(Maj Gen Harvijay Singh, SM)
The world today is experiencing an exponential growth in surveillance, information, communication, and cyber technology. Military strategy planners are rapidly adopting these contemporary technologies to enhance war fighting capabilities – so they claim! Strongly emphasised because Hamas has, let us just say – even surprised the ‘Five Eyes’.
While western nations seek out the enemy in distant battlefields without collateral damage to their homelands, India does not enjoy this luxury. She shares borders with the enemy and coexists with hostile neighbours in an extremely volatile region of the world; three nuclear powers in eyeball-to-eyeball contact. India faces many other Strategic adinfinitum inevitabilities:
• Its geography is complex and challenging with 15107 Kms land borders and a coastline of 7517 Kms with 197islands accounting for 2094 Kms of additional coastline. The borders comprise a variety of terrain
encompassing deserts, plains, riverine deltas, hills, mountains, high altitude and glaciated regions. Many borders are very porous due to the terrain and ethnic affinities of population on both sides.
• Borders with hostile neighbours: Pakistan – 3323 Kms and China – 3380 Kms extending from a few feet above Mean Sea Level (MSL) to Siachen, the highest battlefield in the world (average altitude 20,000 Feet above
MSL). Consequently, Indian Security Forces operate in all types of terrains from the sea to blue skies and all that lies in between. In addition, relations with these neighbours are fouled by unresolved boundary disputes
and historic differences with no solution in sight. India also shares its borders with other countries:
Bangladesh – 4097 Kms, Myanmar – 1643 Kms, Nepal 1758 Kms and Bhutan – 600 Kms.
Such complexities of terrain will always lure an enemy to indulge in low-cost proxy war and asymmetric strikes using terrain to his advantage. India cannot deploy expensive ‘Iron Domes’ and ‘Impregnable Fences’ across its entire land frontiers of 15107 Kms and a coastline of 9611 KMs. Israel – Gaza Strip border is a mere 51 Kms. Sino-Pak collusivity is another serious threat. Even friendly neighbours in the Indian sub-continent are vary of ‘big
brother India’ and have allowed their soil to be used by its opponents for economic and military activity. In matters military, deterrence shapes perceptions of an adversary to see alternatives to aggression as more
attractive. The ‘Strategy of Deterrence’ however requires a muscular Military that is not perennially starving for budget. Guns or Bread & Butter debates cannot apply to a nation facing multi-dimensional threats. Kautaliya in his Arthashstra 2000 years ago warned of four threats:
• the external threat externally abetted,
• the external threat internally abetted,
• the internal threat externally abetted,
• the internal threat internally abetted.
Without doubt, India faces all threats that Kautaliya predicted, and the quagmire of strategic inevitabilities is challenging. To recollect, India has faced a sea borne attack in Mumbai – the 26/11 attack. Drones are daily dropping weapons, drugs, fake currency etc along the western borders, mostly with impunity. A “pink flamingo” event is
therefore waiting to happen – the known known, an inevitable surprise which is studiously ignored by the policymakers. Therefore:
• The politico-military leadership needs to get out the ‘trivial’ – let us change the military’s ethos and mannerism mode …… to a more ‘profound’ – let us provide strength to India’s fragile frontiers and create a credible eterrence.
• The citizens need to remember: a house, car, business etc is safe as long as the country is safe. Over two million Ukrainians are refugees, Israelis have bunkers in their homes, the lesser races do not even coun