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Into the Future
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In absence of higher defence management, the National Security Advisor is the option |
NSA Shiv Shankar Menon
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By Pravin Sawhney and Ghazala Wahab
Two drivers will determine India’s rise: its handling of the economy and national security, and how it balances relations with China, Pakistan and the United States. Prospects so far are not encouraging. Instead of calling China a national security imperative, India’s foreign secretary, Ranjan Mathai recently chose to address it parochially as a foreign policy challenge. Without credible military capabilities to show, how can diplomats be firm on the negotiating table? But, in the absence of the needed higher defence management, what is the way out? The National Security Advisor (NSA), the position created when India declared itself a nuclear weapons state, is probably the interim answer.
Writing about her first term in the US Bush administration in her memoir, No Higher Honour,
Condoleezza Rice says that: ‘I was tired of coordinating others and tired of the
mismatch between authority and responsibility that is an everyday challenge for
the NSA.’ Once she was elevated to the US secretary of state in the second Bush
administration, her concern was how to remain close to President Bush to draw
necessary authority for her work at Foggy Bottom.
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While in the US system, the NSA may both be a negative and positive, in the
Indian dispensation used to working in closed compartments, he can be the
indispensable facilitator. Drawing authority from the Prime Minister, the NSA
has the enviable stature of being able to assemble political, bureaucratic and
military personnel for crafting a realisable national security vision. The Prime
Minister will get involved with security issues if his NSA is passionate about
them.
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