Clamour rises for National Security Doctrine in writing

NEW DELHI: The demand for India to put in writing a National Security Doctrine is growing within the government. This comes even as the Manmohan Singh government has decided on a comprehensive review of national security. The last time such a review was undertaken was after Kargil conflict of 1999.

Senior officials said they are hopeful that the task force, to be headed by former cabinet secretary Naresh Chandra, would end up helping the government to finally come out with the country’s first National Security Doctrine. The doctrine /strategy would define India’s security concerns and how it plans to approach them. The doctrine would look at all aspects of security, including the economic, technological, political and scientific.

“Everything would flow from the National Security Doctrine,” the head of a major security agency of the government said, pointing out that his organization too had recently taken up with the government the need for such a doctrine. He hoped that the Naresh Chandra committee would help India finally have its own National Security Doctrine/Strategy.
He pointed out that such a doctrine would also help better utilize national assets and set specific targets for various organizations . For example, he said, the indigenization of critical technologies, undertaken mostly by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has not been satisfactory.

“If we have written, defined national security objectives then there would also be higher level of accountability among all concerned,” the head of another agency said.

The lack of a national security strategy is also hampering several other key aspects of India’s security apparatus. For example, India’s special forces are directionless thanks to the absence of a defined national strategy. “Once you have a strategy, from it will flow the national security objectives. It would include India’s interests in the region and the role of special forces,” says Lt Gen PC Katoch, a retired Special Forces officer.

In most developed countries , National Security Doctrines are among the key documents defining the nation-state . In the US by law, every president has to present his security strategy to the Congress. Barack Obama released a 52-page strategy in May 2010, significantly differing with George Bush. In contrast to the Bush strategy that spoke about Islamic radicalism and gave overarching approval for unilateral military efforts abroad, Obama called for global cooperation and placed focus also on climate issues.