Abstract
Civil-Military
Fusion (CMF) optimises use of civil and military resources to achieve national
objectives. Drawing lesson from China and US, the article discusses the fault
lines with respect to CMF in India. The article puts forward few
recommendations to increase and synergies CMF at national level. The article
proposes greater CMF to be part of National Strategy. The civil-military
equation is a complex and dynamic domain which has lineage not only in
political science and sociology but also in many other fields including
history, philosophy and psychology etc. This article attempts to examine some
of these factors in order to, firstly obtain a better understanding of the
nature of civil-military relations in India, including its fault-lines, and
secondly to identify the outcomes of the existing discord. The prognosis
contains some options and recommendations, for consideration of the decision-makers.
Introduction
Civil-Military Fusion (CMF) across the leading militaries of the world is gaining gravity and connotation in view of battlefields getting substantiated with state of art technologies in multiple domains. Indian Army has also come up manifolds when one talks about modern armies or technology driven militaries. Current approach to absorb and sustain such technologies and modern weapon systems in Indian Army has no dedicated Civil-Military organisation which accrue certain limitations. General Rawat had said, “The existing segregated nature of defence and commercial industry ecosystems restricts our capabilities and capacities in making defence equipment.1 Integrating civil and military technology efforts is the way forward towards for self-reliance”.2 Hence a dedicated Civil-Military set up is the need of the hour for any military to be established as redoubtable, whose fundamental role will be two folds, first is to absorb, exploit and observe technological systems and second is to recover, repair and replace them. Such an organisation will form part of the bigger CMF at national level, and its authority will range from assimilation to sustenance of technology in the modern battlefield. At national level, an extensive national effort is the anchor of such a system where India’s civilian research and commercial sectors, and its military and defence industrial sectors will have to work in an integrated manner without impediments.
Fault
Lines with Respect to CMF in India
Limited
interaction between wings of the Armed Forces. Prior to focussing on CMF, the
dynamics of limited interaction within tri-Services needs to bedwelled upon.
The present structure allows integration between tri-services at operational
level only. Seamless integration at tactical level is the need of the hour.
First step towards this initiative may be aligning the geographical boundaries
of Command Headquarters of tri-Services and placing component of tri-services
under Divisional Headquarters as applicable.
Lack
of awareness among civilian counterparts about the functioning of military. The armed forces and civil
services are not aware of the challenges the other services face while
performing their duties. The lack of basic understanding about the Indian Armed
Forces in schools and educational institutions is a major challenge to be addressed
by including basic knowledge about defence forces in the curriculum from high
school onwards.
Lack
of mutual trust.
Lack of understanding results lack of mutual trust which would lead to distress
between organisations and this should be addressed with participation by
Civil-Military representatives from policy making stage till execution stage.
Management
of Perception of Senior Leaders.
Persons at influential positions in civil and military would be able to better
align their perceptions provided they have a reasonable understanding of the
functioning in both domains, civils as well as military.
India’s
CMF framework is skewed in favour of the civilian
bureaucracy. Defence services, the key
players in the national security matrix, are excluded from the decision-making
process, the discourse is bound to be troubled. Since the defence services have
a major venture, they should also have a licit say in matters of national
security. There is a resentment against the uniformed and obstructionist
bureaucracy by the military excessive control promotes a deep divide in the
civil military relationship.
No
Communication/ Interaction between Civilian, Research, Industrial, Commercial,
Military and Defence Sectors.
The most important factor in Civil Military Fusion is eliminating the
barriers and establishing a linkage with multiple channels of
communication. Breaking of barriers to achieve fusion and not just
integration has to be the focus.
CMF
Models
As
a general principle, a fine balance needs to be created between the military
and civilian administration. The CMF is not just about making militaries strong
but about encouraging economies to make nations great. In case India wants to
make the changeover to be a power of consequence, it has to undergo a focussed CMF
process.
India need to eliminate the barriers
between civilian, research, industrial, commercial, military, and defence
sectors. CMF seeks to speedup military modernisation through integration of
latest technologies with operational concepts, increased scientific research
and personnel reforms. CMF infrastructure connects the military and civilian
sectors to catalyse innovation, economic progress and advance dual-use
technologies, especially those suited for Network Centric warfare.
The CMF system needs extensive linkages
between various organisations and government entities. At the apex level, there
are linkages between ministries (Defence, Foreign Affairs, Education, Science
and Technology, Industry and Information Technology etc.) and their subsidiary
establishments. However the linkages should be dynamic with respect to their
levels of hierarchy to ensure fusion in the following six facets:-
n merger
of defence and civil technology and industrial base.
n Science and technology creations be
integrated and unified across military and civilian sectors.
n Military and civilian expertise and
knowledge to be intermingled and talent to cultivate across the board.
n Civilian framework and construction
to strenghten for military purposes by building them to military
requirements and standards.
n Civilian services and logistics be
used for military purposes.
n All aspects of society and economy to be
used for mobilising resources for defence of the nation.
Chinese
CMF Model
China
studied the models of USA and other developed nations. Initially they
sought ‘Civilian-Military integration’ by greater collaboration between the
defence and civilian sectors. However, ‘integration’ did not make progress due
to a lack of centralized control and organisational barriers between the party
and state and their various organisations.
In 2007, China decided to replace
‘integration’ with ‘fusion’. It started eliminating barriers to fusion through
a ‘whole of the nation’ approach. CMF grew in scope and scale as China started
viewing it as a means to bridge economic and social development besides
security development. The result was national development.
In 2015, CMF was raised to a
national-level strategy to build an ‘integrated national strategic system and
capabilities’, to sustain the goal of national rejuvenation. The overall
management and implementation of the CMF is monitored and managed by the
Politburo, the State Council (including the National Development and Reform
Commission), and the Civil Military Commission (CMC).
China’s CMF model fuses its economic,
social, and security development with a two fold objective. To fortify all
instruments of national power and to attain a world class military. It includes
development and acquisition of advanced dual-use technology for
military and civilian applications. It also includes reform of the national
defence, science and technology industries to intermingle them into one.
All military organisations are related
on the CMF platform. Provincial and local governments are also factored in
right from inception stage. State-sponsored educational institutions, research
centres, and key laboratories are part of CMF. Private companies that
focus in unmanned systems, robotics, artificial intelligence, cyber security,
and big data have been co-opted into CMF. These include Huawei and
ZTE. CMF efforts involve partnerships between central, provincial,
or city government entities with military district departments, PLA
departments, academia, research entities, and companies. Provincial and
local governments have CMF industrial plans and have launched 35 national-level
CMF industrial zones. CMF-linked investment funds have been created by central
and local governments and private investors.
Civil
Military Fusion for India – Pointers
Chinese
model is too autocratic for our democracy. However, the necessity of Civil
Military Fusion for India is undoubtedly vital.3 Genuinely, in our country, it will well neigh
be impossible to launch and sustain a mega model across the board like it
happens in China. But the takeaways from Chinese model certainly needs to be
drawn attention to albeit with some modifications as given below:-
n In India, Civil-Military
Fusion has to be a mass approach and incrementally achieved.
n The first cluster could be of successful
and key sectors of national importance. This cluster invariably should be of
Defence, Space, Atomic Energy, Energy, and Communications and information
technology.
n The second cluster should be based on
disruptive and modern technologies like AI, Cyber, robotics, unmanned Systems,
new materials and so on.
n The third cluster should be infrastructure
and logistical in nature to include rail, roads, airports, ports, ware housing,
freight services, transportation, housing, buildings and so on.
n The fourth cluster should be financial
fusion.
n The fifth cluster should be related to
conventional ‘bread and butter’ technology, goods and manufacturing where dual
use can be exploited.
The span in each cluster should include
concerned ministries, military departments, academia, PSUs, public sector
industry, DRDO, CSIR labs, Science and Technological institutes of repute,
Industry icons and more. Emphasis must be on key technologies, key
products and key personnel. Talent capture and retention will be a major
challenge in our system. We must pay sufficient attention to this aspect.
Way
Ahead
If
Defence has to be a function of diplomacy, military capabilities and above all
the Political will, the structure needs to be cross attached at various tiers.
Brigadiers/ Colonels and equivalents are a reasonable first level of cross
postings. The tenures, however, need to be reasonably long, since it is in the
interest of the Armed forces to have competent people to take care of their
interests, there should be no problem with regards to the standard of the human
resource. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) should similarly earmark a
Secretary level post to a military officer to provide competence for strategic
military balance with respect to our adversaries. The details can be worked out
easily as long as the Higher Defence Structure concerns itself with the
following areas:-
4 Resource
Optimisation.
n Resource provisioning including all
aspects of finance, defence industry, manpower and other national
infrastructural and industrial resources including those concerning space,
cyber and atomic energy.
n Policy guidelines and long term planning
to establish the structure, objectives and processes for resource allocation
and utilisation. This should include prioritisation between competing demands
and establishing linkages between trade and industry.
4 Qualitative Guidance and Monitoring.
n Development of human skills in specialised
areas like aeronautics, R&D, production engineering, identification of
attributes for formulation of product specifications as also trials and
testing.
n Formulation of Standard Operating
Procedures to stipulate a five years compulsory contribution of IIT pass outs
in defence production industry is a major step towards initiating the
technology drive in Indian Army.
n Profiling of inventory to include aspects
of interoperability, maintainability and sustainability. Commonality of
equipment and technology.
4 Responsiveness.
n Contingency planning based on a systems
approach with a long term perspective. Increase of options and alternatives.
n Agility of structures and processes,
Synergising all instruments of power through a whole Government approach.
4 Integration.
n Linkage of military force application with
national security objectives and perspective.4
n Development of Joint and integrated
strategy in areas in contingencies of probability, possibility and
improbability.
n Agility of policy modification and policy
implementation.
n Ability to draw from common resource,
multiple usages of single resource and drastic reduction in overheads.
n Strengthen civil-military interface and
relationship.
Aggregation
of Resources and Capacity.
Qualitative aggregation of resources and capacity from both the civil and
military domains is the cornerstone of CMF. The wall that exist between the
silos of civil and military institutions must
collapse in order to allow flawless infusion of talent and capacities in
the military, civil services, scientific community, academia, industries,
domain experts, technologists and entrepreneurs.
Top
Down Approach.
Civil-Military Fusion needs an empowered structure and a well-defined
hierarchy to break these walls with a hammer. The structure has to
be spearheaded by a clearheaded political leadership, an unshackled military
and a bureaucracy which is prepared to shed its non performing lassitude.5 It has to be a
top-down approach. In fact, the first step
is Politico-Military-Bureaucratic fusion. If this can be achieved even in
some measure, we will be on our way.
Integrated
Efforts of Technology Board, Armed Forces, Scientific and Business Community.
Example of technological prowess being embedded into statecraft is
Selçuk Bayraktar who is the chief technology officer of the famed Turkish
technology company. Baykar first started out as a student in the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT). Subsequently, the topic of his Masters’ thesis
was “Aggressive Manoeuvring of Unmanned Systems”. After returning to Turkey he
developed the Bayraktar TB2 drones which are considered to be a game changer in
drone technology. He cited the Turkish President Erdogan’s statement in which
he stated that the Bayraktar drone has bestowed Turkey with power projection
capabilities to eliminate inimical threats at the source in Nagorno-Karabakh
War.
Understanding
the Challenges
n Organise Training Capsules in Different
Training Institutions. The existing
setup offers an insight into military functioning for the civil services. There
can be a vice-versa arrangement for sending teams from defence training
institutions to Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service and other
training academies to provide an insight for the defence personnel about the
bureaucracy setup.
n Service Headquarters. Officers at
service HQ to enhance interaction and engage more with their civilian
counterparts (Director and below) who have longer tenures in the office.
n Lack of Basic Awareness About Armed
Forces in Educational Institutions. The lack of basic awareness about the
Indian Armed Forces in schools and educational institutions is a major problem.
School curriculum should include information on the organisational structure of
armed forces, ranks, arms and equipment, and services under the Social Science
subject.
Conclusion
The
implementation of CMF needs to be a plan spanning over a time period that
encompasses its inclusion from national security strategy to the Long term
perspective planning (LTPP) of Tri-services. While the actions at military
level falls under the medium and short term goals, the fusion in its correct
perspective would entail intervention of NSC to duly incorporate policy
changes, organisation reforms and ensuing procurement directions to achieve a
whole of nation approach.
Endnotes
1 Civil Military
Fusion: An Indian Necessity – MyIndMakers.
https://www.scribd.com/document/160050529/Civil-military-relations-in-India-An-appraisal
2 Indian armed forces – Maj Gen Harsha Kakar
(Retd.) https://harshakakararticles.com/2018/08/25/indian-armed-forces
3 myind.net
https://myind.net/Home/viewArticle/civil-military-fusion-an-indian-necessity
4 Core Concerns in Indian Defence and the
Imperatives ... - IDSA
https://idsa.in/system/files/book/Book_CoreConcernsinIndianDefence.pdf
5 Civil Military Fusion An Indian Necessity –
MyIndMakers
Lieutenant Colonel Saumya Ghatak is an alumnus of Indian Military Academy and was commissioned into 18th Battalion of The Madras Regiment in December 2009. He has served in Counter Insurgency operations at Assam and Jammu & Kashmir. The officer is an alumnus of Defence Service Staff College. He is presently posted as Journal of the United Service Institution of India, Vol. CLIII, No. 632, April-June 2023. |