National Security Decision-Making in India

Bibhu Prasad Routray

S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Singapore, Monograph No 27, 2013

Ironically, the generic argument that the national security decision making process in India has been mired in both structural and functional flaws coexists with an enormous interest in the ways the country makes its decisions pertaining to national security. Many of India’s national security concerns have been attributed to a troubled neighbourhood. Surrounded by failed as well as ill governed states, India has been subjected to a range of security challenges from both state as well as state sponsored non-state actors. The country has been plagued by a multiplicity of internal security challenges in the form of terrorism and insurgency movements, pacifying which takes much of its effort and resources. Externally, unsettled borders, disputed territories, and old treaties that have never been adhered to in spirit create enormous problems for bilateral relations.

However, from a decision-making point of view, the challenges are linked to systemic conditions, capacities of institutions, legislations, personalities, policies, politics, the art of bargaining, and economic strength. A perfect harmony, based on shared interest or hard bargaining is necessary on most occasions among the actors to arrive at agreeable and implementable, if not consensual, decisions.

The broad objective of this monograph is not to produce an investigative report into the dynamics of the decision-making apparatus, much less a narrative based on confidential information. No attempt has been made to compile classified inputs regarding the decision-making processes in the identified case studies. However, the strength of the monograph lies in its attempt to establish linkages among available open source information to construct a sequence of events, with the systemic and domestic factors in the backdrop. Interviews have been used not only to verify the available information, but also to gain insights on the missing links. Maximum attempt has been made to understand the decisions in light of the power plays and process of bargaining among the actors involved.

While the monograph provides a historical context to national security decision-making in discussing each of the case studies, it limits itself to analysing and largely examining the contemporary trends. In sum, it attempts to produce a present-day literature, relevant to policy making as well as understanding the complexities of decision making in India. The monograph argues that the national security decision-making process in India is a complex phenomenon, which over the years has become even more complex, both by the wide scale transformations in systemic and domestic conditions and the addition of new actors into the apparatus. The busy and competing turf that the apparatus now resembles is ill prepared to synthesise and harmonise the interests of the multiplicity of actors. In the absence of a national doctrine of national security and supporting structures to assimilate contending views, national security decisions have been mostly reactive and ad hoc. This has led to the evolution of a curious scenario which strengthens personalities and benefits particular actors when decisions produce success, but weakens the decision-making apparatus when they fail. The monograph argues that since little attempt has been made to address the flaws, the future will provide no respite to the already hackneyed decision-making apparatus, with serious ramifications for India’s national security.

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