Strategic thinking aids Intelligence production (Column: The Third Eye)

New Delhi: The exercise of Intelligence gathering begins with the study of security scenario that accounted for the known and construed threats to the security, integrity and sovereignty of the nation and a determination of the direction of the effort - with the required wherewithal - for launching the covert process of accessing information about the unseen adversary.

The broad challenge of security today can be effectively met only when a comprehensive and complete-looking visualisation of the larger danger to the nation was made first. This would involve strategic thinking reflected in the ability to go beyond the boundaries of the facts in front and not miss the wood for the tree.

Strategic thinking rests on creative imagination - the greatest scientist of all time - Albert Einstein - famously said that "Imagination is more important than knowledge" referring not to any wild imagination but to the intellectual capacity of looking beyond the available information to perceive ‘what lies ahead’.

Strategic analysts see the wider picture - in today’s geopolitics that became crucial - and help to better define and plan the intelligence collection process.

In a situation where Intelligence is required more and more for solution finding, strategic thinking had a crucial role in suggesting an integral framework of policy that would embrace police, diplomatic and administrative responses all put in play together - apart from tactical measures that might have to be initiated immediately.

Strategic analysis and national security assessment are now the major determinants of the handling of international relations, the approach to multilateralism and the pathway for entertaining bilateral friendships without entering into ‘alignments’.

The dividing line between strategic and tactical Intelligence has thinned out in the current global scene since even a long-range threat would call for some operational measures.

India’s national security imperatives now require strengthening of Indo-US bonds notwithstanding India’s stand on Ukraine-Russia military conflict, close monitoring of the situation in Afghanistan, full support to the Quad, study of the Sino-Pak alliance as a threat to the democratic world and countermeasures against the covert operations of Pakistan and China intended to cause internal destabilisation in India.

India’s foreign policy of opting for mutually beneficial bilateral friendships allows for exclusive sharing of Intelligence as well and this has under the Prime Minister Narendra Modi regime, emerged as the most fruitful strategic outcome thanks to the success of India’s National Security Advisor (NSA) in establishing a grid of understanding with his counterparts in countries as diverse as the US, Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

India has also seen through the strategy of China of seeking the economic route to becoming a superpower - without permitting a let up on military and technological advancement - which was traceable to the lessons drawn by China from the collapse of the USSR. This made Deng Xiaoping open the Chinese economy to the world in a controlled fashion.

President Xi Jinping of China combines Deng’s outlook with the cult status of Mao Zedong and through the ‘Sinicization ’ of Marxism hopes to invoke even the ‘civilisational strength’ of China for the country’s march to the position of a superpower.

India knows it has to contest China in situations from the land borders to the ocean, on the platforms of the UN and other global forums and in the sphere of economic expansion for which China used its Belt& Road Initiative (BRI) in India’s vicinity.

For defence and technology development, India is rightly relying on the strategy of collaboration with the US, France, Israel, Japan and Russia.

In the Indian context, there was a familiar ‘cause and effect’ relationship between external threats and internal security reflected in cross-border terrorism, communal conflicts, spread of radicalisation, drug trade and subversive movements in border states.

In the period following the abrogation of Article 370 relating to Kashmir by the Indian Parliament, Pakistan and China are collaborating more deeply in their anti-India moves including the Chinese defence of Pakistan in the UN on the issue of terrorism, use of Chinese Drones by Pakistan for the surreptitious dropping of arms and drug material in sensitive states of Kashmir and Punjab, and the give and take affected by the two countries on Afghanistan that permitted China to extend BRI in that country and get an assurance from Taliban Emirate that no issues will be raised concerning the Muslim minorities in China.

External threats to India’s internal security have now become a prime concern for India’s security set-up and among other things, call for an extremely close coordination between external and internal Intelligence agencies of India. This is being adequately ensured by the NSA who with his Intelligence background can effectively guide the agencies in this regard.

Border Intelligence, for instance, has been of special importance for India and hence internal, external and military intelligence agencies have all been allowed to have a share of responsibility for the same.

The security situation for India has been developing in a manner that made the management of Intelligence itself a challenge that has since been met well by the NSA and his organisation - the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) - representing the oversight mechanism at the national apex.

It is worth mentioning that one of the logical arguments advanced by the Kargil Review Committee (KRC) - on whose recommendation institutions of NSA and NSCS were established - was that all information of Intelligence value emanating from different agencies must travel to a point at the national apex for an integral assessment.

The KRC noted that in the context of the Kargil war, scores of pieces of Intelligence never got pushed up for a centralised collation and analysis and in a way were ‘lost in travel’.

Intelligence is difficult to come by and none of it should, therefore, be missed out for the reason that there was a lack of coordinated sharing.

In a national-level review, strategic and tactical intelligence both should be scanned because the latter often carried indicators of the larger picture of security. Strategic intelligence likewise, could throw up multiple points of response to be carried out at state and local levels.

Security is an integral concept - a house is either secure or insecure and there was no point in claiming that it was ‘half secure’ or that ‘part’ of it was secure.

Multi-Agency Centre (MAC) presided over by IB examines operational Intelligence at the central and state levels while national security estimates are drawn up in NSCS that had subsumed the functions of the erstwhile Chairman JIC.

The unstable geopolitical situation reduced the life span of a strategic assessment and made the latter vulnerable to course correction. This has added to the challenge for the country’s security set-up.

On the current reading of the threat scenario for India, collusion between Pakistan and China against India, the rise of Islamic radicalisation in South Asia and the trend of communal militancy graduating into faith-based terror remain on top of the security agenda.

The US is having comfort of distance in relation to the developments in the Pak-Afghan belt after the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and the Pentagon is still empathetic towards the Generals in Pakistan.

President Joe Biden administration in the US no doubt continues to look upon China and Russia as its principal adversaries and the basic strategy of India, voiced during the recent visit of Prime Minister Modi to the US, was not to allow Ukraine-Russia military conflict to irreversibly push Russian President Vladimir Putin into the lap of China - this would do no good to either India or the US.

A real threat to India’s national security arose from radicalisation in South Asia - there is plenty of evidence to show that Pakistan ISI continued to set Islamic radicals upon India through proxy organisations of Al Qaeda and ISIS, apart from its incessant effort to step up induction of India-specific militant outfits like HuM, LeT and JeM in cross border terrorism against this country in Kashmir and elsewhere.

There is evidence of Pak ISI reviving the K2 plan of instigating the Khalistan movement in Punjab through its agents in the Sikh diaspora outside of India emulating the modus oparandi it used earlier in the 80s.

The banned PFI operating out of Kerala with its links with SIMI on one hand and ISIS on the other, confirmed the trend of militant minority separatism paving the ground for radicalisation and recruitment of Mujahideen. This can be rated as the biggest threat to internal security at present.

India’s Intelligence agencies have rightly geared themselves to tracking the use of social media as an instrument of combat by the adversary.

India has done well to highlight -on all international platforms-the danger of terrorism and the role of Pakistan in harbouring and fostering terrorists on its soil and step-up countermeasures in defence, diplomatic and economic spheres to deal with China.

In the final analysis, strategic Intelligence and tactical responses are both equally important for India at this moment.

(The writer is a former Director of the Intelligence Bureau. Views expressed are personal)

Source: IANS