Producing a compendium year after year while ensuring it adheres to previously set high-standards is a challenging and arduous task. It is easy to fall behind, trip on errors of oversight or simply lapse into tedium. Yet, Professor Satish Kumar, editor of the 2010 annual review of India’s National Security, has proved more than equal to the task. His latest book looks back as comprehensively and minutely at all key security developments for the year 2009 as do his previous volumes.
The book with its sections on global security trends, external and internal security conditions is designed to quickly take a reader through the vicissitudes of the year 2009. This annual review also contains a series of chapters that focus on India’s neighbours and other key countries such as Iran and Russia. There is an article on Iran that deals with that country’s complex politics and the problem of balancing India’s self-interest with its image as a responsible international citizen.
The paper on India’s Strategic Partnership with Russia written by former foreign secretary, Kanwal Sibal, underscores the importance of this time-tested relationship. “India is probably the only big country that would genuinely welcome a resurgence of Russian power for better international equilibrium,” argues the author, pointing to China’s booming economic and military power. The problem, as the author admits, is the currently unequal economic relationship between the two and the low volume of trade. While India and Russia see eye-to-eye on a number of vital strategic issues, the author warns that without “robust economic ties, the overall relationship will not acquire the requisite depth.”
There are other equally relevant reports on Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Burma, China and Pakistan. Most of these are somewhat perambulatory accounts of developments in each country and how they affect India. The paper titled “Pakistan’s War on Terror: Is There Adequate Will?” is somewhat different in that it tries to make an argument, although a fairly predictable one. “It is obvious”, concludes the author, “that Pakistan is still trying to retain its jihadi card while projecting itself as a victim of terrorism and an ally in the war against terrorism.”
One particularly interesting chapter is on the Indian national security bureaucracy written by an insider, Dr S.D. Pradhan, a career RAW officer who later joined the National Security Council where he held several senior positions during his tenure. Dr Pradhan’s paper “National Security System — Evolution” is a brief but excellent account of how Indian security and intelligence institutions and systems have been driven more by expediency than by any long term strategic vision. His account also charts the history of the role of the National Security Advisor (NSA) and how the national leadership has continuously sought to improve the functioning of the various agencies involved in national security. Not too many people have written on this subject with any degree of authenticity and Dr Pradhan’s paper thus fills a prominent lacuna in national security literature.
Another section comprising three papers on nuclear weapons and missiles is both useful and compelling. The first of the three is on the “Missile Capabilities of Pakistan, China and Iran”, which provides a quick rundown on the current status of the nuclear capable missiles of the three key countries in the region. The paper points out that Pakistan’s missile capabilities, despite the lack of tests during 2009, are fairly quite adequate for its needs. Notable by its absence is a similar section or paper assessing India’s ballistic missile capabilities.
The second article in this section is Shalini Chawla’s “Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons”, a title which is somewhat misleading given that the article mostly discusses the implications of Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities rather than its nuclear arsenal per se. Nevertheless, this is a well written paper that reiterates the grim but oft repeated warning about the possibility of Pakistani nukes falling into jihadi hands.
Third in the series is a discussion on the “NPT, CTBT, FMCT and the future?” by Manpreet Sethi. The author skilfully elucidates the complex issues involved and how India stands on the three crucial treaties. Her take is that while the CTBT might not curb India’s nuclear weapons ambitions, the FMCT (Fissile Materials Cut off Treaty) certainly would. However, she also points out that India might not need an endless cycle of nuclear weapons material production for minimum credible deterrence and should India feel that it has generated sufficient fissile material for military purposes it might actually be in its interest to gradually push for the FMCT. Sethi’s treatise is a well written and cogent summary of the key issues that India will have to consider regarding its nuclear weapons plans for the future.
There are a bunch of articles on the non-military aspects of national security, including water challenges, climate change and economic security. These are hot topics these days but they have all been discussed threadbare in recent times. Without new perspectives, merely reiterating these threats makes for somewhat tedious reading.
The real value of these annual summaries lies in the future when they become succinct archival records. The importance of contemporary accounts increases exponentially with the passage of time and this is one reason why the book is such a valuable addition to the researcher’s library.
The author is an independent security and political risk consultant