National Security Doctrine: A Challenge for India

It’s not just a doctrine to the security of the nation including its citizen , economy, and institution but it is now becoming a differentiated strategy all over. It comprises Environmental security-the issues like climate change, deforestation , top soil erosion etc., Information security- like our neighboring country Pakistan was doing information warfare , health security especially after the COVID 19 pandemic, Space security, Energy security( India- Iran oil issue) and many more. There was a time when a war was fought between the two armies of the nation i.e. kinetic warfare but in the current geopolitics it has changed and shifted to other forms of warfare i.e. non kinetic warfare like cyber warfare, information warfare, hybrid warfare and bio warfare.
It has its roots in the 7th schedule of the Indian constitution. A proposal for the National Security Doctrine (NSD) was once started by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 1999 by the then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji. Our country has only National Nuclear Doctrine. Its high time we should start focusing on NSD, keeping in mind the Taliban issue, Belt and road initiative ,String of pearls of China and their increasing hegemonistic interests in Asian countries, South China Sea and Indian ocean region, it’s imperative to formulate the NSD in changing dynamics of geopolitics. India is struggling in 2.5 front war with China (1st front), Pakistan (2nd front) and Internal conflicts (half front) respectively, so the need of clear policy and vision is necessary in dealing with these hostile nations. Our country doesn’t have focused & streamlined policies to deal with these problems and our reactive approach always pulls us backward to take some big actions against these enemy nations.
Moving ahead in the conversation, after the Operation “Parakram” took place in 2001-02 following the casualties of many soldiers ,we have sensed that there is also a need of Cold start doctrine and integrated theatre commands which gives an edge in NSD. Cold start doctrine is the swift deployment of the troops on the borders within hours or days if the situation of war arises, it also aims to allow Indian armed forces to conduct sustained attacks while preventing a nuclear retaliation, while the establishment of integrated theatre commands ensures the speed of command, mobility, speed in decision making, reduces the problem of clearance issue. India needs to learn with the QUAD countries, these countries are enough capable to tackle the aggressions of the hostile nations by having the proper security strategy. Israel is also growing at a very fast pace in cyber warfare, cutting edge technology, arms & ammunitions and most importantly security strategy.
India’s biggest threat is China in Asia pacific as it is working on the technologies like UAVs, UUVs, UCAV and UAV swarm attack on Taiwan, these steps by China create tensions among the other developed countries, compelling to raise their eyebrows over the China’s growing emergence in the major portions of the world, we are way behind the Chinese in such type of technologies and without the proper threat analysis it is very difficult to survive in changing geopolitics. We are lacking in many aspects so we must focus on the cohesiveness in J&K like operation “All Out”, there should be a collaboration of CAPF & Security agencies for better interoperability & operations, modernization of weapons, drone technologies and Revamping of DRDO & OFB.
At last, our current NDA government has been taking some great initiatives to tackle these issues and we can expect the exigency of National Security Doctrine, Integrated Theatre & functional command should be formalized in coming years.