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Imperatives of Transformation: Changing Character of Conflict in the Emerging World Order
Full text linkIt is extremely difficult to crystal-gaze and predict the future with certainty. In hindsight, one can say that the rapid changes in the geo-political, economic, social, cultural and technological domains have had a profound impact on the emerging geo-strategic environment. With a plethora of disruptive technologies, the unknown effects of emerging technologies, asymmetric threats, and the revolution in autonomous systems and communications, the global environment has been in a state of continuous change and flux. Resultantly, the envisaged threats and challenges to national security, both traditional and non-traditional, have also undergone significant change. The complexities of which need to be analysed in order to formulate the future course of action. Factors such as external security threats, religious and ethnic extremism, population growth and unemployment, societal tensions, severe competition for natural resources, climate change, and environmental degradation are likely to ensure that armed conflicts will persist, perhaps with greater intensity. To say so, in a large number of cases, trans-national neighbouring forces and non-state actors have been indulging in abetting insurgencies, terrorism, violence, and organised crime, thus, perpetuating instability and conflicts
Russian Capability and Usage of Hybrid Tactics During the Intervention in Ukraine and Crimea in 2014
Full text linkThe hybrid war in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine is linked to history, geography, demography, local and national power play, and International level power politics between the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and Russia. Russia has strong fraternal ties with Ukraine dating back to the 9th century and the founding of Kievan Rus, the first eastern Slavic state, whose capital was Kiev/Kyiv. The country has been under partial or total Russian rule for most of those intervening centuries, which is a big part of why one in six Ukrainians is actually an ethnic Russian, one in three speaks Russian as the native language (the other two-thirds speak Ukrainian natively), and much of the country\u27s media is in Russian. It is also why the subject of Russia is such a divisive one in Ukraine: many in the country see Moscow as the source of Ukraine\u27s historical subjugation and something to be resisted, while others tend to look at Russia more fondly, with a sense of shared heritage and history. Nikita Khrushchev and the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union transferred Crimea from under the government of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the government of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954. As both republics were a part of the Soviet Union, the move was largely symbolic and of little practical consequence
Contextual Evolution of Hybrid Warfare and the Complexities
Full text linkOn September 14, 2019, at 4.00 am, Saudi Arabia suffered a deadly attack on its Aramco owned oil facility at Abqaiq and Khurais oil field, with, as has been stated in a version, a swarm of 18 small drones and seven cruise missiles. Very highly protected and fortified facilities, in addition to armed guards, the area had six battalions of Patriot defence systems, Oerlikon GDF 35mm cannons equipped with the Skyguard radar and Surface-to-Air- Missiles (SAMs). The targets were designated with pin-point accuracy and, hence, the strikes were most effective. They destroyed nearly 50 percent of the country\u27s global supply of crude. The crude prices rose sharply in the International market that saw the US Secretary of State proclaiming it was an “act of war”– yet without a declaration of war. By exactitude, the perpetrators were unidentified, even the trajectory of the flights of the missiles and drones could not be ascertained; only remnants of the Yemeni Quds 1 missile were displayed. The conjectures are aplenty – from drone swarms, to cruise missiles, to stealth aircraft, and even ground action! It is also a fallout of the usage of modern war weaponry: plausible deniability! This is a manifestation of the 21st century\u27s hybrid warfare
Hybrid Warfare in the Sino-Indian Context
Full text linkIn the first quarter of the 21st century, we have used terms like civil disobedience, counter-insurgency, guerrilla warfare, insurgency, insurrection, internal security, revolutionary warfare, small wars, subversion, terrorism, Fourth Generation Warfare (4 GW), grey zone, hybrid, sub-conventional and conventional conflicts. These are more often intra-state than inter-state. However, a Sino-Indian conflict, in all probability, would be an inter-state conflict. With China, it could be conventional, sub-conventional, grey zone, or hybrid. A grey zone conflict is best understood as an activity that is coercive and aggressive in nature. It is deliberately designed to remain below the threshold of conventional military conflict and open interstate war. Grey zone challenges are ambiguous and usually incrementally aggressive. Grey zone conflicts exist short of a formal state of war
An Overview of Indian Defence Industry: A Transformative Perspective
Full text linkThe Indian defence manufacturing sector is largely dominated by the Defence Public Sector Units (DPSUs) and Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), whereas the Research and Development (R&D) sector is solely controlled by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). India\u27s defence industry is primarily controlled by the government and its agencies. Though the defence industry was opened up for private domestic players in 2001, so far there has been limited participation of the private sector in the overall defence procurement. India boasts of one of the largest defence industrial bases among the developing nations in the world. Approximately two lakh people are employed in the various defence manufacturing units/laboratories of the government. The key components of India\u27s existing Defence Industrial Base (DIB) are the DPSUs, Ordnance Factories (Ord Fys), DRDO—all functioning under the overall control of the government\u27s Ministry of Defence (MoD)—and a few private sector companies comprising both large and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs)
China\u27s Long Range Bombers a Strategic Challenge to the Region
Full text linkThe Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRSB) fleet is a legacy left behind by the Cold War era when trans-regional and inter-continental range bombers were part of the nuclear triad. The United States (US) and the Soviet Union maintained LRSBs primarily to support nuclear missions but during the height of the Cold War, these bombers were also kept ready for conventional missions. China has been working for a long to develop LRSBs to put in place a credible nuclear triad. China has redefined its strategic boundaries and is asserting to break the myth of the ‘first and second island chains\u27 to project power beyond these geographical bottlenecks through maritime and air power. The strategic bombers give China flexibility to gain access to the Western Pacific and north-south movement along the Asian seaboard to complement its Anti-Access/Area Denial (AA/AD) strategy
Note From the Editor: Summer 2019
No full textThe present CLAWS Journal has been composed with a variety of articles, opinion pieces, commentaries, and book reviews to theoretically understand why the Indian Army Chief has initiated four major studies for the transformation of the Indian Army into a “more agile fighting force” to face current and emerging threats and challenges. The Indian Army is, hence, looking to implement transformational leadership to achieve the stated goals and objectives through transactional management. The purpose of management as understood is the attainment of organisational goals in an effective and efficient manner through “planning, organising, staffing, directing, and controlling organisational resources”. Managers seek stability in an organised environment in order to control the organization\u27s bottom line. The motivation for management is power and profit which, in the case, of the Indian Army is to transform into a more agile fighting force. Transformational leadership is different because it is“an influence of relationships among leaders and followers who intend real changes and outcomes that reflect their shared purposes”
Transformation of the Indian Army in the New World Order
Full text linkThe security strategy of a nation is based on harnessing the cumulative strength of its various instruments of national power. These, amongst others, include the economy, diplomacy, information and military. Nations periodically undertake the necessary transformation of their armed forces in order to optimise their potential. “Transformation is a process that shapes the changing nature of military competition and cooperation through a new combination of concepts, capabilities, people, and organisations that exploits the nation\u27s advantage and protects against asymmetric vulnerabilities to sustain the strategic position, which helps underpin peace and stability in the world. Transformation anticipates and creates the future and deals with the co-evolution of concepts, processes, organisation, and technology.” It is, however, important that “military transformation” should simply be understood to mean “profound change” in military affairs.1 It need not imply rapid or across-the-board change, nor the discarding of that which continues to work well. The changes, however, should be dramatic rather than mere improvements on the margins to existing military hardware or processes
India\u27s Armed Forces\u27 Contribution to Nation Building
Full text linkNo nation-state can be built without first creating and inculcating nationalism. The Indian paradox is that we are an old society and civilisation but we are a new nation-state in the modern political sense. In its long history, India can be considered to have been a ‘nation-state\u27 only a few times: during the Mauryan Empire (321-185 BC), in the Gupta Age (320-500 AD), the Mughal period (1527-1857 AD), and as the British India colonial empire (1857-1947 AD). The dynamics of these near whole or complete Indian nation-states has been that each time, it has risen out of a hotbed of internecine quarrels and fighting among small states: a tendency which is sometimes felt even today. As a nation-state, India comprises a myriad stream of culture; 22 scheduled languages, 200 dialects, a dozen ethnic groups, seven religious communities with several sects and sub-sects, and 68 socio-cultural subregions. That makes us great as well as a complex society and nation. This very paradox also poses challenges in building India as a nation
“Intelligence in a Datadriven Age by Cortney Weinbaum and John N.T. Shanahan”
Full text linkAccessing and analysing news from around the world has become the key to understanding the global security environment. In view of this, in 1941, United States (U.S.) President Franklin D. Roosevelt established an office called the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), to be run out of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The office\u27s mandate was simple: translate the news from around the world for US policy-makers to make informed decisions. However, in the past, there was only a handful of electronic and print media which needed to be scoured for news by analysts. But, in the current times, the situation has changed drastically. In today\u27s world, there is a multitude of news platforms that produce an immense amount of news data that require a large number of analysts to process the information—making such an organisation uneconomical and unwieldy