WHY AMERICA IS TACTICALLY TERRIFIC BUT STRATEGICALLY SLIPSHOD?

KEITH NIGHTINGALE

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

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American forces' tactical proficiency has repeatedly earned the United States gains on the battlefield. But those gains have too often been mitigated by a lack of comparable strategic proficiency.

Our men and women in uniform have made enormous sacrifices implementing the policies developed at the highest levels of our government. But those policies and the strategies to implement them have too often not measured up.

How can we do as well on the strategic level as our military units do on the tactical level? This is a puzzle I have always wondered about since I was a lieutenant on my first Vietnam tour and experienced consistent strategic failures through the several desert wars. How come the finest fighting force on the planet seems to be strategically bereft? In retrospect, we are always tactically overwhelming and strategically underwhelming.

The question was most recently forced on me by Sean Naylor’s detailed descriptions of the often brilliant performance of our special operations forces in Relentless Strike. In a sense, tactics are straightforward — and our military has done tactics well, whether in taking down the Taliban, ousting Saddam, killing Osama bin Laden, or taking out any number of other high-level terrorists. By contrast, getting the overarching political–military strategy right seems to have been much harder. Strategy requires hard thinking at the highest levels and is a serious “team sport,” encompassing not just the military, but multiple other departments and agencies, as well as, in many cases, partner and host nations. There’s nothing easy about that, and the challenges have been evident in a number of cases where significant initial successes by our military and partner nation forces have not been seen through.

Our record in the strategic arena since Korea has been spotty. From the Vietnam War to the present day, we have amassed a mixed record of results with some successes, some failures, and plenty that fall somewhere between those two categories. The cost in lives has been high. We should be able to do better.

Grenada and Panama were clear military and political successes. They were short, sharp, and definitive. The same, generally, was true of Operation Desert Storm. Bosnia and Kosovo were arguably political successes after some fits and starts, and each required significant military action, albeit with no serious casualties, despite an extensive air campaign for Kosovo. Operation Iraqi Freedom started out as a stunning success, evolved into a desperate situation, was dramatically retrieved by the “surge” and subsequent operations, and then went into a death spiral after the departure of U.S. combat forces in late 2011. Afghanistan was another dramatic success at the outset. However, it went slowly but steadily downhill. In Iraq, it was temporarily retrieved by the surge, but less successfully in Afghanistan where things are now shaky after the significant drawdown of U.S. and coalition forces. The campaign against al Qaeda’s senior leaders has seen considerable achievements. And, meanwhile, smaller overt and covert operations in Central and South America, the Philippines, and the Middle East (Yemen, Somalia, Libya, etc.) have also seen frequent tactical achievements, but a mix in outcomes.

In a number of cases, our inadequate strategic concepts and campaigns have failed to capitalize on initial tactical successes. To be sure, there are numerous factors seemingly beyond our control at the strategic level: less than ideal host nation leaders and partners (think Afghan President Karzai, Iraqi PM Maliki, and various South Vietnamese leaders, among others), resilient enemies that enjoy sanctuaries outside the countries in which we are allowed to operate (e.g., the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network), and other factors at the strategic level that make some endeavors just plain hard. Those realities notwithstanding, we owe those carrying out these campaigns better thought at the strategic level than has often been the case.

So, why can’t we get it right more consistently? What has gone wrong between day one and day last? Was there not a viable strategy at the national level? Understandably, the strategic level is much more complex than the tactical level, at least against the enemies we’ve tended to fight, though many have, indeed, been very tough, determined, and adaptive. To be sure, conditions and issues do change as situations evolve, and strategies require comprehensive activities that involve the so-called “whole of government” — and, indeed, the whole of other governments, too. Naylor’s book underscores our ability to achieve tactical successes – indeed, sometimes apparent but dubious strategic successes (like the killings of Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, and Anwar al Alawki). And the same often has been true of our general-purpose forces such as during the fight to Baghdad, the takedown of the Taliban, and so on. But our record at the strategic level has not equaled that at the tactical level.

There is plenty of blame to go around, especially among civilian leaders who have committed our nation to poor strategies dictated by misguided policies. This is not intended to give our senior flag officers a pass, however. They, better than their civilian counterparts, understand the truths of combat and the need for adequate strategies. In too many cases, we have attacked with impressive skill and achieved initial success. Then the bad guys fall back, watch, study, re-organize under our noses, and come at us in unconventional ways. And the blame has to rest at the feet of some of those in uniform who commanded those endeavors, in addition to the corridors of civilian power in Washington.

In some cases, it appears that commanders either bought into or were “troop led” to accept intelligence analysis that did not bear out as fact. In others, commanders clung too long to strategies that clearly were not achieving the intended outcome. The greatest example of the latter was the extended period of a failed conventional force application before Gen. David Petraeus’ counterinsurgency approach was undertaken with transitory success.

Since the beginning of U.S. operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, both our intervention in Libya and our non-intervention after declaring redlines in Syria offer still more concerning commentary on our strategic calculus. In Libya, we were willing to bomb but not to invade, begetting civil war in the wake of operational success. Still worse, in Syria, expansive declaratory policy backed by no action at all has bred a catastrophic civil war, a humanitarian disaster, and a country in free fall, spewing instability, refugees, and extremism over the entire region and beyond.

Of course, outcomes are never guaranteed in war, and the day-to-day conduct of combat is subject to “friction” of all kinds. However, the fact that our tactical ability has yielded only spotty strategic outcomes since the Korean conflict ended more than 60 years ago indicates a dire need for a better grasp of strategy and the utility of armed force from our uniformed and civilian leaders. Both our warfighters and a war-weary public deserve better than more tactics without strategy — what Sun Tzu called “the noise before defeat.”

Quality “strategy” is indeed hard, requiring a rigorous, clear-eyed interagency appraisal of reality on the ground and a hard-nosed determination of the ends, ways, and means that will be the foundation of the ultimate strategy. And too often, our efforts in such endeavors just have not measured up. We tend to focus at high levels too much on tactics and operations and not enough on the hard work required to develop the whole of government strategic concepts and plans and to then oversee the execution of those plans. We ought to be able to do better.

Those at home in the United States have had the privilege of distancing ourselves from the realities of war in recent decades. 9/11 was the only significant introduction into the reality of war that we have seen up close and personal within our shores and with engaged non-combatants. Beyond that, war has been something in which others engage.

In that regard, it is good that our national leadership resides within sight of Arlington Cemetery, the wall of the names of those killed in Vietnam, and other memorials to those who have fought and died in our nation’s wars. These reminders of the cost of war should be a constant reminder of the imperative of getting not just the tactics and operations right, but also getting the strategies right. Yes, strategy ranks with the hardest of tasks for our national leadership, but we clearly owe more than we have provided to those who ultimately ruck up and turn policy and strategy into reality on the ground.

Col. (Ret) Keith Nightingale commanded four rifle companies, three Airborne and Ranger Battalions and two brigades. He was a member of the Iran Rescue Task Force and a founding cadre member of the 1-75th Rangers. He had two tours in Vietnam, was an assault force commander in Grenada and had several deployments to the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. He presently acts as a consultant to several Fortune 500 companies on SOF-related issues.

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HOW THE OSS SHAPED THE CIA AND AMERICAN SPECIAL OPS

DOUGLAS WALLER

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

http://warontherocks.com/2015/09/how-the-oss-shaped-the-cia-and-american-special-ops/

Six months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Office of Strategic Services to collect and analyze intelligence and conduct special operations. Its formal existence lasted just three years. But more than 70 years on, the U.S. organizations charged with these missions today remain indelibly influenced by the OSS and its remarkable chief.

Wild Bill Donovan’s admirers and critics still argue over his legacy, but on one point they agree: His World War II Office of Strategic Service (OSS) became the Petri dish for the spies who later ran the CIA as well as the special operators who conduct some of the most daring raids the world has ever seen.

Four CIA directors — Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby and William Casey — learned the craft of clandestine warfare as operatives for Donovan’s OSS. Indeed, the daring, the risk-taking, the unconventional thinking, and the élan and esprit de corps of the OSS permeated the new agency.

So would the OSS’s failings: the delusions that covert operations, like magic bullets, could produce spectacular results, or that legal or ethical corners could be cut for a higher cause. Dulles launched the calamitous operation to land CIA-trained, anti-Castro guerrillas at Cuba’s Bay of Pigs. Helms was convicted of lying to Congress about the CIA’s effort to oust President Salvador Allende in Chile. Colby would become a pariah among the agency’s old hands for releasing to Congress what became known as the “Family Jewels” report on CIA misdeeds during the 1950s, ‘60s, and early ‘70s. Casey would nearly bring down the CIA — and Ronald Reagan’s presidency — from the scheme to secretly supply Nicaragua’s Contras with money raked off from the sale of arms to Iran in exchange for American hostages in Beirut.

Few appreciate how remarkable it was that President Franklin Roosevelt appointed William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan, in July 1941, to be the head of an intelligence organization called the Coordinator of Information, later renamed the Office of Strategic Services. Donovan was a Republican, Roosevelt was a Democrat, and the two had a history of fierce political battles in New York. But to Roosevelt, Donovan — a hero of the Great War and part of the Republican Party’s internationalist wing — was the only one who seemed to be thinking seriously about how to set up a worldwide foreign intelligence service, which FDR desperately needed as the cyclone of World War II approached the United States.

Donovan started with just one man — himself. By the end of the war, he had been promoted to major general and had assembled a force of more than 10,000 spies, saboteurs, commandos, propagandists, research analysts, and support personnel operating in stations all over the world. He had clandestine officers who stole secrets from the Axis, guerrillas who fought behind enemy lines, some of the country’s finest minds analyzing the intelligence, and psychological warfare specialists who tried to sap enemy morale.

Based in Switzerland, Dulles ran the OSS’s most successful spy operation against the Third Reich. Casey organized dangerous missions to penetrate Nazi Germany. Colby led daring commando raids into occupied France and Norway. Helms mounted risky intelligence programs against the Russians in war-torn Berlin just after the German surrender.

After FDR died, President Harry Truman, who was not close to Donovan and had received derogatory reports on the OSS and its director, shut down the agency on October 1, 1945, and parceled out its functions to the Pentagon and State Department. Truman was not blind to the need for a foreign intelligence service to spy on future Cold War threats. He just didn’t want Donovan and his OSS leading it. In 1947, however, Truman created the Central Intelligence Agency, whose organization practically mirrored the postwar spy service Donovan had in mind and was staffed by a number of OSS alumni.

Dulles ran the CIA as he had his OSS station in Switzerland. He believed that intelligence was a key part of American foreign policy and that the network of associations, the breadth of vision and the daring he had displayed fighting the Nazis would succeed in battling communism. Spying during the war and afterwards was a gentleman’s pursuit, he believed, practiced in the shadows by and among “men of affairs” like him, who were comfortable bending ethics or cutting legal corners for a higher cause. Though he talked little about Donovan after the war, Dulles’s operating style mirrored the general’s in many ways. Like Donovan, Dulles showed no interest in managing the CIA’s inner workings, leaving them to his deputies so he could be free to dabble in the clandestine operations that interested him.

Helms, who took over the CIA in 1966, had no vision for recasting the agency as Dulles had. His strength, as it had been in postwar Berlin, was management, not innovation. He was also determined to keep the CIA out of the headlines, ordering division heads to scrub covert operations overseas for security and shut down the ones in danger of being exposed. Though Helms was a demanding taskmaster, subordinates groused that he was too soft on the “old boys club” of former OSS officers in the agency, which needed shaking up. Helms wanted to keep his distance from old World War II spy pals so he wouldn’t be seen as playing favorites as director, but play favorites he did. He pulled OSS officers’ children who had joined the CIA out of meetings to give them a special welcome in his seventh-floor office at Langley. He often balked at firing veterans who misbehaved overseas, instead finding out-of-the-way jobs for them in headquarters.

Colby, who liked to putter around his Bethesda, Maryland home wearing his floppy Army fatigue cap from World War II, was profoundly affected by his OSS experience, say friends and relatives. As Director of Central Intelligence he drove his own car to work, ate with employees in the cafeteria, called in young analysts to compliment them on their reports and suggest ways their work could be improved, and found time in his schedule to listen to any employee walking in with a complaint. Like Donovan, he believed the mundane work of information gathering often produced more valuable intelligence than a Mata Hari-style escapade. With advances in electronic intelligence gathering, the human spy was a “contributor, but not the sole actor,” he said.

Casey hung two photos on the wall of his seventh-floor office — portraits of Ronald Reagan and Wild Bill Donovan. He ran the CIA the way he thought the general would. Like Donovan, he kept his door open to all ideas for operations. He hated bureaucracy, circumvented the chain of command, and poked his head into offices rungs below. He was proud, as Donovan had been, of the vast array of PhDs working at Langley. Like Donovan, he loved to tour his overseas stations, not only to boost morale and size up field officers who worked for him but also to leave Washington’s political wars behind. When he returned, he always delivered vivid trip reports to President Reagan, just as Donovan had done with Roosevelt.

Today, a statue of Donovan, commissioned by Casey when he was Director of Central Intelligence, stands in the main foyer of the CIA’s headquarters building — a symbolic reminder that Donovan was the father of modern American espionage. The basic skills agency officers practice today differ little from those of their OSS predecessors, save for more modern technology.

The U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) also claims an OSS lineage. Donovan’s special operations teams, for example, supplied partisans with weapons to fight the Nazis in Yugoslavia. His Detachment 101 organized guerrilla attacks against Japanese military targets in Burma. The OSS also fielded more than a thousand highly trained, foreign language-speaking paratroopers, skilled in sabotage and small-arms tactics, who were used in small groups to harass the enemy. These Operational Group commandos, called OG’s, fought behind the lines in France and Italy. A glass-enclosed case, full of Donovan memorabilia, sits in the main foyer of USSOCOM’s Tampa, Florida headquarters. The command’s leaders have held brainstorming sessions to explore what this modern force can learn from its roots and how it can emulate the special operations fighters of the OSS.

Donovan can also be considered the father of the psychological operations USSOCOM and the CIA wage. In the OSS, these were called morale operations and the technology used was, in some cases, far cruder than the kind used in today’s dark arts. Donovan’s officers planted rumors in newspapers claiming that top Nazis were abandoning Germans and fleeing to South America, dropped leaflets on Wehrmacht soldiers, and beamed radio broadcasts at them with propaganda messages mixed with songs by Marlene Dietrich.

Clearly, Donovan was one of the men who shaped modern unconventional warfare. Today’s shadow warriors who practice espionage, launch covert attacks, or try to change hearts and minds overseas can trace their heritage back to the OSS and its band of “glorious amateurs.”

Douglas Waller is an author, lecturer, and former correspondent for Time magazine. He is the author of Disciples: The World War II Missions of the CIA Directors Who Fought for Wild Bill Donovan (Simon & Schuster) which will be released on October 6. He also wrote Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage (2011), described by Booklist as “the definitive biography of a seminal figure in the history of American intelligence.”

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South Sudan: Forgotten, But Still in Turmoil

Matt Purple

September 30, 2015

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/south-sudan-forgotten-still-turmoil-13969?page=show

It was 2011 and the world was preparing to welcome its newest nation. After a civil war that seemed interminable even by African standards, South Sudan declared its independence backed by the vote of 99 percent of its population. President Obama had made the referendum a priority, and the recognition of South Sudan by the United States was hailed as a major foreign-policy victory for his administration. “Today is a reminder that after the darkness of war, the light of a new dawn is possible,” he said.

Four years later, South Sudan has been ravaged by another civil war that’sdisplaced 2.25 million people and left half its population at risk of going hungry. Almost 200,000 South Sudanese are huddled in UN refugee camps, which are becoming squalid. Cholera has broken out and deadly cases ofmalaria are rampant. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in frenzied fighting that’s stretched on for nearly two years now. “There is no more country,” one South Sudanese recently told the New York Times.

The trouble began in the summer of 2013, when the country’s president, Salva Kiir, dismissed his entire cabinet, including his longtime rival Riek Machar. Machar later admitted he’d been sacked because he told Kiir he intended to stand against him in the next election. Relations between the two were reported to be chilly, always a portentous set of tea leaves in a country with a history of ethnic violence. Kiir is a Dinka, South Sudan’s largest indigenous group, while Machar is a Nuer, its second most numerous.

To Machar, Kiir’s clean sweep of his cabinet was intended to squelch dissent over his handling of the economy. “I’m concerned that Salva Kiir is moving towards totalitarianism and the repression of free speech,” he said. For his part, Kiir claimed he was trying to streamline bureaucracy and offered up the old democratic catchall that any of his dismissed ministers could “go and establish his or her own political party.” Machar didn’t take up that challenge; instead he announced that he was challenging Kiir for the leadership of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).

As is too often the case with African disputes, this one couldn’t be contained by the ballot box. No one outside South Sudan knows exactly what happened on December 15, 2013. Kiir claims uniformed men loyal to Machar infiltrated an SPLM meeting and opened fire, requiring his government to suppress what appeared to be a coup and rifle through the capital of Juba searching for conspirators. Machar claimed there was no coup, that he’d been framed, that Kiir was “inciting tribal and ethnic violence.” He was later forced to flee Juba and his house was ransacked by government troops.

What is clear is that Dinka in the presidential guard used the alleged mutiny as a pretext to begin rounding up and slaughtering Nuer. An estimated 5,000 people died in Juba that following week alone. And just as in Rwanda, where an entire nation seemed to abruptly go mad, so, too, did the ethnic violence impossibly metastasize across South Sudan. Dinka pressed the attack on Nuer, Nuer began retaliating against Dinka, and the shroud of idealism that had covered the world’s youngest nation was pulled away.

Two years and countless deaths later, many questions linger over South Sudan. One of them is what the intentions of the rebels are. Interviewed last year byVice, Machar projected the shaken optimism of a man forced into exile for uprooting orthodoxies. “He’s not a rebel,” his wife, Angelina Teny, told Vice. “We did not rebel against anything. We were pushed out of our home because of fear for our lives.”

But Machar was also one of the catalysts behind the violence that plagued South Sudan during the 1990s and 2000s. In 1991, he split his largely Nuer faction away from the SPLA, which was fighting the north under the command of John Garang, a Dinka. The strife of the civil war against Khartoum was suddenly compounded as both ethnicities splintered and began clashing. This was expressed most brutally in the 1991 Bor Massacre, in which 2,000 Dinka were killed in the town of Bor by the White Army, a fearsome Nuer group so named because they smear ashes on their bodies. Some have disputedMachar’s involvement in the slaughter, but in 2011, Machar himself tearfullytook responsibility and apologized.

Now, once again, Machar is in the bush prosecuting an internecine war. And while he claims victimization, his forces have been fighting fiercely in the Nuer-heavy Upper Nile State, the only region in the country still producing oil. South Sudan is essentially a petro-state, with crude accounting for 90 percentof its income. Whoever controls the refineries can fund their armies and keep the war effort rolling, a fact of which the rebels are acutely aware. In May, theycaptured a refinery and promptly tossed out the resident oil companies. The result has been fuel shortages and inflation that are felt as far away as Juba.

But the real toll from this civil war is, of course, the human one. All the hallmarks of African conflict are there: the fighting in the bush; the civilians killed at random; the senseless slaughter fueled by alcohol; the worshippers gunned down in church. Young boys have been castrated and young girls have been raped. The UN has deployed an earnest mission, but its blue helmets have struggled to contain the violence. Machete-wielding fighters have granted genial interviews to camera crews, only to later commit unfathomable acts of butchery.

In Girl, 20, Kingsley Amis’ best novel, Douglas Yandell walks into self-absorbed bleeding heart Roy Vandervane’s house and notices an empty Perspex bottle labeled “Anti-apartheid Fund.” It’s a curious thing, the West’s sense of compassion. We’ve become captivated by the civil war in Syria to the point that it’s a banner issue in our presidential debates, yet the constant suffering of the continent to the southwest largely escapes our attention. The White House hasn’t drawn any red lines for Salva Kiir; Marco Rubio isn’t hectoring for action in South Sudan. Neoconservatives haven’t even devised a way to blame the whole civil war on President Obama.

Obama, to his credit, hasn’t led from behind on this one. Having helped midwife South Sudan, he recently pressured both sides into hammering out a peace deal. But those negotiations have been abortive from the start. At leastseven previous agreements have been signed and then quickly abandoned, and this one appears destined for the trash bin as well. The rebels have alreadyaccused the government of breaking the peace, and Kiir is reluctant to remove his troops from Juba, even though demilitarization is one of the deal’s key tenets.

Beyond that, the United States is providing significant aid money to South Sudan. Our Perspex bottle is out, but our attention is elsewhere.

Matt Purple is the deputy editor of Rare Politics.

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Restructuring India: Why small states are an idea whose time has come

Mohan Guruswamy 

Sep 28, 2015

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States that are larger than many countries are proving to be a governance nightmare. Smaller administrative units would bring distant provincial governments in remote capitals closer to the people.

The creation of Telangana, almost 60 years after the people of the region voiced their misgivings about being co-opted into Andhra Pradesh is yet another step in rationalising and restructuring the Union of States that India is meant to be. India was never meant to be a union of linguistic states, but a union of well governed and managed states. Thus, the demand for newer administrative units will be a continuous one, seeking to bring distant provincial governments in remote capitals closer to the people.

The creation of Telangana resulted in the surfacing of old and dormant demands. The Bharatiya Janata Party announced that it was in favour of a separate state of Vidharba to be carved out of Maharashtra. Maywati has several times expressed a view that Uttar Pradesh needs to be broken into smaller states. Even in Tamil Nadu Dr.S Ramadoss of the Pattal Makkali Katchi, a very regional political party, has mooted a bifurcation of Tamil Nadu, with the northern districts being carved out to form a separate state.

Historically also there is some basis to this as the Tamil speaking region in the past comprised of kingdoms centred around Kanchipuram and Tanjore/Madurai. Jayalalithaa shrilly denounced this demand as “secession”, when the PMK had only asked for a smaller state within the Indian Union. The Chennai-centred Tamil Nadu State we now know was the creation of the British. Similarly, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat and other linguistic states have no historical basis. The yearning for linguistic sub-nationalism is a post-independence phenomenon. Often this linguistic sub-nationalism has been a fig leaf for secessionism, as we have seen in Tamil Nadu in the past.

The BIMARU states

The biggest states of India – Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh – are also its worst-off states and hence the acronym BIMARU for them is most appropriate. They are also predominantly Hindi-speaking and hence, quite clearly, there is no linguistic or historical basis for their creation and existence as they are. It would be however unfair to club MP and Rajasthan with Bihar and UP, as the latter two are in an advanced state of political degeneracy with none of their institutions left with an acceptable degree of integrity.

Since there is lot to a name, acronym-creators apparently needed Rajasthan and MP for imparting vividness. Yet within their blanket linguistic conformity, these states cover a vast diversity of distinct regions, with characteristic commonly spoken languages, culture and historical traditions. Each of these states in terms of landmass or population would be larger than most countries in the world. Even without Uttarakhand, UP is larger in terms of population than Brazil, Japan or Bangladesh. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that despite the supposed linguistic affinity there were and still are demands for smaller states from within these large states. All the major political parties supported such aspirations and three new states were the result.

The creation of these new states – Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand – from the BIMARU big three, and now Telangana from Andhra Pradesh, has provoked a rash of demands for similar restructuring in other areas. The demand is particularly strong in Vidharba where there has been a mother lode of discontent just below the surface for out of work politicians to seek their political fortunes. There is a demand for a Harit Pradesh consisting of the fertile regions of western UP. At the farthest corner of India the demand for the creation of a predominantly Naga state, Nagalim, consisting of all the hilly regions inhabited by the Naga tribes has long been on the table. And then, of course, there is a demand for Bodoland out of the already much truncated Assam, and a Gorkhaland out of West Bengal. This list can be quite long and tedious too.

Smaller states

What contributes most to these demands for smaller or, in some cases, larger states is a sense of strong regional affinity that is stronger than the sub-national identity, intensified by uneven economic conditions leading to wide and easily discernable disparities in development and the perceived concentration of political power with an identifiable political elite like the Kammas in Andhra Pradesh and Marathas in Maharashtra.

Contributing in equal measure to these is the non-ideological political climate that has descended upon us after one foreign economic paradigm so obviously failed and its economic opposite was deemed as the only way to go. What after all are the differences on economic philosophy and management between the BJP, Congress, Telugu Desam Party and Samajwadi Party? Or, for that matter, the CPM? Thus, when real political differences blur, other political differences have to be manufactured to fuel the political bandwagons in the competition for power. Corruption too ceases to be an issue when all political formations are perceived to be equally venal, nepotistic and criminal.

At a time when caste has so fragmented the polity, the demand for small states with a long and traditional affinity often cemented by a common agro-climatic reality becomes a strong motivating force to rally the disenchanted and dispossessed to a common cause. But this must not be allowed to discredit the case for smaller and more manageable states.

The 1973 model

The late Dr Rasheeduddin Khan – of Hyderabad, I would like to add – most eloquently made out this case way back in April 1973 in the Seminar, at that time edited by the late Romesh Thapar. He divided India according to its 56 socio-cultural sub-regions and a map showing these was the centrepiece of the article. That picture still remains embedded in my mind, and whenever I think of better public administration, it is that map which always presents itself in my mind’s eye.

The Seminar map is a veritable blueprint for restructuring India. Out of UP and Bihar, eight distinct sub-regions are identified. These are Uttaranchal, Rohelkhand, Braj, Oudh, Bhojpur, Mithila, Magadh and Jharkhand. The first [as Uttarakhand] and last of these have now become constitutional and administrative realities.

But each one of the other unhappily wedded regions is very clearly a distinct region with its own predominant dialect and history. For instance, Maithili spoken in the area around Darbhanga in northern Bihar is very different from Bhojpuri spoken in the adjacent Bhojpur area. Similarly Brajbhasha in western UP is quite different from Avadhi spoken in central UP. India’s largest state in terms of area, MP, is broken into five distinct regions, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra into four each, AP, West Bengal and Karnataka into three each, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Orissa into two each, and so on.

The pressure of numbers

Since 1971, India’s population has doubled to over 1.2 billion. Even at constant prices (1980-81) the GNP has grown by 10 times. In 1971 the total money supply was Rs 11, 019 crore, whereas it has now grown to over Rs 1,200,000 crore. In Purchasing Power Parity terms it would be closer to Rs 60 lakh crore. As a result, naturally, the size and scope of government has also changed.

The 1980-81 budget of the Government of India was a mere Rs 19,579 crore. It is now about Rs. 1,000,000 crore. The annual budgets of state governments too have grown likewise. States like Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra now have annual budgets of about Rs 100,000 crore each. All the states together have a total annual expenditure in excess of about Rs 900,000 crores. The total gross fiscal deficit of the states alone is about the same as the Government of India’s.

The total population of India in 1947 was about 320 million. Today, we have about that number of people who are below the poverty line. In the meantime, India has become a very youthful country with 70% of its people below the age of 30, of whom about 350 million are below the age of 14. Clearly the task of government is not only much more enormous, but also much more complex when the rising expectations, impact of new technologies and demographic changes are factored in. Our record so far is cause for great concern and is a severe indictment of the failure of the system of governance in India.

That “the nature of the regime determines the nature of the outcome” is a well-known adage in public administration and public policy studies. The nature of a regime is not only influenced by its constitution, guiding philosophy, and the consequent system of government, but also by the structure of the system.

Unmanageable size

We know from experience, both in the corporate world and in public administration, that monolithic and centralised structures fail when the size and scope of the organisation grows. Thus to compete with Honda and Toyota, General Motors and Ford have had to restructure into smaller and independent operating units. In public administration this is called de-centralisation. De-centralisation not only implies the downward flow of decision-making but also greater closeness of the reviewing authority to the decision-making level.

Thus, if more decision-making flows to the districts and sub-districts, the state government, which is the reviewing authority, must also have fewer units to supervise. I have always held that the real concentration of power is not with the Central government but with the State governments. Thus when persons like Mamata Banerjee or J Jayalalithaa or Mulayam Singh Yadav clamour for greater functional autonomy, they are actually calling for a greater concentration of power for themselves.

From the perspective of good governance, this is clearly unacceptable. Good government also means lesser government, responsive government, closer government and quicker government. Large centralised governments are inimical to good government. State Governments are the worst kind of centralised governments masking their regional jingoism as a demand for autonomy.

In 1973 Rasheeduddin Khan wrote:

“the process of the infra-structuring of the Indian federation is not yet over. Therefore, political demands of viable sub-regions for new administrative arrangements are not necessarily antithetical to the territorial integrity of the country. For, every urge for autonomy is not a divisive, but most probably a complementary force; it would not lead to balkanization but to the restructuring of national identity; it is not a fissiparous but a normal centrifugal tendency in a federation; it should not be taken as a call for disintegration of the national sovereignty, but its re-integration.”

The “Report of the States Reorganisation Commission, 1955” states:

“Unlike the United States of America, the Indian Union is not an indestructible union composed of indestructible states. But on the contrary the Union alone is indestructible but the individual states are not.”

It would be unfortunate, therefore, if demands for restructuring of India by creating smaller states is seen only as a mere political contest, where the just cause of individual socio-cultural and agro-climatic regions is a weapon in the hands of out of work politicians deprived of a share of the benefits of office.

Small states are a must if we have to keep the Republic healthy and strong.

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Boeing receives order from India for 22 Apache and 15 Chinook Helicopters

By IDR News Network

29 Sep , 2015

Source Link

India to operate advanced AH-64E Apache and CH-47F Chinook Contracts will strengthen Boeing-India relationship

Includes training and support to the Indian Air Force

The India Ministry of Defence has finalized its order with Boeing for production, training and support of Apache and Chinook helicopters that will greatly enhance India’s capabilities across a range of military and humanitarian missions.

India will receive 22 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters and 15 CH-47F Chinook heavy-lift helicopters. Both are the newest models of those aircraft.

“This is a milestone in Boeing’s expanding commitment to India,” said Pratyush Kumar, president, Boeing India. “This acquisition enhances the Indian Air Force’s capabilities and offers us an opportunity to further accelerate ‘Make in India.’ Large sections of the Chinook fuselage are already manufactured in India and discussions are ongoing with our Indian partners to make Apache parts.”

The Apache is the world’s leading multi-role attack helicopter. The AH-64E Apache, the most modern variant also flown by the U. S. Army, features enhanced performance, joint digital operability, improved survivability and cognitive decision aiding.

The CH-47F Chinook is an advanced multi-mission helicopter operated by the U.S. Army and 18 other defense forces. The Chinook has proven its ability to operate in the range of conditions that typify the Indian subcontinent, including delivering heavy payloads to high altitudes.

“These new aircraft will provide world-class capabilities to meet the Indian Air Force’s missions today, tomorrow and well into the future,” said David Koopersmith, vice president and general manager, Boeing Vertical Lift division. “This agreement represents another major step forward in our long and successful relationship with India.”

India is the 14th nation to select the Apache and the 19th nation to select the Chinook.

“The Apache and Chinook represent the best of high-performing technologies that will modernize India’s defense capabilities,” said Dennis Swanson, vice president, Defense, Space & Security in India. “We look forward to delivering the newest Apache and Chinook to our customers and remain focused on delivering on its commitments to the Indian Air Force and India’s Ministry of Defence.”

© Copyright 2015 Indian Defence Review

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RMA in the Indian Context

By Lt Gen Prakash Katoch

30 Sep , 2015

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spotlights/rma-in-the-indian-context/

Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) can be defined as “A major change in the nature of warfare brought about by the innovative application of technologies, which combined with dramatic changes in military doctrine and operational concepts, fundamentally alters the character and conduct of operations.” Transformation is essential to cope with these changes and most countries have put in place organisations dedicated to conceptualising and implementing transformation.

Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) can be considered a phenomenon that is some four decades old. Soviet Military thinkers during the period 1960 to 1970 first dabbled with RMA (though the term ‘RMA’ was not coined by them). The Soviet experiment was primarily with respect to the impact of nuclear weapons and Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). Their focus was to dovetail the employment of nuclear weapons into their war-fighting doctrine, giving them the cutting edge in future wars. More than a decade later, in the mid-eighties, Chief of Soviet General Staff Marshall Nikolai Ogarkov revived the debate about RMA with reference to precision guided conventional weapons. The concept caught the fancy of the US much later, who actually coined the term RMA.

Militaries worldwide have been experimenting with and adopting RMA. Chinese interest in RMA in the structure of future US armed forces remains strong and is adequately incorporated into the Chinese strategic military doctrine. Their interest in the RMA theory and practice was accelerated due to the dramatic and speedy US victory over Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War wherein US dominance was achieved through precision weaponry, satellites and superior information and communications technology. The power of technological advances coupled with matching strategy and concepts, organisations and training was fully apparent. This was a catalyst for the Chinese PLA to get going on the path to ‘informisation’.

RMA results when a nation seizes an opportunity to transform its military doctrine, training, equipment, tactics, operations and strategy in a coherent pattern…

Throughout history, advances in technology and strategy have revolutionised the way wars are fought. Many definitions have been coined to describe the nuances of RMA. Wikipedia says that “The military concept of RMA is a theory about the future of warfare, often connected to technological and organisational recommendations for change.” RMA results when a nation seizes an opportunity to transform its military, doctrine, training, organisation, equipment, tactics, operations and strategy in a coherent pattern in order to wage war in a novel and more effective manner.

RMA can be defined as “A major change in the nature of warfare brought about by the innovative application of technologies, which combined with dramatic changes in military doctrine and operational concepts, fundamentally alters the character and conduct of operations.” Transformation is essential to cope with these changes and most countries have put in place organisations dedicated to conceptualising and implementing transformation.

Global debate on RMA is centered on the following perspectives: one, this perspective highlights the political, social, and economic factors worldwide, which might require a completely different type of military and organisational structure to apply force. It focuses primarily upon changes in the nation state and the role of an organised military in using force; two, this most common “System of Systems” perspective on RMA highlights the evolution of weapon technology, information technology, military organisations and military doctrine including three overlapping areas for force assets – Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (C3I) and Precision Force and three, this portrays the pessimistic view that a ‘true’ RMA has not yet occurred or is unlikely to occur since much of the technology and weapon systems ascribed to contemporary RMA have been under development for quite some time. However, the bottom line is that RMA is an ongoing phenomenon with no specific start or end point. Perhaps it is akin to the pursuit of excellence which is a never ending process.

Militaries need RMA to create positive asymmetrical capabilities and comprehensive competitive edge over adversaries…

Why RMA?

Militaries need RMA to create positive asymmetrical capabilities and comprehensive competitive edge over adversaries plus transforming their current perception and thinking. Technological advances enable precision delivery of enormous firepower of hundreds of mega tonnes on a given target thousands of kilometres away. Destruction of satellites in orbit is possible.

The capability has increased phenomenally in ‘mass’ and ‘range’ but the ‘time’ factor is frighteningly compressed; battle is being viewed and decided in near real time. Real time communication links and the advent of aggressive media coverage enable viewing the battle from the bedroom. Everyone from the man on the battlefield to the entire chain of command and control right up to the chief political executive and the populace are on the same real time grid. The implication for the military is that decisions have to be taken with great swiftness and efficacy – and the entire, consultation-decision making process has to be radically reviewed. This calls for radical changes in our organisational structures, work culture, war fighting capabilities, doctrines and operational concepts.

Nuances

RMA involves a paradigm shift in the nature and conduct of military operations which creates new core competencies in dimensions of warfare that render obsolete or irrelevant one or more core competencies of erstwhile dominant players. The Blitzkrieg of Germany created new operational and tactical level models for land warfare, rendering the static lines of defence obsolete. During the World War II, Carrier Warfare created new tactical and operational level models for battle at sea, rendering large battleships obsolete. The introduction of ICBMs has created a new dimension of warfare initiating a new core competency of long range, accurate delivery of high-yield nukes. Anti-satellite capability, Space Warfare and Cyber Warfare have ushered in yet more core competencies. Rise in RMA has also enforced antidotes in the shape of asymmetric and fourth generation wars, the application of which is countering the RMA of the US Military in Afghanistan and Iraq to a considerable extent.

It is generally opined that RMA is driven by technological advancements made in recent past in Information Technology (IT) and changes in the fields of communications, computers and networks. This is only partly true; limiting RMA to only systems would be highly incorrect. Recent technological advancements actually require revolutionary changes in the manner in which we conduct our military business since RMA encompasses the entire military organisation.

RMA involves a paradigm shift in the nature and conduct of military operations which creates new core competencies…

There are four basic tenets. First, RMA is not simply technological but concerns significant progress and change in at least the important military related areas of technology, organisation, doctrine and operational concepts. Second, changes or progress in the above areas of technology, organisation, doctrine and operational concepts by themselves do not represent a true RMA, but rather it is the synergistic combination of these developments, which forms true RMA and alters the nature of warfare. Third, RMA emerges from revolutionary changes of historic magnitude within the broader social, economic and political environment of national and global societies, which in turn offer the conditions for RMA to be recognised, appreciated, internalised and exploited. Fourth, the smooth and successful process of recognition, appreciation, internalisation and exploitation requires flexibility, acceptability, innovation and openness to change particularly on the part of the military.

Force Application

Factors that are relevant to RMA are time, technological capabilities, percentage adaptability of technology, Human Resources (HR), inertia of the organisation, net-centric culture and security vulnerabilities. Increasing use of high technology, well-trained HR that understands the requirements of RMA and a net-centric culture, which refers to organisational policies and strategies, favour growth in RMA. Conversely, non-adaptive technology that does not lend to innovation and upgradation which can occur with a large import content, larger mass and poor security in implementation reduces the capability for RMA.

Increase in network-centric culture (largely a state of mind) causes an exponential rise in RMA. Measures for enhancing RMA include development of long range precision attack capability, integration of civilian hardware industry for defence production in common use technological areas and specific security measures particularly in the telecommunication sector to ensure proprietary protocols and standards through which they would have full control over the networks.

Increase in network-centric culture causes exponential rise in RMA…

Emerging trends of warfare have greater emphasis on the sub-conventional. Force application throughout the war continuum must be at the locus of engagement with the enemy. It must be ‘joint’ and could be virtual not necessarily physical, but it may include operations in the diplomatic, economic, information and military domains. These national level applications must be in place 365 days and 24×7 and even during ‘peace time’ since the military continues to be engaged in low intensity operations. The Army would require to continue as a manpower intensive and has to be equipped and networked for such operations with the internal security organs of the state. The Navy is similarly faced with low-intensity maritime threats, heightened after 26/11 Mumbai terror attack and requires addressing at a different plane. The Air Force in support role will need its own force multipliers, inter-operable with sister Services. Moving up to higher levels of the war continuum even the Army will need to be more and more machine intensive.

At the tri-Service/national levels, the far end of war would deal with the application of Ballistic Missiles, Anti-Ballistic Missile Defence and Nuclear weapons. Each zone of the war continuum requires transformation and synergy with different instruments of state power and a differential in the level of man-machine interface requirements. Inter-Service jointness simply has to be enforced as fait-accompli. Network Centric Warfare (NCW) is perhaps the most important component of RMA. The challenge is to do it within an organised framework and with full security.

NCW allows us to move from an approach based upon the massing of forces to one based upon the massing of effects. This allows us to reduce our battle space footprint which, in turn, reduces risk because we avoid presenting the enemy with attractive high value targets. Empowered with knowledge derived from a shared awareness of the battle space and a shared understanding of the Commander’s intent, our forces can display initiative to meet the Commander’s intent and be more effective when operating autonomously. Increase in NCW capabilities will exponentially enhance RMA.

Globally, militaries have researched and considered RMA as an organisational concept…

Political Direction

Globally, militaries have researched and considered RMA as an organisational concept. The nations which have capitalised on RMA have possessed very strong and focused political direction and legislation to enforce systemized programmes for its implementation. Axiomatically, the infrastructure and investment demands are heavy and many countries have not invested required sums in defence, especially where the potential of RMA is not grasped by the establishment.

A successful revolution also requires key bureaucracies to possess certain institutional characteristics that enable them to direct technological advances to dramatically improve military efficiency and efficacy. Developed countries that have had exponential increase in RMA, have adopted a Top Down approach emanating from the political apex. They made organisational changes necessary to accelerate synergy in the Armed Forces. This despite critics pointing out that a ‘revolution’ within the military ranks might carry detrimental consequences, produce severe economic strain and ultimately prove counterproductive.

RMA in China

China is actively promoting RMA with Chinese characteristics and making focused advancements in national defence and armed forces modernisation. Top Chinese military and civilian officials have periodically affirmed the importance and relevance of RMA to China’s military modernisation. Inspired by the 1991 Gulf War and subsequent US actions in Kosovo, China is shaping the modernisation of the People’s Liberation Army in the context of global trends in military transformation. To some Western analysts, the Chinese RMA is limited to ‘pockets of excellence’ only, since large amount of weaponry and technology is still imported.

A successful revolution also requires key bureaucracies to possess certain institutional characteristics…

It would be prudent for India to take note and monitor the Chinese RMA experiment. Chinese military technologies and production capabilities are impressive. Massive technological progress has been realised in short span incorporating sophisticated foreign technology and enabling the PLA to take advantage of an RMA of leading foreign militaries. China has hitched its technological evolution to the global train by committing itself to a more open economy and breaking the paradox of the snail paced ‘self-reliance only’ concept.

In terms of field of force structuring, the PLA has achieved growth in asymmetric capabilities. They have invested heavily in submarines and guided missile destroyers to counter a probable US Carrier Battle Group in the stand-off against Taiwan, making sea capability the answer to a superior US forces sea control capability. The Chinese are not only investing in PLA and military hardware but in all aspects of Diplomatic, Information Operations, Military and Economic (DIME) including foreign governments in India’s immediate neighbourhood and the Indian Ocean Region.

The PLA is being ‘informised’, downsized and the older leadership is being replaced with a younger and more technological aware force. Thousands of all ranks are being put through advanced studies in RMA related subjects on a yearly basis. Specific appointments for General Officers are tenable by those having had tri-Service experience or satisfying laid down technological criteria. Other measures include advanced ICBMs, nuke delivery systems and an undeclared chemical weapons capability; advanced satellite and anti-satellite capabilities; extensive third dimension capability, Rapid Reaction Forces, expanding Blue Water Navy and a formidable Air Force; potent Cyber warfare capability, political will to use it and increasing offensive potential in this context; large chip manufacturing capability; ongoing organisational adjustments in addition to mere downsizing. Reorganised logistics organisations are being put in place; development of sub conventional/asymmetric warfare capabilities. Media reports of support to the ULFA (including Paresh Barua’s base in Chinese territory), Maoists in Nepal and many such measures are indicative of this.

It would be prudent for India to take note and monitor the Chinese RMA experiment…

RMA in the Indian Military

Our military requires organisational changes that are necessary to give an impetus to synergising the Armed Forces towards integration and achieving RMA. These changes have to be driven from the top political leadership of the country. In the USA, the catalyst for the transformation process commenced with former Secretary of Defence, Donald H Rumsfeld; the US Department of Defence created US Joint Forces Command as the transformation laboratory of the US Military to force the US Armed forces into jointness. The Goldwater Nichols Act brought about revolutionary changes in the US Armed forces, accelerating synergy and boosting RMA. In China, the change was ushered in by Jiang Zemin and its implementation overseen by the Central Military Commission and Chief of General Staff of the PLA. In Germany, the transformation process was initiated by the Berlin Decree which aimed to integrate the Armed forces ensuring reaping full benefits of ongoing technological advancements. The German Chief of the Defence Forces is overseeing the transformation of the Armed Forces in was appointed. In India, even a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), though recommended by the Kargil Review Committee has yet to be appointed. Jointness in Services simply has to be forced from the top. Perhaps only an Act of Parliament can enforce this.

RMA can hardly be de-linked from the Indian State. Aside from lack of political direction, complete lack of military professionals in the MoD and the defence-industrial complex (DRDO-DPSUs-OF) has brought us to a sorry state, some of the indicators being – void of a National Security Strategy and Comprehensive Defence Review; the military lacks the required synergy including joint war fighting doctrine and organisations that facilitate implementing jointness. HQ IDS has not been integrated with the MoD and lacks operational responsibility and authority.

RMA can hardly be de-linked from the Indian State…

A CDS is yet to be appointed despite specific recommendations made by the Kargil Review Committee a decade ago. The Tri-Service NCW Doctrine and Enterprise NCW Architecture are yet to be evolved. Tri-Service net-centricity is absent. A large number of command and control equipment and networks are being established but lack common standards and protocols. Several inter-operability constraints exist both intra-Service and inter-Service. Long-range stand-off precision attack capability against land targets is limited though being built up; procurement of weapons platforms and equipment need to cater for technological adaptation; the ability of technological entities to be integrated for synergised joint operations and the scope for innovation.

Air Defence capability is limited and differences between the Services as to who controls the Air Space remain unresolved; establishment of army’s Tac C3I and TCS systems are inordinately delayed; no dedicated Defence Band has been allocated in the spectrum – adequate bandwidths are not available to exploit technology; development of HR for is largely being done on individual Service basis; Cyber Warfare capabilities in the Military and National level are at nascent stage with little offensive capability; no policy for countering asymmetric/fourth generation war has been evolved. National Information Grid is yet to be established and no national policy evolved for Employment of Special Forces strategically on politico-military missions; negligible indigenous chip manufacturing capability exists; enormous security vulnerabilities exist with practically all computer and communications equipment parts and large amount of hardware and software continues to be being imported while little capability exists for detecting and eliminating malware embedded at manufacturing stage, and defence imports continue at over 70 per cent though the new government is resolved to address the issue on priority.

An evolutionary approach that we have been following past decades can hardly suffice. At the National/Military level, we need to do the following – make a blueprint for RMA and legislate it through the Parliament as advanced countries have already done. The draft would need to be prepared by the Military integrating Diplomatic, Information Operations and Economic aspects; replace the MoD with a Department of Defence staffed by military professional directly under the PM; allocate Defence Budget in sync with the approved RMA blueprint, prohibiting the surrender of Defence Budget and permit carriage of unutilised funds to the next financial year; appoint a CDS with full operational powers without further delay; make jointness in the Services a fait accompli, initiating establishment of an Integrated Functional and Integrated Theatre Commands; charge the CDS to implement the RMA under the directions of the Prime Minister, including synergising military and developing NCW capacity; inject military professionals in DRDO-DPSU-OF at all levels including for management and decision making; evolve comprehensive policy for military diplomacy; allot a dedicated Defence Band from the spectrum considering the security requirements; establish a Cyber Command, develop offensive capabilities and make information dominance an integral part of the cyber warfare doctrine; enunciate a Policy for Countering Asymmetric/Fourth Generation War and a National Policy for Strategic Employment of Special Forces particularly for countering these forms of war; establish comprehensive indigenous modern chip manufacturing capability on fast track progressive basis; ensure self reliance in software, hardware, production of hardened active network components including storage area networks and in the interim develop testing capability for malware; focus efforts to achieve self-sufficiency in critical areas like space technology and development of modern weapon systems including comprehensive ‘System of Systems’; accelerate education and joint training of military personnel to support and promote the new RMA with Indian characteristics and speed up establishment of the Indian National Defence University (INDU) and ensure that our procurement process is able to absorb and leapfrog technology.

RMA in the Indian Military is ongoing but needs to be drastically focused and accelerated. The political hierarchy must enforce jointness in the military and ensure organisational changes that are necessary to give an impetus to synergising the Armed Forces into total integration. Advancements in military technology will enable military operations to be conducted with such speed, precision and selective destruction that the nature and way in which future wars are fought and their consequent political impact will fundamentally alter the way in which military and political affairs are conducted.

In order to respond to this imperative, as also to fully exploit the potential offered by these technologies, our organisation and processes, concerned with the whole business of producing military/security capability will need to be re-structured accordingly. We must be able to protect own information systems, attack/influence information system of adversaries and leverage own strengths to gain decisive advantage in a battle space where national security is threatened. Future threats require us to leapfrog into total transformation through the application of RMA.

© Copyright 2015 Indian Defence Review

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