[section_title title=Requirements and Key Features of the New Military Doctrine]
Requirements and Key Features of the New Military Doctrine
The New Military Doctrine (NMD) should have following characteristics:
- * NMD should cater for ‘unanticipated threats’. Gone are the days when it was possible to clearly point out one’s friendly and enemy nations. In the new world order, no country has permanent friends or foes. It is only the interests of the country that have permanent nature. Therefore, a nation should be prepared to deal with ‘unanticipated threats’ from unknown quarters.
* Intelligence/Information and knowledge should be the basic building block of the NMD. Troops, units and military organisations should be trained and structured to treat information and knowledge as the basic tool of fighting wars. These should be armed with processes and equipment for speedy collection, processing and dissemination of information/intelligence and knowledge.
* NMD should be flexible enough to take care of multitude of varied threats with different levels of sophistication e.g. the high mobility armoured units based doctrine may not work against Guerrilla’s or terrorists in an LIC (Low Intensity Conflict), but will have excellent performance against conventional multi-layered defence layout.
* Forces, logistics and communications should have ‘Just in Time’ capability. Bringing out forces needed to destroy an enemy as soon as the need arises is the crux of the problem. If the enemy is made to believe that the friendly forces are omnipresent, it will be extremely difficult for the enemy to attack, however strong the enemy may be.
* Despite all the technologies, it is the man beside the machine who counts. The NMD should start with a well-balanced training of troops and commanders. The future battlefields will require agile leaders. These commanders must be capable of rapidly formulating concepts, planning operations, making decisions and pressing the fight. Agile leaders who quickly and accurately apply the conditions of their environment much faster than the enemy will produce decisive victories. Therefore, proper, continuous training programs based on automated battlefield systems for military commanders are needed. Quality of leadership in terms of training, motivation and innovativeness will decide the wars of future. The burden on the military soldier who will actually pull the triggers will increase manifolds. These soldiers should be trained to handle multiple weapons in various terrains, environment conditions and jointly with other forces. Manpower development is the basis of the NMD.
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* NMD should be based on accurate and timely Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) on the enemy. If a first strike is successful against an enemy, there is no point in going for second and third strikes. The resources can be better utilised by going to the next task. In earlier warfare, BDA was a luxury but in future wars it will be a necessary activity as it gives the option of using one’s forces in a much more flexible way. BDA helps the commanders to allocate means, commit collection assets and execute collection plans. Timely, accurate and continuous BDA is the key feature of the NMD.
The key features of the NMD are summarized in Fig. 7.
From Ravi Rikhye
You point about winning while avoid war becomes the crux in a competition between WMD armed adversaries. This might be a separate, valuable area of study when you have the time and inclination.
India definitely needs to modernize its doctrine along your lines. We also need to avoid the US habit of fads. A balance of manpower and technology is needed. relying on technology alone alone leads to the absurd situation in which the US finds itself. It can defeat any conventional adversary within days or at most weeks; it cannot fight a counterinsurgency, both because it lacks manpower numbers and because it thinks technology alone will compensate for the lack of numbers.
Hi Navneet,
I have been through your paper. I think it would be very informative to the general public which is quite unaware of military issue, especially doctrinal precepts.
The Armed Forces of India have formulated detailed doctrines, some of which or parts of which are in the public domain. Most of it however remains classified. Doctrines need to drive strategies but the lack of awareness among the political and bureaucratic class impinges on defence preparedness. Hopefully, your book when it is published should stimulate interest on the subject.
All the Best
Dhruv.
Major General Dhruv C Katoch, SM, VSM (Retd).
Additional Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS)
http://www.claws.in