Awaiting RMA: Indian Army

Throughout history, advances in technology and strategy have revolutionised the way wars are fought. But never before has the spread, influence and penetration of a technology been so rapid and wide spread as the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Media. These have brought the world together through globalization and have become the drivers for economic growth. Not only have they created a new security paradigm but have greatly revolutionised the way we conduct warfare. The battlefield has been transformed into a digital domain with Technology and Information as the new parameters of power. This transformation is at the heart of the current Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). Central to this RMA is the, “Synergy and Effects” that are created through connectivity and information transfer by the communication networks; thus giving rise to the concept of Network Centric Warfare. 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 thus 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.” RMA has the following main components:-

• Political will
• Doctrine
• Organisation Transformation
• Technology and
• Operational concepts

The Indian Army doctrine of 2004 carries a full section on RMA as envisaged by India. General N C Vij, the then Chief of Army Staff (COAS) wrote in the foreword: “Like all other modern armed forces, the Indian Army has been considerably influenced by the Revolution in Military Affairs and the great strides being made in technology development. This has necessitated a transformation in strategic thinking along with a paradigm shift in organization and conduct of operations. As a consequence, military doctrines, weapon systems and force structures need to undergo a review. Our vision for the twenty-first century is to have a well-equipped and optimally structured army, enabling it to respond effectively to varied situations and demands whilst it continually adapts itself to meet future challenges.” India, thus recognizes the emerging nature of warfare but is constrained by the ground reality to move rapidly to a Western style RMA.

The Ground Reality

• India’s primary security challenge essentially remains the same and that is defending Indian Territory by conventionally deterring Pakistan and dissuading China.
• Being a status quo power, India’s security culture has always prioritized defence over offence. Nature of RMA, therefore, does not fit very well in Indian Military posture, at least in the minds of political decision makers.
• Barring 1962 war, Indian Military has done well in all operations. This has given an impression to the political masters that the Indian Army, in its present form, is capable to deliver under any circumstances. This leads to lack of political will.
• Extensive employment of Army in the Counter Insurgency (CI) and Counter Terrorism (CT) operations which are manpower intensive and are conducted mostly at tactical level.
• Role of Indian Army makes the transition to western style RMA very complex.
• Resources for modernization are limited.
• A fractured higher defence organization, bureaucratic control and painfully slow and opaque procurement process
• Near absence of Defence industrial base and poor delivery on the R&D front and manufacturing.

Hence, India has to find a home spun solution of carrying out RMA through “gradual incrementalism” over a period of time while carefully managing the transition from an industrial age army to an Information driven, technology oriented, lean, mean and agile force operating in the digital battlefield.

Such an approach places emphasis on the ability to augment existing strengths, develop new skills, think imaginatively and attempt innovative approaches to cope with the emerging environment. We need to visualize what our Army of the future should look like and accordingly develop suitable approaches to structures, equipping, logistics and training. While doing so, our plan has to be flexible to cater for both the technological or operational surprises.

The Indian Army has to maintain a high level of readiness for war in varied terrain conditions and should have the capability to operate in the complete spectrum of conflict. The Indian Army Doctrine outlines a framework for a better understanding of the approach to warfare and provides the foundation for its practical application. While resource constraint is faced by all armies, Indian army will have to be innovative in her approach and utilise the resources most optimally. Technology and information will have be exploited to create synergies and economy of effort. There will invariably be technological gaps between the systems that we possess and those developed up to that point in time. We will have to examine the asymmetries and develop anti-technology capabilities, processes and procedures to overcome the same. This would require technical intelligence, innovation and adaptation.

Information Warfare, consisting of Command and Control Warfare, Intelligence based warfare, Electronic warfare (EW), Psychological warfare, Cyber warfare, Economic Information warfare and Network Centric warfare has emerged as a major force multiplier and is at the heart of ICT driven RMA. This seems to be the weak point in our arsenal demanding immediate and focused attention.

The Indian Army Doctrine issued in 2004 was in two parts. Part 1, which is meant for open domain, was to be revised every five years and the classified Part two after ten years. While we await the revised and updated version, what is apparent is that the Army has not come out, at least in the open domain, with any corresponding action plan and an audit of capacity build up. There is no mention as to how the capabilities are to be integrated and measured towards India’s comprehensive national power. Hence while it conveys the intent, actual implementation and associated time frame are not clear. Consequently, the development has largely been haphazard and personality based. The situation is further compounded by the inordinate delay in the approval, execution, delivery and operationalisation of projects. Net result is that notwithstanding the doctrine, the “Indian Army still awaits the RMA”.

This is a serious strategic deficiency due to years of political neglect of more than a decade. Compare this with China, which has undergone more than three decades of modernisation, doctrinal changes and organisation transformation and currently going through a process of consolidation and integrating cyberspace and outer space as part of her warfighting capabilities while concentrating on C4ISTAR capabilities, potent missile force, infrastructure, focused R&D and a strong defence industrial base.

Let us analyse each component of RMA in an Indian context and ascertain why still the Indian Army awaits the RMA.

Organisation

Indian Army is still organised for the last war in an industrial, platform centric environment. It needs immediate and focused organisation transformation to the information age Network Centric Warfare in a digitised battlefield characterised by long range precision weapons, almost total battlefield transparency and very high velocity of operations encompassing the entire nation across full spectrum (NBC to Asymmetric and OOW) and at all levels (strategic, operational and tactical).

While the Government must appoint a Chief of Defence Staff without any further delay, there is an urgent requirement of organisation transformation to create resources and efficiencies for the new organisations and capabilities. There is a need for bold and hard decisions to streamline the logistics chain through application of technology and outsourcing. There is also a case to dispassionately examine the combat units to release resources in view of the revised strategy and operational doctrine, quantum increase in firepower, mobility and induction of force multipliers. Our strategy to deter Pakistan definitely requires a review and offensive orientation of our doctrine. The revised doctrine must include offensive actions at multiple levels in a nuclear environment with emphasis on Survivability, Deception, Perception management, Mobility, Integrated Network, Electronic and Optical warfare; Air Defence, Intelligence, Surveillance, Fire power, Special Operations, focused logistics and other force multipliers to counter night fighting capabilities, surveillance and intelligence. These capabilities be built in mission specific battle groups under an Integrated Theatre Command with appropriate Command and Control elements. Deployment of these capabilities would have to be in consonance with the political aim and must be a part of overall comprehensive national power.

These thoughts will require serious and detailed deliberations as these indicate a doctrinal transfer from Attrition to Effect based operations. The point being made is that while most of these are included in the Army Doctrine 2004 as intent, there is negligible evidence of such capabilities being available on ground and integrated in our war fighting effort.

Similar effort needs to be made on our Eastern front. The raising of a mountain strike Corps affords us a unique opportunity to build an organisation which not only negates the capabilities of our adversary but gives us the ability to exploit the red lines. Our focus must be to effectively overcome the asymmetry in the fields of cyberspace, missile and outer space warfare. The political authority must be made aware of the serious differential both against Pakistan and China and the urgent and inescapable necessity of organisation transformation particularly if engaged in a two front war while still engaged in CI/CT operations.

The suggestion is that let us make a beginning and create such organizations and capabilities in a time bound manner; develop strategies for their exploitation, train and rehearse in an information rich environment. Let these be the maiden long awaited efforts towards realizing an India specific RMA on ground.

Technology and Military Modernisation.

Our record in developing indigenous technology and the corresponding defence industrial base has not been encouraging. We continue to import about seventy percent of our equipment and that makes the country very vulnerable. The ground situation gets compounded further with the inordinate delay in the approval and execution of projects. We need to take advantage of the political will being shown by the present government through “Make in India” drive. In the succeeding paragraphs, we will examine the status of some of the critical projects for realising the Indian Army RMA

F-INSAS (Future INfantry Soldier As a System)

In 2007, F-INSAS- one of the biggest programme ever for Infantry modernization, was undertaken by the Army with the objective of transforming the Force into a “fully networked, digitized self-contained 21st century warriors”. The aim being to transform the “future Infantryman” into a “sensor” rather than a “deliverer” of fire power, his own and those of multitude of indirect precision weapons in support.