Kanti Bajpai
The government has announced the formation of a task force under the chairmanship of Naresh Chandra to carry out a holistic review of national security. National security usually relates to those issues that involve the use of force. Increasingly, however, national security must focus on ‘externalities’ or ‘public goods’ that affect national existence and welfare even if they do not necessarily involve the use of force.
Key global commons issues that affect national survival and wellbeing include planetary calamities, climate change, deadly epidemics, stability of the global economy, global political stability (internal peace, transnational extremist movements, terrorism), non-proliferation, the demilitarisation of outer space, freedom of the high seas, and controlling transnational crime.
Clearly, the task force has a huge challenge ahead of it – how to square traditional national security concerns with these larger concerns arising from the global commons. While it will undoubtedly deal with the substance of national security policy, it should also deal with the institutional mechanisms and broad approach needed to deal with the complexities of security.
For one thing, India should enlarge its capacity to think about the link between the global commons and national security. This means greater expertise and staffing in the ministry of external affairs (MEA), the ministry of defence, the National Security Council, and the ministries of finance and environment. With respect to the MEA, the government should reduce its regional desks and increase the number of ‘functional’ ones cutting across geographical regions. It should also massively increase the size of the foreign service, perhaps by a factor of three.
A related reform is that India’s policymaking apparatus needs better coordination. In particular, the ministries and agencies involved in global commons issues need to be included in national security discussions within the government.
A third reform is for the government to involve think tanks and other non-governmental organisations in decision making related to the global commons far more than it has done in the past. Think tanks, in turn, need to be more multidisciplinary and to increase expertise and staff strength. They also need to consider how to keep the general public, national and state politicians, the media including the Indian language media, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) better informed.
Fourth, India must work more closely with a range of state and non-state actors. Clearly, it must coordinate better with the US, China, the EU, Russia and Japan. It must also coordinate better with rising regional powers. The G20 is a vital forum for coordination with a range of influential states, and Indian diplomacy should be directed towards supporting it even at the risk of offending some non-members.
India should work with the non-aligned movement (NAM) when it can but should not be tied to NAM positions. New Delhi should represent the interests of those who are not sufficiently heard, yet it must be prepared to look after its own interests and to be mindful of larger, more cosmopolitan goals. In addition, since the global commons increasingly involves a range of NGOs, Indian diplomacy must reach out to these entities in a way that it has traditionally not done. India’s ‘public diplomacy’ must be massively increased in order to reach out to NGOs and enlist their support. Indian diplomacy should recognise that non-governmental actors are also sources of information and ideas and can enlarge policy thinking. The government has to acknowledge this reality and to use it to best advantage.
Fifth, a more general change in India’s stance is the need to take the initiative in dealing with the global commons. Over the past two decades, India has been rather more reactive than creative in crafting world order. This has to change with India’s growing influence.
Finally, we must see that global commons challenges are often related in vicious cycles. Dealing with one challenge successfully will therefore have positive knock-on effects and could change vicious into ‘virtuous’ cycles.
The government has done well to constitute the Chandra task force. It will do even better if it releases the report to the public. In a democracy, it is vital to garner public support for big policies, and national security policy is no exception.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-06-25/edit-page/29699601_1_task-force-national-security-council-global-economy
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