Abstract
The re-emergence of Asia as an economic powerhouse after two centuries and rapid technological innovation have brought us to the threshold of a change of the kind that was last seen in the early nineteenth century, when the Industrial Revolution reconstituted the political and economic landscapes. Unlike the transitions after the Second World War and the Cold War that redistributed power within the West, the nineteenth-century-type transitions are extended processes with relatively uncertain outcomes as both the distribution of power within and across societies and the notion and bases of power, its purposes and the self-identity of the potential bearers of power change simultaneously. Countries/societies need nimbler strategies to navigate through this emerging landscape. Gurmeet Kanwal’s The New Arthashastra brings together 20 experts, mostly former military officers, who discuss India’s potential strategies to deal with emerging security challenges. As Kanwal’s project is quite comprehensive, this review will briefly cover the basic structure of the book before examining the key aspects of India’s defence and foreign policies explored in the book.
The book’s title is misleading as it contains only four passing references to the Arthashastra, the most important pre-modern Indian text on administration, war and diplomacy, of which three are factually inaccurate. The most significant of these references occurs in the very last sentence of the book, which exhorts the Indian government to ‘emulate Kautilya and write a new Arthashastra’ (p. 387). The conceptual framework outlined in the Preface relies exclusively on Western sources. Only one of the epigraphs to the chapters is from an Indian source. The manner in which this book invokes the Arthashastra is reminiscent of the recent Indian strategic literature that abounds in totemic invocations of the past (Kumar, 2018).
The Preface examines the historical origins of the idea of ‘national interest’. It highlights the polyvalence of ‘national interest’ that has both domestic and international, and aspirational and operational dimensions. The introductory chapter on national security management endorses Walter Lippmann’s definition of national security, ‘a nation has security when it does not have to sacrifice its legitimate interests to avoid war and is able, if challenged, to maintain them by war’ (p. 15). This book can be seen as a response to the fact that presently India does not enjoy national security, according to this definition.
The second chapter succinctly surveys national security polices of the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China and Germany, but without drawing any conclusions for India. The third and fourth chapters explore national security challenges and objectives. Security here is interpreted broadly, including human security. The concerns include manufacturing jobs, rare earth minerals, indigenous operating system, police reforms, corruption, elementary education, communal harmony, mass migration and biodiversity. The fifth chapter looks beyond Non-Alignment that framed India’s foreign and defence policies during the Cold War.
These introductory chapters are followed by chapters on intelligence, nuclear deterrence, foreign affairs, maritime security, Pakistan’s proxy war, internal security, financing national security, space programme, cyber security, defence R&D, indigenization of defence production, economic warfare and energy security. The chapters on nuclear deterrence, finance and Pakistan’s proxy war are particularly insightful. The book ends with two chapters that identify the possible contours of India’s grand strategy.
The first of the major themes covered in the book is India’s efforts to achieve strategic autonomy. Even as China’s assertiveness pushes India to hedge its bets, preserving strategic autonomy remains an important national security objective because of India’s self-perception. Specifically, India has long seen itself as ‘a power of future’ (p. 60), ‘a leading power destined to play an increasingly important … role’ (p. 79) and ‘the only large country in Asia that can genuinely balance China’ (p. 150). India needs ‘to retain the freedom and capacity to deal with all actual and potential power centres in the world on the basis of equality and mutual confidence’ (p. 79).
This has not amounted to a call for a Non-Alignment 2.0 policy, though. Nehruvian Non-Alignment was embedded in a post-colonial ideology and pan-Asianism that also supported military isolationism and autarky. Economic liberalization, globalization and China’s growing belligerence have altered the context. While, India sheds its traditional preference for bilateralism in defence diplomacy, it remains a reluctant participant in multilateral defense fora because of its discomfort with defence initiatives launched by others, the lack of a clear policy for defense outreach, the shortage of staff in foreign and defense ministries, and the lack of a domestic military-industrial base.
India also values normative autonomy. It needs a thoughtful rather than a mimetic grand strategy that will help it creatively shape its environment in the light of its values of pluralism, liberalism, secularism, inclusive nationalism, democracy and internationalism. Domestically, these values bring ‘together people in a state of creative freedom’ (p. 86). An economic growth strategy that respects the aforementioned values will be a crucial component of India’s grand strategy. The emulation of the resource- and energy-intensive Chinese model that aims at mechanical transformation on a large scale is not desirable.
The second key theme is India’s ad hoc process of national security policymaking. Notwithstanding its hoary past, ‘India is a young nation … tentative and unsure about the use of power’ (p. 171). It is among the very few large countries that ‘does not publish a formally articulated National Security Strategy’ (p. ix) and its National Security Council ‘meets rarely’ (p. 27). As a result, ‘the Indian defense policy is opaque and known only to a handful of government officials, if at all’ (p. 30). A catalog of India’s strategic failures reveals ‘poor grand strategic vision’ and ‘the lack of political guidance’ (pp. 14–15, 26). India has managed ‘only because of short-term measures, blunders by its adversaries, and force superiority in its favor’ (p. 26). The ad hocism makes its principled strategic restraint appear as a compulsion and constrains its ability to leverage hard power (pp. 334–335).
The adhocism is reflected in erratic defense spending marked by reactive and short-lived surges. Most defence plans are not synchronized with national plans, approved often after the beginning of the plan cycle, and rarely reviewed by cabinet committees. This adhocism has affected defence procurement and R&D. With the exception of missile and space technology, India has little in the way of military R&D. A stunted domestic defence industry ensures that India continues to depend on imports to equip its armed forces. The book suggests that India needs to go beyond jugaad (the art of making do), cease to be an ‘open society with a closed mind’ (p. 331), strategically use imports to facilitate technology transfer, engage the private sector and build ecosystems of innovation around existing pockets of excellence to overcome technological backwardness and build domestic capacity to provide for its military.
The Kargil War of 1999 jolted the establishment, but the recommendations of review committees were as of 2016 ‘being studied in the government’ (p. 19). Unsurprisingly, defence forces and intelligence agencies plan without strategic guidance and react to developments. The persistent ad-hocism is explained by the absence of ‘political consensus … on national security issues’, general policy disarray and ‘lack of strategic culture’ (p. 24, 89).
The third theme revolves around the dynamics of India’s civilian control over the military. India’s founding fathers lacked prior experience of managing ‘higher defense organization’ (p. 11). Exacerbating this was Nehru’s ‘disdain and distrust of the military’ (p. 12) and penchant for lofty ideology detached from reality and backed by a naïve strategy (p. 328). From this inauspicious start, military officials have become increasingly estranged from defense policymaking. In India’s national security management, ‘politicians enjoy power without any responsibility, bureaucrats wield power without any accountability, and the military assumes responsibility without any direction’ (p. 13). Given the changing nature of military technology and national security challenges that are collapsing the boundaries between the civilian and military spheres of national defense, ‘[c]ontinuous control of the “escalatory ladder” requires much closer political oversight and politico-civil-military interaction’ (pp. 20–21). India needs to transition from ‘civilian bureaucratic control’ of the military to ‘civilian political control’ (p. 19). Parliamentarians often provide better inputs than turf-conscious bureaucrats (p. 339).
Finally, no discussion of India’s national security will be complete without a discussion of its geopolitical setting. Pakistan’s unrelenting and congenital hostility remains a major concern. Pakistan-based ‘non-state’ actors intertwine India’s internal and external security challenges, while Pakistan’s collusion with China forces India to plan for a two-front war. Having exhausted its conventional force-based options in Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan increasingly relies on psychological and social manipulation that require nimble and patient handling by India.
While an India–China rapprochement can transform Asia, China suffers from the ‘Middle Kingdom’ syndrome and believes that a ‘mountain cannot accommodate two tigers’. Hence, China promotes insurgencies in India, bolsters Pakistan’s nuclear capacity to ‘irrevocably’ alter the regional balance of power, encourages Pakistan’s reckless behavior towards India and uses Pakistan to derail the SAARC and block India’s access to Central Asia (even the West does not mind a nuclear checkmate of India). China wrongly believes that if India could tolerate a strong US–Pakistan partnership, it will not seriously oppose a China–Pakistan partnership either.
Flanked by two irredentist nuclear powers and narcotics hubs centred on Afghanistan and Myanmar, India’s neighborhood is indeed a ring of fire (pp. 60–61), a ‘bad neighborhood’ (p. 229). A ‘responsible power’ with ‘unparalleled moral restraint’ (p. 335), India aims to secure strategic stability in its neighborhood. Building ‘a peaceful, prosperous and friendly extended neighborhood’ is a key national security objective (p. 79). However, Pakistan is not interested in confidence building mechanisms (CBMs), while China readily flouts CBMs. India does not hold many bargaining chips in negotiations with these countries, but it can raise the costs of belligerence. For example, while China is too large to be contained, India can possibly neutralize its Himalayan advantage by exploiting the Malacca Dilemma (p. 178, 302).
The New Arthashastra contributes to the public debate by making complex issues related to India’s national security accessible to lay readers. The book’s central message can be summarized as follows: India should leave behind territorial obsessions and move to an interest-based understanding of national security; India should overcome the Panipat Syndrome, that is, reacting to problems and fighting battles on its own soil; India needs a third force between the military and police to tackle low-intensity insurgencies; India should not hanker after (institutional) status, which in its case will automatically follow the acquisition of hard power; India should radically restructure its military-intelligence workforce; India should build an inclusive, market-based knowledge economy; and liberal democracy is both the means and end of national security. The lack of discussion on the role of army, air force, soft power, emerging international trade corridors and international institutions in national security is a key weakness of the book. Several recommendations in the concluding chapter such as the suggestion to build domestic and overseas infrastructure to act beyond the borders do not follow from the preceding discussion. However, the lack of engagement with historical experience and the consequent inability to deal with real future scenarios is perhaps the biggest weakness. Notwithstanding these shortcomings, The New Arthashastra will hopefully trigger debate and nudge the Indian government to release a formal strategy document.