(An abridged version of this post has been published at Indian Defence Industries and can be accessed HERE)
INNOVATION IN INDIAN
DEFENCE – NEED FOR A COMPREHENSIVE ACTION PLAN
“Battle Scene in Year 2020” was
perhaps the first national workshop of its kind held in February 1998 at Delhi
that invited experts from armed forces, paramilitary and defence R&D to
discuss geopolitical scenarios and technological change and impact on military
evolution. A book was published on the proceedings. The author of this article
participated as a Scientist from DRDO and also contributed few papers. In the context
setting talk at the start of the Workshop, Dr Kalam, said and I quote from the
book that has the proceedings, “We now have a plan of self-reliance in
defence systems approved by the government. The present 30%-40% of
self-reliance has to be improved to about 70% in the next five years.” 20 years down, in 2018, we still are talking
about 70% import and need for self-reliance in defence. Please see recent
article by Ex-Deputy NSA of India, Mr. Arvind Gupta. He says, “The
past experience shows that achieving self-reliance in defence manufacturing
remains an elusive goal. India continues to import 70 percent of its defence
equipment.”
Is the question of why the
so-called self-reliance percentage has remained static at 30% for defence
equipment for last 20 years important?
Of course, one can quibble about
relative percentages on specific defence systems including Missiles (strategic
and tactical), Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), Main Battle Tank Arjun, etc. Yet,
it is imperative that India should not only ask this question but also create
an actionable response and as Mr Gupta pointed out a “Roadmap” to complement
the new defence policy.
Innovation in Military Affairs
We define innovation to be “successful
creation of needed change through ideas”. This of course requires understanding
and defining what “change” is “needed” and of course how to evaluate that
change process has been successful. Above all
innovation need ideas. And until we create an Idea vending machine,
unfortunately, we must depend for ideas on Human minds which has thoughts that
brings in genesis of change. There are 5 different paths
to innovation as we have found. They can be initiated by, (1) Imagining
the Next (2) Transforming the existing systems (3) Solving key problems (4)
Fulfilling articulated and unarticulated user/customer needs through user
insights and finally (5) Developing technology foresight to utilize the
advances in science and technology for creating the needed change successfully.
Since ideas come to human minds, we need to involve and maximize the number of
primed, trained and practicing human minds for generation of ideas. In effect, if one allows more minds (quantity)
to be exposed to the potential five paths of innovation and also allow them to
ideate, explore creatively and utilize their experiments into produce of
change, then only we can not only harness the existing potential but in fact
evolve and expand the potential of the nation. There is need to create more innovation
crafters.
Military change, world over, has seen
various initiatives such as (a) through technology focused evolution, (b) using
technology change to create new operational, organizational and
doctrinal concepts, (c) juxtaposing military change as the change in overall
world affairs including Diplomatic, Informational, Military and Economic (called
DIME) and (d) relatively newer concept of Military Transformation (MT). The MT
is considered as a continuous and ongoing process to create major changes or
improvements without any specific rigid end-goal through a continuous process
of adaptation, creative exploration, experimentation and learning.
Interestingly though, the USA – the
sole superpower since 1991, and a major proponent of Military Transformation
has seen significantly lower military transformation compared to China and
Russia, between 1992-2010 according to an interesting
paper describing a Military Transformation Index. It may be an interesting exercise to see how
much military transformation India defence forces have seen on the proposed
model. The model for evaluating military transformation Index proposes 4
transformation dimensions – (a) Organizational Structure (b) Personnel (c)
Weapon Systems and (d) Defence Expenditure. Indian army recently
proposed a Brigade+ based organization compared to Divisions based
organization. The MT Index or transformation does describe this trend to be
seen everywhere – USA called it
Modularity. Indian Army did experiment with RAPIDS and RAMIDS in
1980s – the mechanization of infantry by General Sundarji was perhaps real
organizational innovation as also announcement of Mountain
Strike Corps, although it was not clear how it will evolve on the
ground.
The changes being seen in the evolution
of warfare and security dimensions need to be studied. Historically
it is clear that character of war keeps on changing through newer technologies,
doctrines and organizational structures. However, we are seeing in this century
an evolution of warfare from unrestricted warfare to hybrid warfare and the multi-dimensional
warfare.
Comprehensive Action Plan – Continuous Military Innovation
India need a comprehensive action plan for multi-dimensional
continuous military innovation. And time is ripe that this action plan should
be based on real assessment of existing capabilities, potential current and
future conflicts, comprehensive review of national power and multi-dimensional
forays into five paths of innovation using maximum number of minds available
for such creative explorations. We propose following elements of such a
comprehensive Action Plan.
(a) Comprehensive identification and articulation of India’s
National Interests – what are our permanent National Interests
(b) India should become a Robust
Nation that combines the elements of adapting to change and creating
and designing change simultaneously
(c) Define the Indian Defence forces for the Sixth Wave of
Innovation for the years 2020-2045. This wave as we describe will be
driven by (i) Networked, Autonomous, Nano and Hypersonic things, (ii)
Algorithmic Intelligence (Not Artificial Intelligence) and Quantum Computing
and (iii) Synthesis of Biology, Energy and Reality.
(d) Create a comprehensive Conventional
Prompt Regional Strike (CPRS) and Conventional Prompt Global Defence
(CPRD) Framework for India. Similarly define clear future missions in the 15
dimensions warfare and for the Sixth Wave of innovation. Use these mission mode
frameworks to create technological challenges and allow a small teams of
entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers to work in incubation hubs with a time
bound tenures that can be hived of as future companies owned by the members.
(e) Focus on creating the next Revolutions in Military Affairs
through original conceptualization. Software
based RMA and Military Transformations are the key.
(f) A new organization or a new
Ministry of Future to evolve India to future through a foresight,
design and innovation driven approach involving all sectors – public, private,
academia and various science and technology organizations and think tanks need
to work together through a mechanism that needs a transparent and well defined
protocol to be established.
(g) The mission mode projects/initiatives should emerge from
identified Key Missions to create Doctrine, Organization, Technology and
Strategy (DOTS)
India need to create DOTS for following missions
Modularity of Army – Brigade, Integrated Battlefield
Group and Division – what should be the unit of fighting for next 25 years for
Indian defence forces
Conventional Prompt Regional Strike and
Defence system Using
Hypersonic weapons
An
integrated and joint logistics support system for the defence forces has been long
in demand. For example see http://www.idsa-india.org/an-apr-6.01.htm
C5ISR =
C4ISR + Combat Systems
Traditional
approach of separating combat systems from combat support systems must be
relooked in the new integrated/networked system of systems – or what is being
termed as the C5ISR – the fifth C is the combat systems. The Rand report on the recent Afghanistan
Mission Network (AMN) states key lessons learned from the development and
evolution of the AMN). http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR300/RR302/RAND_RR302.pdf.
It states “The AMN began as a network for facilitating fairly commonplace
human-to-human exchanges … Over time, it evolved to become the primary C5ISR
system in Afghanistan”
BMD/ASAT/Anti-TNW
– for the Strike Force
The Indian Strike Force faces a de-capacitating threat at the
start of any war – a preemptive elimination through cruise missiles, ballistic
missiles, or even a tactical nuclear weapon. A question is how to design a
strike force that can withstand a pre-emptive strike and still perform its function.
On obvious conceptual framework is to keep it in a diffused state so that it is
not visible in the initial stages of the war. This will require modularity,
comprehensive C4ISR integration with the strike force and reinforced integrated
logistics support system.
Responding
to China
Responding to a comprehensive, controlled and integrated Chinese
assertiveness backed by a unilateral posturing and meddling in multiple
dimensions – economic, geopolitical, military, and foreign relations.
Responding
to Pakistan
Creating a credible, conventional, rapidly executable response
against Pakistan that is feasible and effective under the threat of nuclear war
constraints and especially the use of Tactical Nuclear Weapons (TNW) using NASR
and recently acquired SH-15 Howitzers from china
Information,
Asymmetric, Hybrid and Multi-dimensional Warfare
Understanding, developing and creating - infrastructure,
capability and response to the disruptive nature of information war
Maritime
security and continuing to be the Net Security Provider in IOR and further
Maritime capability and response for the high seas in a rising
China and declining US world
Conclusions
Self-reliance in defence has been a worthy goal for India for many
decades. Unfortunately, it has remained unfulfilled. Innovation in defence is
the key call for action. Our hypothesis is that we have remained self-unreliant
in defence because our military doctrine, technology roadmap and mission
profile of the future has either remained in the past or has been borrowed from
others. A true response requires a multi-dimensional action plan invoking the
changing and expanding nature of warfare, planning to respond and leverage the
upcoming sixth wave of innovation and defining the new Indian military for the
sixth wave of Innovation and 15 dimensional warfare. Using these through
specific organization structures, mechanisms and protocols to involve as many
minds as India can to develop specific missions and creating doctrine, organization,
technology and strategy to fulfill those missions.
