for inter-ministerial coordination and integration of relevant inputs in the formulation of national security policies.” Thus, the NSA de facto performs the duties of the CDS—a peculiar situation since the former completely lacks the requisite experience.
• The military has been granted a great deal of autonomy concerning its own affairs. is allowed to do much of what it wants in what it considers its own sphere of activity: training and education, threat assessments, force structure, doctrine, innovations, appointments (up to a certain rank) and miscellaneous welfare activities. This makes for personality-driven interactions.
• In addition to the above three characteristics as propounded by Anit Mukherjee, there is also the issue of disjointed and uncoordinated interaction between the MOD with the Ministry of Finance (MoF). For example, Amit Cowshish in his paper, Distortions in the Discourse on Modernization of Armed Forces, in the Journal of Defence Studies (Vol 8, No3, Jul-Sept 2014) writes that “in the run-up to the formulation of the 12th Defence Five-Year Plan (FYP) (2012–17), all the Services Headquarters confirmed to the MoD that the Op Directives were a good enough basis for formulating the plan. However, “the difference of opinion between the MoD and the Ministry of Finance (MoF) over the size of the 11th Defence FYP (2007–12) was one of the reasons why it could not be brought before the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS)”.

Impact on Functioning

The impact on the functioning of our Higher Defence Management of all of this is that we live in a divided house in which the atmosphere reeks of distrust and hostility, the currency for interaction is power, and the aim of all stakeholders is to protect one’s own turf at all costs, at the very least. It is indeed unfortunate that the most important lesson we seemed to have picked up from the British and perfected, is the fine art of divide and rule.

The second issue of import is the fact that over all these years we have not been able to formulate a comprehensive National Security Strategy document. This goes far beyond just the functioning of the MOD or Civil-Military interactions and can be blamed on our inability to adopt a ‘whole of government approach. Nonetheless, its absence has not only caused ambiguity in our strategic aims but also has had a debilitating effect on our military. As I have written elsewhere in my paper Rebooting the India Army: A Doctrinal Approach to Force Restructuring (ORF Issue Brief No439, Feb 2021) that “The NSS is also the foundation for a comprehensive military doctrine by the Armed Forces. This military doctrine acts as a formalised guideline that broadly visualises the nature of potential conflicts, the preparations required for them, and the methods to be adopted. In its formulation, it flows from the military-strategic goals enumerated, which dictate how the military must be organised, trained and equipped to carry out its assigned missions”.

It implies, that instead of transforming our organizational architecture or processes to deal with future conflict scenarios we adopt the lowest common denominator that allows for compromise. 

If perceptions, within the Services and at the MOD, vary about what our strategic aims are and how we plan to accomplish them, then substantive dialogue on the issue of integration and joint manship are extremely difficult. It implies, that instead of transforming our organizational architecture or processes to deal with future conflict scenarios we adopt the lowest common denominator that allows for compromise.  Basically, that allows us to adopt a bureaucratic bean-counting mode, to ensure harmony among all stakeholders, which translates to proportional representation in all aspects of functioning, entailing only superficial changes in the status quo. The Armed Forces Special Operations Division (AFSOD) is the perfect example of such an approach. Instead of consolidating all of our Special Operations Forces (SOF) resources, we have adopted a flawed approach, not unlike what the United States adopted.  after the disaster of Operation Eagle Claw in 1980, the abortive bid to free US diplomats held hostage by the Iranians. They formed the Joint Special Operations Agency which was flawed as it had neither operational nor command authority over any SOF. By providing minimal resources that have little operational impact, we have managed to pay lip service to jointness while each Service continues to control and employ its SOF assets as it chooses.

Conclusion

The only way forward for us is a change in mindsets and attitudes. We can no longer afford a system wherein, according to K. Subrahmanyam, “politicians enjoy power without any responsibility, bureaucrats wield power without any accountability, and the military assumes responsibility without any direction”. We need a more informed and enlightened polity that is aware of our security environment and is willing to demand answers from our political and security establishment as to how our tax Rupees are being spent on defence. There is no doubt that accountability is the key to a more secure future.

It is time our political establishment got real, set aside bureaucratic infighting and apathy and took control as the Constitution requires them to do. This requires a better understanding of security issues along with political will, determination and a more assertive leadership that is focused on strengthening our institutions. Otherwise, as Anit Mukherjee so aptly asserts, “It might not make a pretty picture to say that we are weak because we choose to be weak, but sometimes it is necessary to look in the mirror”.

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