Draft paper
Presented at IDSA International Workshop on National Security Strategy,
December 2010
Not to be cited without permission
Reforming the Military Institutions and National Security Strategy
Brig (Retd) Rumel Dahiya
India simultaneously faces a period of strategic opportunity and confronts
tremendous threats and challenges in safeguarding its vital national interests such as
elimination of terrorism, internal cohesion, peaceful neighbourhood and the like. It has to
cope with prevailing uncertainty and global shift in balance of power and persisting
external threats. More importantly, despite overall impressive economic growth, the
domestic threats and challenges have the potential of limiting the rise of India. As it
grows economically and gains greater geopolitical heft it will be required to play a more
proactive role on the world stage. It is incumbent upon the leadership therefore to clearly
specify our ends through national vision, interests and objectives to the world and
synergise means of application of instruments of our national power to achieve the
desired ends.
India needs a national security strategy (NSS) that takes care of present day
security threats and potential challenges to national security and safeguard national
interests. The strategy is all about the way the country will use the means available to it
to exercise control over set of circumstances to achieve its objectives. Institutions play an
important role in formulation and execution of strategy. India has no clearly articulated
NSS, and this mainly an outcome of institutional weakness. This weakness has also
resulted in sub-optimal military effectiveness in India.
Military institutions influence military effectiveness which in turn affects the outcome of
security goals set by NSS. Besides, by ensuring efficient utilisation of resources without
compromising the quality of military power, institutions help availability of resources for
meeting social goals set by NSS. Thus reforming military institutions is necessary for
success of NSS. Institutional behaviour is not easy to change but it is essential for India’s
national security.
This paper begins with the attempt to define national security and examination of the
concept of national security and then examines the concept of military effectiveness and
role of institutions in ensuring that. It then identifies India’s national interests, and
existing threats and potential challenges to the nation’s security which must be
addressed. In the next section, present institutional shortcomings and their indicators are
enumerated before recommending the reforms that must be taken to ensure national
security. The paper ends by highlighting impediments to change.
Definition and Concept of National Security
There is no single universally acceptable definition of the term national security. A
simple yet broad definition is the ‘quality or state of being secure from danger or
anxiety’. For social scientists it means ‘The ability of a nation to protect its internal
values from external threats’. The noted American diplomat and scholar George Kennan
provided a crisp definition of national security, in American context, as “the continued
ability of this country to pursue internal life without serious interference.” The
American Journalist Walter Lippman defined it thus, “a nation has security when it does
