Indian Military Doctrine for 7 Dimensional Wars of 21st Century : Part – 2

[section_title title=2.0 War and War Related Doctrines]

2.0 War and War Related Doctrines Knowledge must become capability – Clausewitz

Indian Military Doctrine for 7 Dimensional Wars of 21st Century : Part -1

Indian Military Doctrine for 7 Dimensional Wars of 21st Century : Part – 3

War should be avoided as far as possible. The “avoidance of war” and the ways to do so are in the realm of diplomacy, foreign policy and foreign relations. This may be called the Political Doctrine of the country. It is however possible that the political doctrine of a country may call for war to attain a political objective. How to support and sustain war is the domain of what is called an Economic Doctrine. The main aim of this is to develop the economy and support the growth of the country. It should also be oriented to create capabilities and resources to sustain a nation’s military and political doctrines. For economic growth without military capability is a recipe for subjugation as India has seen for many centuries. If India as a nation cannot learn the lessons of history, our new found independence will always be under threat. The Military Doctrine is concerned with the ways of execution of war. An essential input to war making is the ability to collect, process, and disseminate information and intelligence for timely and accurate decision-making. This is called the Intelligence Doctrine. Modern wars have an inherent threat of use of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) which requires a clear cut policy i.e., a WMD Doctrine. The fourth dimension – space, is going to play a major role in future wars. Therefore, a clear-cut formulation of Space Doctrine is called for. The new reality of internet and real time media influence, calls for formulation of a Cyber war Doctrine to take care of Information warfare requirements. Fig. 2 shows the domains of various doctrines and their aims for maintaining the integrity and defending the interests of the nation.

It must be mentioned here that the compartmentalization of knowledge and planning related to war, into so many diverse doctrinal frameworks, has been done for the ease of studying them and highlighting the relations between them. For meeting any challenge to the national security or interests a total response comprising of inputs from all these doctrines is called for. The total response comprises of actions taken within the purview of all these strategic dimensions of National Planning related to war.

Political Doctrine

The art of diplomacy is to avoid war without compromising the national interests. However, war as an instrument of political will-imposition has also been used by nations in the past. The first step in developing a political doctrine related to war is to identify Vital Interests (VI) of the nation. These VI’s are initially expressed in broad guidelines. As an example, the broad guidelines for a third world country may be defense of national territory, security of internal environment, influence neighbors and contribution to world stability. For a super-power, i.e., U.S. these guidelines are – Shape the Environment, Support and Take Care of Unanticipated Threats. Once the broad guidelines are agreed upon, the philosophical basis for foreign policy is enlarged. From this exercise national objectives are carved out. To meet these national objectives, strategies need to be formulated through detailed analysis and informed debate. The creative test bed for such strategies is the framework of a political doctrine. The strategies have to be formulated keeping in view the VIs, economic self-interests, geo political and foreign policy interests. No country would like to compromise VIs, however, to meet some interests, say economic self-interests, countries compromise other interests such as foreign policy interests. A country requires total clarity of purpose to meet its VIs and balance economic, geo-political and foreign policy interests in the world dynamics.

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A political doctrine related to war requires continuous assessment of various threats faced by the country and evolving appropriate responses. These responses should not compromise VI’s and should balance other interests which may be in conflict with each other. If due to these responses, VI’s of some other country are affected, the resolution of likely conflicts should be through diplomatic means. However, if everything fails, the country has to resort to war. Even during war, the political doctrine should clearly spell out, actions to be taken to influence known allies and respond to actions of countries allied to adversary. The military doctrine should be a process flowing through the political doctrine of the country.

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