Target in Sight

Context: Military reforms are complex and have underlying problems that need to be addressed.

Outcomes of creation of the Department of Military Affairs (DMA) and a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) 

• Management of armed forces will come under CDS: It was earlier assigned to the civilian Defence Secretary.
• CDS, as a Secretary to the DMA, became the first military officer to be recognised as a functionary of the Government of India (GoI) by its Allocation of Business Rules.

Problems associated with Military reforms:

• The onus for accruing savings to fund defence expenditure is on DMA:
  • DMA has floated two schemes aimed at reducing the defence pensions bill:
    • Penalising officers seeking early release from service: likely to harm morale.
    • Envisages a three-year “Tour of Duty” for jawans: It will degrade the military’s combat-capability in today’s technology-intensive battle-space.
• Fear that the “rolling out” theatre commands is a trial balloon: Thus it may merely add additional layers of the military hierarchy to a reasonably functional existing organisation.
• Complex chain of commands: of the Theatre Commanders
• Relationship of the CDS with the service Chiefs.

Way Forward:

• Financing national defence should be the duty of the finance ministry or the Niti Aayog: Rather DMA.
• Roll out theatre commands: ideally based on the following objectives:
  • To hand over the military’s warfighting functions to the Theatre Commanders.
  • To combine India’s 17 widely-dispersed, single-service Commands into four or five missions.
  • To place the appropriate warfighting resources of all three services directly under the command.
  • To achieve efficiency/economy by pooling of facilities and resources of the three services.
• Radical changes in the system of professional military education: To plan operations and to employ land, maritime and air forces, regardless of the service to which they belong.
• Defence Minister (DM) should actively become part of command chain of the Theatre Commanders: with the CDS acting as his adviser. CDS can also concentrate on operational tasking.

Conclusion: GoI shall constitute a Parliamentary Committee, with military advisers, to oversee and guide the Military reforms as it was done in the US.