The strategic domain is that which offers the broadest possible policy conceptualisation space. It would be ideal turf for the NITI Aayog. If that body can function as a ‘Samarik Neeti Aayog’, together with National Security Council Secretariat and National Security Advisory Board in security affairs, there would be strong synergy. Also a major structural shortcoming of the Westminster model (Cabinet form of government) — absence of application of a ‘central mind’ on behalf of Government because of cross-cutting strategic issues falling between several stools in ‘no man’s land’ — will have been alleviated
Strategic studies in the country are sorely in need of a strategic uplift, as argued in this column last week in respect of China studies. The position is no better, or possibly worse, in case of Pakistan and the USA — two other countries which impact on Indian interests and well-being in a major way. Only the open, and easier, availability of information about developments there gives the illusion of being better informed. Deeper understanding of the wellsprings of their actions and ambitions, constraints and calculations eludes the nation, as in case of China. And indeed more generally too, with nary a field or facet an exception.
The question is why — how to account for this sorry state of affairs, whereby basic questions of strategic importance and interest are often not even raised, not to speak of being answered, in the national discourseIJ This writer would like to suggest that it is the result, at root, of disdain in the country for the long term and the analytical in (deliberations for) decision-making, both within officialdom and outside. That is immediately counterposed against “practicality” and branded as “idealistic” — some kind of a pipe dream of airy-fairy, academically oriented persons ill-suited for day-to-day decision-making.
The pre-occupation with the short term — “doables” and “deliverables” — at the cost of the long term strategic perspective, once the preserve of bureaucracy but now bedeviling think-tanks as well, is based on a gross misunderstanding: that long term projections, especially scenario-building as in strategic analysis, are invariably an empty shell which might look good on paper but is of little value in practice.
That may be true at one level, in some cases. But not at another, profounder one, and certainly not always. And where that is the case, it may not be because of anything inherent about a strategic perspective but because of lack of attention to a vital pre-requisite — namely, that strategy is almost always multi-pronged in its approach, an integrated whole comprising an inter-connected set of parts, that can never succeed in delivering if all aspects are not attended to in tandem; a condition that frequently remains unfulfilled in the Indian situation.
“Plans are nothing. Planning is everything.” So averred one of the tallest leaders of the twentieth century — not of Soviet Russia of Gosplan fame, which would have been unsurprising, but of the citadel of capitalism: Dwight David Eisenhower; drawing attention to a military insight. So also, it could be maintained, for “strategising” vs. “strategy”. The former deserves to be prioritised over the latter — in statecraft, above all. As in other areas of collective activity such as governance, the nub lies in the verb, not noun, form of the concept. For it is the process of doing that brings benefits — not necessarily the product (that is its outcome). In the form, inter alia, of a sharper focus on trade-offs and weaknesses at one’s own end, i.e. aspects that require greater (high level) attention for achieving the aim (targeted goals). A gain in itself, quite apart from the worth of the strategy that emerges from the exercise.
The strategic realm
A grossly misused — overused — term, “strategic” can be seen, and now increasingly heard, applied to all manner of situations and settings, without much clarity as to what is really meant. It is commonly conflated, even synonymised, with security. But strictly, “strategic” is that which pertains to the domain that offers the broadest possible policy conceptualisation space (for purposes of long term planning and assessments). Not only to do with security. As such, it concerns itself with the big picture — the wood, not the (detail of the) trees.
Strategy and strategising have been posited in academic literature as theory/ theorising (actually conceptualising) for practice — thought processes and strivings, in other words, that could be described as “practice for perfecting practice”. An oxymoron at first glance, it (conceptualising for practice) really is not so, as every reflective leader well knows.
By its very nature, strategising is the province of top management, whatever the unit — organisation, institution or nation. That does not mean it has to be an “all or nothing” activity subject to the whims and fancies of a single, or few, individuals at the helm of affairs. It will always be an individual-driven process (of those in leadership positions) obviously, but it does not have to be led entirely by individual instinct or intuition.
There is room — nay necessity — for it to be institutionalised. Else there will be too great a burden on the top leadership of the day and, at the same time, not be conducive for realisation of optimal outcomes.
NITIC as a Strategic Policy Commission
The newly formed NITI Commission (NITIC) would seem, to this columnist, to be the ideal vehicle for such institutionalisation. That can — one hopes will — result in its functioning as a “Samarik Neeti Aayog” (Strategic Policy Commission), as it were, along with the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) and the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) in the security domain. There is none at the moment in the country.
There would be strong synergy generated if that were to be the case. Moreover, a major structural shortcoming common to all Westminister model polities with a Cabinet form of government would have been alleviated — namely, the strategic turf, comprising cross-cutting issues straddling several Ministries/Departments, being left unattended (either altogether, as ‘no-man’s land’, or properly, because of turf battles).
This has significance, above all, in the context of China, whose rise poses an unprecedented challenge to Indian statecraft with that country’s readiness now to open its purse strings in the hope of making its geo-economic plans and policies the driver of geo-politics in India’s neighbourhood and “near abroad”: Chinese outward investment outpacing capital flows into the country, increasing internationalisation of the Chinese Yuan, its projected vision of maritime and overland “Silk Roads” and an “Asia-Pacific Free Trade Area”, besides the newly floated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. It is difficult to imagine an effective Indian counter to such a massive multi-pronged thrust in the absence of a mechanism conducive for facilitation of a strategic policy approach on its side.
Think-tanks of last resort
Bodies such as the NITIC, NSCS and NSAB should be conceptualised as the nation’s “think-tanks of last resort”, so to say, engaging in “strategizing” on cue from the top leadership in the Union (and also State) governments, on behalf of the State. By think-tank of last resort is meant that NITIC should not be just another think-tank, attempting to perform the same role as any of the myriad other think-tanks in the country (even if it be on a grander scale), but the focal point and repository for digesting and refining all study and research being done elsewhere and guiding that national endeavour towards preferred directions, with a view to fostering “coherent synergy” between them all.
This is not to suggest that no original work should be undertaken in NITIC or NSCS/NSAB ab initio. Not at all; but their exertions ought to be pitched at a higher plane flowing directly from the hunches and predilections of the top leadership (to either validate and fine-tune them or to modify/negate them). They need not duplicate research undertaken elsewhere. They need only fill in gaps in the various inputs received by them or to harmonise or extend those inputs in so far as the latter fit into an overall whole conceived at their own, apex level.
A few examples might help in clarifying this perspective.
Facilitation of strategic policy research
One of the key gaps in the realm of “policy oriented studies” in the country, as is well known, is lack of interaction between policy/decision makers and researchers in academia. The latter are, very often, not au fait with the questions of interest to the former and are therefore constrained to choose their research themes on a presumptive basis. This results, quite often, in their ending up carrying coals to Newcastle, while the real questions befogging practitioners remain unaddressed.
A prime role that NITIC (and NSCS/NSAB likewise) can, therefore, play (with their professional expertise, on the one hand, and access to authority, on the other) is to take questions of strategic interest to the Ministries from their senior functionaries and translate them into integrated, researchable projects for the think-tank network to pick up and do. A fair “bidding system” could easily be evolved, partly on NITIC’s website (for open research) and partly through nomination on the basis of reputation for quality and reliability (for confidential research), for farming out the research projects thus formulated.
It would need to play the same role in reverse as well, for funneling the output of the think-tank network into the Governmental machinery. It should do so after adding value, as on the way out — by vetting and scrutinising the research output coming in from other institutions professionally, interacting with the think-tanks to clarify or correct any aspects that need to be to make the research relevant and usable for policy purposes (which is not always the case at present).
The NSCS can, likewise, play a similar role for improving strategic decision-making in the security sphere. It could, for instance, seek inputs from all Ministries with major interests abroad (hopes from external opportunities or anxieties and fears from threats) annually, in a five-year rolling plan kind of perspective, with a view to tasking the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) (after vetting, harmonising and prioritising them) to incorporate them in its action plan for the ensuing year.
At present, this is done either on the basis of linear extension of on-going activities/projects involving the other Ministries or through informal consultations by the Secretaries in MEA with their counter-parts in other Departments (except in case of some Departments, where formal mechanisms exist in the form of MEA officers on deputation). Neither is a good substitute for a formal and considered, explicitised consultation process.
(The strategic interests of the nation are, after all, a matter for its top decision-makers in all fields of vital national endeavour to define, not its diplomatic machine and certainly not alone, by itself. That is quite an anomaly. The diplomatic machinery’s function is to fashion policy for realising the strategic goals, as set by a higher body such as the NSCS in consultation with it and other Departments; not to set those goals itself.)
The process of tasking would not be a one-way street — MEA should, likewise, be asked (in the same forum) to place demands on other Departments which it feels the nation’s diplomacy could benefit from. For instance, making available Indian developmental successes in different fields under their remit, S&T above all, to other countries in a political framework framed by MEA. (Not in a routine manner, or on an auto-pilot course, independent of MEA’s priorities, as at present.) Such a process would alleviate the present situation of hapless Indian Ambassadors vying individually for attention and support from various Ministries, with the latter responding in an ad hoc manner, without any clear framework for inter se prioritisation between recipient countries.
More important, India’s not inconsiderable S&T prowess could thereby be made to serve as an effective instrument of its diplomacy — at present, it is not so because of the absence of any “strategizing” process due, in turn, to the absence of a suitable mechanism/forum for the purpose. The PM’s clarion call for more invigorated “science diplomacy” at the Indian Science Congress recently, will have been well answered if it is undertaken in a considered strategic framework on the above lines, and not on a fire-fighting basis just to claim compliance.
“Strategising” entails a whole lot of considerations of this nature that deserve greater attention than was possible hitherto in the absence of a suitable forum for the purpose. It should be at the centre of governance reform, as argued earlier in an October issue of this column, in the context of need for world-class institutional capacity commensurate with the nation’s recently revitalised strategic diplomacy, if tangible benefits are to be derived from follow-up of the many possibilities opened up as a result of creative interaction at the highest leadership levels.
(The writer is former Ambassador with a background in strategic affairs as a former Secretary of the Joint Intelligence Committee of the Cabinet Secretariat, and China. He is currently an Adjunct Faculty at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru. His other writings and perspective on China can be seen at http://www.nias.res.in/aboutnias-people-faculty-ambassadorsaurabhkumar.php)