On August 10, 2009, retiring Naval Chief and Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, delivered a landmark speech on ’India’s National Security Challenges’ under the aegis of the National Maritime Foundation.
To see the full text of his speech which is worth reading, please click: http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=15d5aafff5&view=att&th=1231de4ef5a4d706&attid=0.1&disp=vah&zw
I have reproduced below strategic affairs analyst K Subrahmanyam’s comment on the Admiral’s speech as published today in DAINIK JAGRAN, India’s leading Hindi language daily.
FROM DAINIK JAGRAN – August 16, 2009 (English version )
Coping with China
By K.Subrahmanyam
Admiral Sureesh Mehta, Chief of Naval Staff and Chairman of the Chiefs
of Staff Committee who is due to retire at the end of this month
delivered an address on national security under the aegis of the
National Maritime Foundation on the 10th of August. It was a fairly
comprehensive overview of our national security perspective. Though
delivered by the senior most Service Officer, the lecture was
remarkable as it went beyond the military realm and focused on a
broad strategic and political vision in the currently evolving
international situation.
In a sense this address by Admiral Mehta signified the arrival of
senior service officers at the top rung of national grand strategy
formulation. His eminently pragmatic, strategic vision has been
misinterpreted in certain sections of the media as a cry of despair
that India will not be able to catch up with China militarily. He has
made it clear that India has no intention to do so. At the same time
he has formulated the most viable strategy to cope with this
situation. Whether India - with a population likely to exceed China’s
in the next two decades ; the advantage of a much younger age profile
of that population; its post September 2008 integration with the
rest of the world ; and being a democracy along with the all other
major powers as also English-speaking - will ultimately catch up
with China it is too early to predict. China today has the advantage
of a decade and half of head start in economic reforms and
globalization and very close industrial cooperation with US and other
multinational firms. Admiral Mehta has detailed the lead China has
gained on this account over India. That is an inexorable reality which
Indian strategists have to accept and factor in coping with China. The
word Admiral Mehta has chosen to use is ‘coping with China’, not
confronting or competing with it.
While China by switching sides in the Cold War and
repudiating the Maoist legacy broke out of its isolation in the
seventies, India could do so only in 2008 with the waiver of NSG
guidelines. While China was a tacit but active strategic partner of
the US and NATO during the Cold War and an established permanent
member of the Security Council and an accepted nuclear power of the
Nonproliferation Treaty, India’s recognition as one of the rising
powers and a balancer in the international system began less than a
decade ago.
India presently has strategic partnerships with all great powers
including China. Today India’s largest trading partner is China. Yet
as Admiral Mehta pointed out, in China’s case India has a trust
deficit because of the long standing territorial dispute and among
other issues, the China-Pakistan connection. Unlike in India’s case
where its emergence as a power does not cause concern in the world,
that is not the case with China. Its propensity for intervention in
space ,both on earth and in outer space and cyber warfare have been
cited as causing concern to other nations.
Addressing those who entertain expectations that 1962 can
be repeated, Admiral Mehta highlighted that the economic penalties
resulting from a potential Sino-Indian military conflict would have
grave consequences for both sides. Unlike in 1962, China has today
multiple vulnerabilities and has to consider seriously the effect of
a war on its energy supply lines. In such circumstances mutual
cooperation is to the benefit of both countries. Therefore Admiral
Mehta’s advocacy is for India reducing its military gap with China and
countering the growing Chinese footprint in the Indian Ocean region
He does not favor the traditional bean-counting or division for
division approach. in closing the gap. Instead , he wants to rely on
harnessing modern technology for developing high situational awareness
and creating a reliable standoff deterrent. The recent launch of the
nuclear submarine, Arihant is a step in that direction. Admiral Mehta
further adds, that in order to minimize the chances of conflict,
India should proactively engage China diplomatically, economically,
culturally and in people to people contacts. At the same time India
should nurture its relations with US, Russia, Japan and other East
Asian countries to leverage towards this end . In his view our growing
relations with South East and East Asian countries would increase
opportunities for cooperative engagement with China as well.
What Admiral Mehta does not say in his speech is as important as what
he has said. China is looking forward to emerging as the foremost
power of the world. Its GDP is expected to overtake the US in the next
two decades. The recent economic recession has narrowed the gap
between the two and made China the second largest economy of the
world. While US and China have some mutuality of interest in ensuring
the stability of the dollar, as otherwise China will lose heavily on
its large dollar holdings, in the period beyond the recovery the US
will be keen to sustain its preeminence as the foremost military,
economic and technological power of the world. There will be radical
changes in the US-China economic relationship so far anchored on China
selling enormous quantities of consumer goods to US and running huge
balance of payments surpluses. Those were saved and lent back to the
US to enable American consumers to spend more.
This world order is unsustainable and is bound to change. As US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, India is seen as one of the
key partners for the US to reshape the 21st century. The US has
agreed to sell high technology defense equipment to India while it is
not likely to sell them to China , its main rival in the coming
decades. Therefore Admiral Mehta’s reference to the innovative use of
technology by India to close the military gap with China.
Besides focusing on this core subject , the lecture also dealt with
nonstate actors, shaping our immediate neighborhood, securing our
maritime borders, internal security, intelligence ,cyber warfare,
higher defence integration and jointness among the three services,
nuclear issues , reducing dependence on other countries for equipment,
trends in defence expenditure and adequacy of our defense outlays,
delays in our procurement procedures, governance and culture of
strategic thinking. His ideas are thought-provoking and deserve to be
objectively debated by the Indian strategic community.
In a sense this address breaks new ground. A service chief has put on
record his views on a whole host of national security issues just a
few weeks before demitting office. Many of these issues have been
under consideration for ages without solutions. In today’ security
environment these need to be debated openly in the country - to
generate public pressure for early decision-making in the Government.
Regrettably, in our Parliament national security issues do not receive
the attention they merit and therefore greater the need for informed
public debate.
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