India Should Produce “Open Source” Strategic Papers

There are some security analysts in India who talk of fighting a two-front war. Admiral Raja Menon (career officer and a submarine specialist in the Indian Navy) is of the view that this and other related issues need to be discussed and for this, the government needs to produce an “open source strategic evaluation” that can be debated.

Almost three or four decades ago, writes Admiral Menon “there was a universal feeling that once we had established a National Security Council with its own dedicated staff and moved towards integrating the armed forces, decision making on defence and security matters would be more far-sighted and wiser. But alas, these new institutions have yet to produce a single open-source document, white paper, or policy statement…….

“The wide discrepancy within the government on the state of the world in 2030 or 2035 results in policies that don’t give the impression of any coherence emanating from New Delhi. On the one hand, we had the aggression in Galwan, and yet, the MEA refuses to take even baby steps to leverage the Quad in the security space, retaining it as a diplomatic talk shop. The recent Quad summit does little to alter its passive nature. The government’s reticence is presumably aimed at appeasing Beijing into peacefully negotiating on the line of actual control (LAC), assuming that Beijing respects appeasement……Even today, there are senior foreign office practitioners who believe that China will rise peacefully and become a benign power, while the world is largely convinced that Beijing has hostile hegemonic ambitions……

“Meanwhile, the Chinese are rapidly taking concrete steps towards becoming a world military power, pursuing bases in the UAE and in the Pacific Islands….…”

The only weakness China has, says the Admiral  “is its maritime geography……..The Indian Navy, which has a foot on the Chinese jugular in the Malacca Straits, is crippled by a minute budget and a weak industrial infrastructure…….”

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