The need for a CDS
An important debate on national security.
In a guest post few days back, BeeCee had sought to reconsider the necessity of a Chief of Defence Staff[CDS] for Indian defence services. Now, Anil Kumar makes a case for the defence minister to push for appointment of the CDS [LT: The Acorn]. His arguments:
- The demands of interoperability can only be met through jointmanship.
- The nuclearised environment and the ongoing Revolution in Military Affairs can only be dealt with through an integrated approach.
- The new generation battlegrounds will be dominated by electronic, cyber and information warfare; the age-old tripartite command structure will cave in under the onslaught of the new martial forces.
- Besides land, sea and air, space and cyberspace have emerged as the fourth and fifth medium respectively to fight future wars. Not only do we have to contend with astropolitics and cyber invasions, not only do we have to prime ourselves up to protect our spatial assets and cyber networks, we also have to acquire offensive capabilities to deter attacks from space and cyberspace. Our triphibious warfare doctrines have become museum pieces, and we need to enshrine futuristic doctrines to manage 21st-century conflicts. Only collaborative efforts can achieve it.
- Like infantrymen, submariners and pilots, we need specialists to fight wars in space, cyberspace and the nuclear realm. The CDS system will fulfil this.
- In military terms, the tooth-to-tail ratio refers to the number of combatants to the number of non-combatants. The ideal tooth-to-tail ratio is argued to be 65 per cent, that is, 65 soldiers in the fighting arms bolstered by 100 soldiers from the supporting arms. Integration and restructuring will reduce the Indian tooth-to-tail ratio, thereby quickening our reaction time.[Rediff]
The arguments put forth by Anil are all valid but they only justify the pressing need for jointmanship among the three services. These arguments do not specifically make a case for a CDS; these requirements are equally met by having a Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff[CJCS]. Or even by evolving a new hybrid model suited specifically to the Indian context.
The issue is not whether Indian defence forces need jointmanship — that is a given in today’s scenario — but what model is best suited to achieve this jointmanship and synergy among the services. The difference between a CDS and CJCS is primarily a difference between Command and Staff: CDS is a Commander, whereas the CJCS is a Staff. In the Indian context, there is a need to separate the two at the highest levels. This can be best achieved by integrated theatre commands operating directly under the defence minister, with independent military inputs coming from CJSC and other strategic inputs coming from an equivalent civilian advisor (who would preferably belong to a revamped civil services, where lateral movement from private and other government streams to that cadre would be the norm).
The yardsticks for any model of jointmanship are rather simple. One, the individual character of the services should not be lost in this quest for jointness. Two, command function should be separated from staff function at the highest levels as all powers can not be vested in a single individual or institution. Three, integrated theatre commanders should not be distributed on a pro-rata basis among the three services, but given to the individual best suited for the job. Four, military advise should be provided purely by military commanders. Five, the tenuous balance of civil-military relations should be maintained — public oversight of legislative oversight of executive oversight of a willingly accountable, self-policing military. Meeting these yardsticks means a complete revamp of the higher defence setup in this country; something which can be best achieved by instituting a Blue Ribbon Commission for defence.
While the debate on the subject of having a CDS or a CJCS is most welcome, going by the pronouncements of Mr. Antony in Parliament, it is well evident that this important subject does not figure any where on the defence minister’s agenda. Sadly.
Thanks once again, Prags, for a balanced take on the CDS issue.
I have been following your blog for the last two and half years, and I daresay you have developed a (wee bit?!) more maturity and balance over the period.
Do continue the good work.
“The demands of interoperability can only be met through jointmanship. ”
Singularitarains say sooner or later everyone’s consciousness (PBORs too) could be uploaded and so conflict resolution will skip physicals, just pure interoperability and infinite malice to all.
Indian Armed Forces put together is big and spread over different types of terrain. Each one of them has trained their combat as well as support forces to suite the terrain they are situated in. Joint exercises are being planned with definite theme for effective combat in every conceivable theater of operation. Surely after each successful joint exercise, operational needs are planned by tri-Services HQ and methodology updates based on feedback from Air/Gen/Fleet O Cs are working satisfactorily. To say the least, Joint-man ship at Theater level is working well. If CDS is Commander and CJCS is Staff, is it not better to have say Five CDS (Chief of Military Ops-CMOs) at Command levels and achieve Unified Command at a manageable level. This concentration of considerable military power distributed all over the territory still under full staff control by CJCS will ensure lateral or inter command mobility and speed at times of need. This way our Armed Forces can keep non-professionals like Civil Administration as well as Political bigwigs at a distance from Military matters. If coming to terms about the CDS and his ranking at Tri-Services level is a tough task, it may be simpler at Theater level. Also, in scenario that Forces will operate henceforth are complicated with, nuclear, cyber and space technologies, theater specific positioning of hardware and software would be more quickly and effectively manageable than at National level. There are studies indicating both positive and negative aspects of either systems of Military Commands. We can design the best system that suits our country.
Sreedhar Chandan
06Aug09
Pragmatic
Thank you for the interesting discussion.
Just as a matter of note the CJCS is usually a de facto command position.
The Constitution says the President is the Commander in Chief. This has traditionally been understood to mean the senior professional officer can be called anything except a commander.
In theory the CJCS is the Presidents military Chief of Staff. The President commands through the Secretary of Defense the theater commanders report to the Secretary and the CJCS does the planning, The service chiefs have no operational responsibilities.
In practice the since the 1950’s the Secretary of Defense has delegated (often by default) the command to the CJCS. His deputy, the Director of the Joint Staff, is the actual chief of Staff of the Joint staff. The only exception in the last 40 years of so is Secretary Rumsfeld who very much acted as a commander, tended to cut out the military staffs and use Undersecretary of Defense for Policy’s office as a planning staff. This was not a happy experience on many levels, though that may be more a function of the persons involved than the structure.
[...] commentators on defence matters in India — especially the ex-military officers — lament the lack of a Chief of Defence Staff [CDS] in India, after it was first proposed by the Group of Ministers in 2001 [see this post to [...]