By the time Japanese airplanes bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the Military Intelligence Service Language School had been operating for more than a month in a converted airplane hangar at the Presidio in San Francisco, according to a short history in the MISLS yearbook.A handful of prescient U.S. Army officers who had served in Japan noted the strained relations between the two countries and recognized the need for such a program.It was reported that US military recruited Japanese-Americans out of internment camps for a critical WWII intelligence program.. .. wars and fought and won on better intelligence and strategy .. ..
Indian
flag flying high at Nathu La – Indo China border.
The
Indo-China War in 1962 was a forgettable experience for the Nation. A disputed
Himalayan border was the main pretext for war- there had been a series of
violent border incidents after the 1959 Tibetan uprising, when India had
granted asylum to the Dalai Lama. India initiated a Forward Policy in which it
placed outposts along the border, including several north of the McMahon Line,
the eastern portion of the Line of Actual Control proclaimed by Chinese Premier
Zhou Enlai in 1959.Unable to reach political accommodation on disputed
territory along the 3,225 kilometer long Himalayan border, Chinese launched
simultaneous offensives in Ladakh and across the McMahon Line on 20 October
1962. Chinese troops advanced over Indian forces in both theatres, capturing
Rezang La in Chushul in the western theatre, as well as Tawang in the eastern
theatre. The war ended when China declared a ceasefire on 20 November 1962, and
simultaneously announced its withdrawal to its claimed 'line of actual
control'.
Much
of the battle took place in harsh mountain conditions, entailing large-scale
combat at altitudes of over 4,000 metres (14,000 feet). The build-up and
offensive from China occurred concurrently with the 13-day Cuban Missile Crisis
that saw both the United States and the Soviet Union confronting each other,
and India did not receive assistance from either of these world powers until
the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved.The then PM Jawaharlal Nehru failed to read China and his vibes were
vastly wrong.
There was a book ‘The
Unfought War Of 1962’ by Lt Col J.R.
Saigal which blamed the decisions of the PM and the lack of strategy and
military intelligence. The basic thesis of the book is that the 1962 debacle was largely a
military failure, and not significantly due to either the Chinese armed
superiority or the bungling of political leadership.He writes: "In
a nutshell, it will be incorrect to say, as had been written by many, and
stated by Jawaharlal Nehru in Parliament, that the Indian Army was at a
disadvantage vis-a-vis the Chinese Army."Saigal believes that the military
commanders, particularly at the lower levels, were mentally and physically not
equipped to wage war. He cites several anecdotes about hallucinations,
delusions and plain psychosis of commanders, all of which are entertaining and
engaging.
India
can never forget and get over the psychological wounds of that black day on 26th
Nov 2008 when the financial Capital Mumbai was held to ransom. Worser still that media in trying to raise their ranking,
were doling out all information to killers and their operators who could see
the movement of top officers shown on media. The terrorist attack set in motion
events that would change the course of life in India's financial capital. A
group of Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists unleashed a series of attacks at several
places, including Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the Oberoi Trident and the Taj
Palace & Tower. Mumbai was under seize for four days before the national
security guards killed nine terrorists and captured one alive. Sadly, that
wasn't before India lost 165 people and over 300 were seriously injured.
The
attack exposed India's security preparedness. The attackers sailed on a boat
from Karachi and entered Mumbai, without anybody noticing them. Terrorists
slipping by India's coast guards was a major embarrassment for Indian security
agencies. A decade later the 26/11 tragedy, coastal security project is well
underway. Today, there is a major maritime defence and surveillance
architecture in place... today’s First
Post has an interesting article titled ‘From Vajpayee
to Modi, BJP's national security policy has been consistent; Congress' claim of
reduced defence spending fallacious’.Some excerpts .. .. …
For
good or for evil, national security has become part and parcel of
electioneering and point scoring. This is quite unprecedented as, barring the
bipartisan rejoicing after the 1971 war, election campaigns have only
marginally looked at national security issues. Not that leaders haven’t
periodically raged or railed against Pakistan, but that’s not national
security, which covers a far greater range of issues than the public is
generally aware of. It is to the BJP’s credit — whatever
else it may do — that the party has rather consistently focussed on these
issues.
Remember
that it was the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government that undertook the very first
national security overhaul of the system. In 2000, a panel of a Group of
Ministers was set up to examine deficiencies across the board, as a result of
findings of a separate committee under the redoubtable K Subrahmanyam. The
Kargil review committee undertook an honest and searing review of the
shortcomings that led to that near debacle. Only a small part of this was ever
made public, or indeed, even written down. The discussions covered every aspect
of the lacunae in not only intelligence sharing, but also border management,
internal security and defence management. The first strategic defence review
ever undertaken was done at this time and later upgraded to a national security
review.
From Vajpayee to Modi,
BJPs national security policy has been consistent; Congress claim of reduced
defence spending is fallacious and is
only spreading misinformation.Not
overly wanting a complete reliance on the bureaucracy, which usually interprets
national security departmentally, the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB)
was set up, which included some of the most brilliant minds of the time. This
included not only MK Narayanan — who later became the National Security Advisor
under the Congress — but also scientists such as Roddam Narasimha and
well-known journalists, some of them strong critics of the government.This body
also came up with the first Draft Nuclear Doctrine and set up the first
Technical Intelligence Agency, as well as a multi-tiered structure for
intelligence sharing, which involved more than just gathering of information
and having it filed for the boss alone. That’s a lot of firsts for any
government in the realm of national security, even when the nuclear tests
undertaken are not taken into account.
Typically of India, much of this momentum was lost in the
succeeding years, in part due to bureaucratic inertia and also due to the lack
of power of the Prime Minister’s Office in the later years of Congress rule.
Therefore, the present BJP government inherited an NSAB that was more a
retirement club of friends of the government rather than the highly critical
and acerbic body that it was once was. Some of the reforms carried out earlier
— like accountability for border defence — held through the years, but much of
the others dissipated.The focus, however, remained the same through both the
BJP governments of 1998 and 2014 in terms of an ‘India first’ approach. Both
promised to strengthen the armed forces by increasing defence expenditure, even
while vilifying earlier governments for not doing so.
The saffron party, therefore, seems to stand by its promise of
strengthening — to the extent affordable — the capacity of the armed forces.
More importantly, like Vajpayee before him, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi
allows the services to decide on the “what, when and how” of response in times
of crisis. Both leaders gave a general direction, but after careful
consultation with the chiefs.Modiji adopted a vastly more muscular
response — in every sense of the word — and does not hesitate to display just
that, evident in how he made the Balakot air strikes an important part of this
electioneering.
In
sum,the BJP has had a consistent
approach to national security in broad terms. Both Modi and Vajpayee's BJP
believe in a strong defence and a demand that India be accepted as an important
actor on the world stageSo far, the Prime
minister has stated precisely and carefully what he means to do and then gone
ahead and done it. This applies across the board from demonetisation to
defence. It is this quality that has given him the reputation of a no-nonsense
leader capable of delivery on the ground.
Interesting
and appreciable – that augurs good for the Nation.
With
regards – S. Sampathkumar
6th
May 2019.
