Narendra Modi. PHOTO: REUTERS

To provoke a somnolent establishment into action, your message has to be blunt. There cannot be a more blunt warning to India’s political leadership and defence establishment than what Pravin Sawhney and Ghazala Wahab have delivered in their admirable and unsparing book Dragon On Our Doorstep: Managing China Through Military Power (Published by Aleph, Pages 458, Price Rs 799). Let alone China, India cannot even win a war against Pakistan. Yes, you read that right.

Sawhney, an Armyman-turned-journalist, and Wahab, a career journalist, are editors at FORCE magazine which focuses on national security, bring to the book sharp analysis and fresh perspectives to present a new strategy to strengthen India as a nation.

One of their key arguments is that the political leadership has to improve their understanding of military matters and involve the views of defence forces while making critical national security decisions. Another provocative take is that the Indian Army is a bloated force and has to shed flab, by reducing the number of personnel at its disposal. They call for a review of both field force and non-field force in the Army in order to move towards professionalism. The authors also want the Army to disengage itself from counter-insurgency operations, a task at best left to paramilitary forces, and regain its edge to do its primary task- fight the enemy.

Dragon On Our Doorstep could be a little misleading title since the authors are not only discussing the China threat but India’s defence strategy. In full play is Pakistan, Kashmir and the red menace, the greatest threat India is facing, as former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh put it. Sawhney and Wahab say that in terms of threat, Pakistan is China and China is Pakistan, pointing out especially the ‘inter-operability’ that both military forces have achieved.

So despite the strongman Narendra Modi at the helm, why can’t India defeat Pakistan in a war? Sawhney and Wahab make a critical distinction to win their argument. Pakistan has built military power, India a military force. And they explain: “Military force involves the mere collection of war-withal, that is, building up of troops and war-waging material; military power is about optimal utilization of military force. It entails an understanding of the adversaries and the quantum of threat from each, the nature of warfare, domains of war, how it would be fought, and structural military reforms at various levels to meet these challenges.”

Sawhney and Wahab write that the political leadership which would decide the terms of war engagement understands neither nuclear weapons nor military power. “Its responses would be slow, tardy, ad hoc and piecemeal rather than bold and substantive if the countries were to go to war.”

What else makes Indian defence forces vulnerable? Since the defence forces are outside the government, they have little interaction with the political leadership in peacetime and little say in the acquisition of conventional weapons. The defence services have little knowledge and understanding of their own nuclear weapons and Pakistan’s nuclear redlines. As India does not have an efficient indigenous defence industry, war supplies are not assured. All these, for an average reader, sound pretty scary.

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This article originally appeared on the Times of India.

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