Challenges that confront the new Chief of Defence Staff

Soldiers with the Indian flag during the Army Day Parade at Cariappa Ground in New Delhi. (Image: PTI)

The next Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) has some pretty big shoes to fill. Leave aside the big personality that General Bipin Rawat was, there was much he started that remains on the anvil. They remain on the anvil for one simple reason — the problems in question were thorny that required the walking of a tightrope. Change is always difficult, and will always create pockets of resistance. The question is how to effect change and minimise resistance without running roughshod over valid concerns.

So what would the thorniest issues be that confront the new CDS?

The first is the continental land-centric mindset. The sheer size of the Army as opposed to the Navy and the Air Force have meant that we’ve always seen things from a force-on-force point of view unique to ground forces. However during Rawat’s tenure as army chief we saw this thinking change towards exercising air options as opposed to ground options.

The clearest sign of this was the fact that on September 29 — less than a month after Rawat took over as Vice Chief of Army Staff — the Uri surgical strikes were launched. Yet less than a year before he left the post of Chief of Army Staff, he saw a decisive swing when the Cabinet entrusted Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa with executing an air strike deep within Pakistan proper in Balakot.

This brings up the thorny issue of how China and Pakistan represent two very different problem sets with very different solutions. Fighting China with an army mindset is literally an uphill task where China occupies all the heights, and are most meaningfully tackled with the infantry. On the other hand, Pakistan presents us with three separate geographies — mountains, plains, and desert, each requiring different solutions — infantry, high mobility, and armour. In this situation theatre commands make eminent sense.

However if you’re an Air Force or naval planner where terrain is irrelevant, you can swing your equipment from the eastern to western front within minutes at supersonic speed, and within weeks if not days of steaming. In this scenario theatre commands make absolutely no sense hindering the platform neutrality, flexibility, and centralised streamlined logistics that aircraft, and ships offer. This was a particularly contentious issue during Rawat’s tenure as CDS, and the new CDS will have to decide how to sort out this mess.

The next operational issue that the CDS will have to deal with involved women in the military following the recent court order barring gender discrimination. The problem here is not one of patriarchy (though that is also part of it), but rather one of technology. The only advantage a man has over a woman in sheer physical strength. This is why it was the industrial revolution which gradually eliminated the need for brute force in the workplace that acted as the greatest emancipator of women.

As a rule in the services the higher the technology quotient the more level the playing field in gender terms. This is why the Air Force with the highest technology and least dependence on brute force represents the easiest integration of women, and the Army with the least technology and greatest dependence on brute force represents the least. How the new CDS will deal with this problem remains to be seen.

The other significant operational issue will be the rationalisation of procurement and logistics as well as reducing duplication. For example, while the Air Force is embarking on a programme for 114 new fighters, the Navy is running a parallel and entirely unrelated procurement programme. This could possibly mean two different fighters with unrelated logistics, and weaponry running directly contrary to what the office of the CDS was set up for.

Similarly, disparate intelligence gathering and suboptimal dissemination, would be another headache. Tackling these will invariably involve massive ego clashes requiring the CDS to either run roughshod over someone or mollycoddle. Clearly this won’t be the most pleasant job for the incumbent requiring the bruising of several egos, and the smashing of several shibboleths.

Finally, to the single biggest strategic issue that will plague the new CDS — ‘How do you solve the problem called China’. Clearly after the Galwan clashes the policies of the last five decades are no longer the cornerstone of stability. Compounding this is Bhutanese duplicity in its dealings with India, with all indications being that they’ve cut a deal with the Chinese leaving the Siliguri corridor ‘chickens neck’ severely exposed.

The new CDS will have to frame an ab-initio policy that re-establishes conventional deterrence while simultaneously dealing with an enlarged threat owing to Bhutanese perfidy. Moreover, would the air, land, or sea indoctrination of the new CDS bring about a harmfully parochial and dogmatic mindset to the problem, or will the awesome responsibility of the position lead to a flexible and pragmatic mindset?

In short, the new CDS faces a plethora of vexing challenges. The problem set is actually much bigger than the few examples mentioned here, and will require either a force of nature or extraordinary diplomatic skill and bureaucratic deftness to overcome. What remains to be seen is which of the two (or neither) the new CDS will be.

Abhijit Iyer-Mitra is a defence economist and senior fellow at Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi. Twitter: @iyervval.

Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.