Live
- Over 7,600 Syrians return from Turkiye in five days after Assad's downfall: minister
- Delhi BJP leaders stay overnight in 1,194 slum clusters
- Keerthy Suresh and Anthony Thattil Tie the Knot in a Christian Ceremony
- AAP, BJP making false promises to slum dwellers for votes: Delhi Congress
- 'Vere Level Office' Review: A Refreshing Take on Corporate Life with Humor and Heart
- Libya's oil company declares force majeure at key refinery following clashes
- Illegal Rohingyas: BJP seeks Assembly session to implement NRC in Delhi
- Philippines orders full evacuation amid possible volcanic re-eruption
- Government Prioritizes Welfare of the Poor, says Dola Sri Bala Veeranjaneyaswamy
- Two Russian oil tankers with 29 on board damaged due to bad weather
Politicos skirt key security issues: Ex-Navy chief
Politicians are largely uninterested in national security issues in India, where armed forces remain detached from the Ministry of Defence leading to a half-empty arsenal and an outdated higher defence organisation, according to former Navy Chief Admiral Arun Prakash.
Hyderabad: Politicians are largely uninterested in national security issues in India, where armed forces remain detached from the Ministry of Defence leading to a half-empty arsenal and an outdated higher defence organisation, according to former Navy Chief Admiral Arun Prakash.
Addressing a seminar at College of Defence Management here on Thursday, Prakash said, “Intense political activity seems to leave the contemporary Indian politician with little time or inclination to deal with national security issues. A manifestation of this neglect is the total absence of Parliamentary debate on security matters and the short shrift given to most recommendations of its Standing Committee on Defence.”
“This disinterest has led to the de facto delegation of decision-making responsibility to civilian bureaucrats, not all of whom are adequately conversant with complex security matters,” the Admiral said delivering the inaugural address at the two-day annual national seminar on ‘Geostrategic Shift of Global Centre of Gravity: Security Imperatives of India in 21st Century’. Under current rules, he said, the same civilian bureaucracy had also been assigned comprehensive control of the armed forces and responsibility for national defence.
A damaging fallout of this arrangement is that the Indian armed forces remain detached from the MoD and were not integrated with each other, he said, adding more deleterious consequences include a half-empty arsenal, a military- industrial complex that had failed to deliver and an outdated higher defence organisation.
He said China this year issued a National Military Strategy, Australia put out a Defence White Paper and the US delivered a Military Strategy, a Maritime Strategy and a National Security Strategy but “a profound but inexplicable reticence prevails in South Block, which has prevented India's national security establishment from articulating any policy, strategy or doctrine in the past 68 years.”
Admiral Prakash pointed out that Chinese strategic culture had encouraged initiation of actions to defeat an enemy prior to the onset of hostilities. “China, therefore, applies elements of its national power, in peacetime, to advance its strategic interests in case of conflict,” he said.
