Jointmanship and Attitudinal Issues
(Journal of Defence Policy Studies)
Major General Mrinal Suman, AVSM, VSM,
PhD
Abstract
All Indian military leaders are
professedly staunch proponents of the concept of jointmanship. They acknowledge
criticality of jointmanship to national security. In other words, jointmanship
has no opponents. Yet, the reality on ground is diametrically opposite.
Every step towards jointmanship is fought fiercely by many. This dichotomy,
though perplexing, has been entirely due to incompatible attitudes. Attitude is
an attribute of human behaviour and defies cogent reasoning.
The paper attempts to identify and analyse
the underlying attitudinal reasons for dissonance and tardy implementation of
jointmanship, thereby imperiling national interests. Finally, major corrective
steps have been recommended to manage attitudes and force the pace of reforms.
This
paper is not about benefits that accrue from jointmanship in the armed forces.
They are too well known to be recounted and re-emphasised. For decades military
strategists of all countries have been writing about the criticality of
jointmanship. It is also undisputedly agreed that Revolution in Military
Affairs (RMA) precludes segregated service-wise operations. It is common
knowledge that in contemporary RMA-oriented warfare, joint operations
constitute the key to battlefield dominance and military superiority.[1]
RMA pre-supposes total tri-service integration in thought and execution.
Jointmanship means conducting integrated
military operations with common strategy, methodology and conduct.[2]
A country is said to have attained jointmanship of its armed forces, if it
institutionalises the following:-
- Joint planning, development
of doctrine and policy-making.
- Joint operational commands
and staff structures.
- Evolution of joint
equipment policy and procurement organisation.
- Integrated preparation of
budget and monitoring of expenditure – both capital and revenue.
- Joint training.
According
to the famous dictum of Field Marshal Sir Philip Chetwode, “The safety,
honour and welfare of your country come first, always and every time.” If
that be so, there should never be any opposition to jointmanship as all
military leaders recognise that jointmanship is central to national security
and swear by it. True jointmanship entails assigning supremacy to national
interests, with all other considerations becoming inconsequential.
As regards India, it fares dismally when
judged against the standard parameters of jointmanship. It will not be
incorrect to state that jointmanship in India is non-existent. Ex-Naval Chief
Admiral J G Nadkarni put it candidly when he said, “Jointmanship in India
exists to the extent of the three Chiefs routinely being photographed
backslapping each other, but not much more beyond that.’’[3]
Implementation of jointmanship on ground has
been excruciatingly difficult and slow. All jointmanship proposals get opposed fiercely
on specious grounds. How can measures which are considered indispensable to
national security concerns be opposed by the very military leaders entrusted
with ensuring national security? It is a highly intriguing and paradoxical
situation.
Attitudes,
Responses and Reactions
Whenever jointmanship is talked about in India, National Defence Academy
(NDA) is cited as an example. There is no denying the fact that a three year
course at NDA is exceedingly useful especially during the formative years.
However its value is limited in the long run as service prejudices tend to overwhelm
camaraderie of cadet days. Most of the senior appointments in the armed forces
are held by ex-NDA officers. Yet they fail to rise above service bias and only
pay lip service to jointmanship. Admiral Nadkarni acknowledges, “Jointmanship
is not backslapping
in public, playing golf together and stating that they all belong to one course
in the NDA”.[4]
Besides NDA, a number of other inter-services courses are also
conducted. They have also contributed little to generate genuine jointmanship
except promoting social interaction during the course. Likewise, affiliation of
a few naval warships with army regiments can at best be termed as a display of
ceremonial interfacing.
Although importance and need for
jointmanship remain undisputed, the concept evokes wide-ranging reaction
amongst Indian military leaders. On one extreme we have fervent proponents of
jointmanship whereas on the other extreme there is a small minority which is intransigently
opposed. The majority lies somewhere between the two extremes.
Table 1 shows broad categorisation of
reactions. The percentages are approximate estimates, based on informal
interaction with a large and varied cross-section of defence officers. The
sampling is indicative in nature. The table has been compiled to highlight the
fact that most military leaders do not oppose jointmanship. Only a small
minority (about 10 percent) resists introduction of all jointmanship measures.
Table 1: Jointmanship and Reactions
Reaction-wise
Categorisation of Military Leaders
|
Attitudinal
Traits
|
Resultant
Attributes
|
Estimated
Percentage
|
Initiators
|
Strong and pro-active
advocacy
Seek speedy
implementation at all costs
|
Accord primacy to
national interests by willingly relinquishing all other claims
|
15
|
Encouragers
|
Pro-jointmanship
disposition
Promote jointmanship
enthusiastically
|
Willing to subordinate
service and own interests to national interest
|
30
|
Compromisers
|
Appreciate criticality
of jointmanship
Accept need for re-prioritisation
of issues in national interests
|
Inclined to compromise their
service and own interests for national security.
|
25
|
Neutralists
|
Fence-sitters with no
pre-disposition
|
Need convincing
Need assurance of
security of their interests
|
20
|
Obstructionists
|
Do not question need
for total jointmanship as such
Give untenable reasons
for their opposition
|
Highly skeptic of
uncertainties of reforms
Concerned about safeguarding
their service and personal interests
|
10
|
True jointmanship assigns absolute
importance to national interests. Therefore, there have to be very compelling reasons
for dissonance. In order to understand why something is, it is essential to
understand how it came to be.
Response to jointmanship is an attribute of
underlying attitudes and to appreciate reasons for opposition to jointmanship,
it is essential to identify attitudinal traits of military leadership. It is
only through the modulation of attitudes that willing acceptance of
jointmanship can be facilitated.
Attitude
is defined as a disposition or inclination in respect of something or someone. Attitudes
are affected both by implicit and explicit influences. Attitudes can be
positive, negative, neutral and even ambivalent (possessing both positive and
negative hues at the same time). Even the degree or severity can vary.
Attitudes are formed by observational
learning from the environment, individual judgment, personal beliefs and peer
influences. As regards military, it is the most hierarchy based organisation where
attitudes and behaviour are influenced by precedents as well. Attitudes do
change with experience but it is normally a slow, unpredictable and spasmodic process.
What makes some segments of the Indian
military leadership wary of jointmanship and adopt a negative attitude towards
it? Major attitudinal reasons have been discussed below.
Lack of
Effective Inter-Services Communication
Despite all public bonhomie, there is limited
interaction, dialogue and communication between the three services. This
results in non-development of mutual trust, which is essential for joint
functioning. This lack of trust can be gauged from the fact that the Indian
Army prepared General Staff Qualitative Requirements (GSQR) for helicopters
without consulting the Air Force.[5]
Similarly, it prepared GSQR for deep sea diving equipment without seeking inputs
from the Navy.[6]
Even Comptroller and
Auditor General of India has faulted the three services for separately buying
the same equipment from the same source at different cost, thereby losing
benefits of economies of scale.[7]
It found that items (like Unmanned Arial Vehicles, Sniper Rifles and Underwater
Diving Equipment), which were common to the three services, were procured by
them independently without reference to each other. It resulted in failure to
obtain best value for money for the country.
Regimental
Affiliations Promote Close-mindedness
The services accord immense importance to
the concept of ‘regimental/corps/branch affiliations’. Undoubtedly, regimental
spirit acts as a force multiplier at unit/battalion level but becomes
counterproductive at higher levels. The psychology and mental outlook of senior
leaders become insular, resulting in three major harmful fallouts.
First, some senior commanders tend to
develop unhealthy prejudices and partisan attitude. Many find it prudent to
display their predisposition for their affiliations openly.
Secondly, it
damages organisational cohesion and gives rise to factionalism. Strong
regimental loyalties result in social stratification and dissentions.[8]
And finally, affiliations encourage ‘protégé syndrome’ and displace merit as
the primary measure of competence in the organisation.
Excessive adherence to affiliations inhibits
development of broadmindedness. If some military leaders fail to rise above
petty regimental level thinking, they can barely be expected to have an
attitude necessary for inter-services integration.
The
‘Outsider’ Syndrome
Over-cohesiveness has
both positive and negative effects. It may knit a group together but it also
generates inter-group friction as highly cohesive groups tend to become inward-looking
and dogmatic in their beliefs.
All the
three services are affected by ‘outsider’ syndrome. Decisions and responses are
weighed on a ‘we versus them’ scale. ‘We’ implies a group owing allegiance to a
regiment or a branch and all others are branded as ‘outsiders’. Merit becomes
irrelevant. A few years back some armoured corps officers were transferred to
infantry battalions as there were no command vacancies in the armoured corps at
that time. They were highly competent officers and yet were treated with brazen
hostility. Almost all infantry battalions resented being commanded by the ‘outsiders’.
The same is true of higher formations.
Command of infantry brigades and divisions by artillery and engineers officers
is considered a sacrilege by most infantry officers.[9] According to many, only the infantry
officers should command these formations. If there is opposition to the command
of infantry formations by non-infantry army officers, will putting them under
Naval or Air Force officers be readily accepted?
Such an attitude is not limited to infantry
alone. ‘Outsiders’ are considered a threat by all. Similar attitude was at
display when questions were raised about letting a helicopter pilot, an ‘outsider’;
occupy the top appointment which was considered to be the exclusive domain of fighter
pilots.
Fear of
Loss of Domain and Independent Identity
Services guard their turf with fierce fanaticism.
Every proposal that affects a service’s span of command faces strident
resistance. Services want jointmanship but with an assurance of protection of
their domain, whereas jointness has to result in a reduction of domain of each
service to prevent duplication/triplication. Conservation of resources and
effort is one of the primary objectives of jointmanship.
The degree of apprehension can be gauged from
Air Marshal Jayal’s views, “The army’s case for transferring medium and attack
helicopters to it has merely given us a sneak preview of the old mindsets that
still prevail in all service headquarters beneath the veneer of jointmanship
and bonhomie.”[10]
According to Major General Ashok
Mehta, the greatest
fear of the Air Force is that it will be marginalised under the new
dispensation.[11]
Admiral Nadkarni was very frank to admit, “The Army is 20 times the size of the Indian Navy
and 10 times the size of the Air Force. The first priority of the Air Force and
Navy and their Chiefs in India is to maintain their identities.” He further acknowledged
that the two smaller services were wary of too much jointmanship lest they and
their achievements got swallowed up by the bigger service.[12]
Lack of
Exposure during Formative Years
Human beings are products of their
environment. Their ethos, attitudes and disposition are tempered by the
environment in which they operate and what they imbibe in their formative
years. Many officers never get an opportunity in their formative years to serve
in an open environment. Some remain cosseted in highly sheltered appointments
throughout their careers, either within their corps or under their regimental
superiors.
Due to lack of adequate exposure, they fail
to acquire broader vision with advancement in career and remain encumbered with
local issues. To them, national or inter-service matters are far too remote to
be of immediate concern. Their apathetic
deportment towards jointmanship is a result of their inability to grasp and
fully appreciate criticality of jointmanship.
Concern for
Personal Interests
According to Janowitz, in the civilian image, military officers are the
personification of Max Weber’s ideal bureaucrat. They resist change, prefer
status-quo. They are also acutely aware of their personal status – both formal
and informal, as status provides a sense of fulfillment in the highly hierarchy-conscious
services. To them, jointmanship portends uncertainty and role ambiguity;
whereas they want to be assured that their status would not be adversely
affected. They dread loss of exclusivity and privileged standing.
It is only human to be concerned about
individual interests. Promotions are an important aspect of an officer’s
aspirations. Vacancies at higher levels are extremely limited. Tri-services environment after the
implementation of jointmanship is bound to be highly competitive and
challenging. Overall merit and not corps/regimental seniority will determine higher
military leadership.
Apprehensions about likely curtailment of promotional avenues and
reduction in vacancies under the proposed dispensation weigh heavily on many. This
sense of insecurity manifests itself by their being wary of jointmanship.
The Way
Forward
A two-track approach needs to be followed. First,
concerted efforts should be made to change attitude of military leadership to
pave the way for smooth introduction of jointmanship measures. And secondly,
the Government should adopt a more pro-active stance and intervene effectively
to force the pace of reforms.
Acceptance of jointmanship is contingent to
progressive development of broader vision of military leadership. Military
commanders have to be groomed to rise above narrow issues to think big. There is,
thus an urgent need for a thorough transformation of mindsets and attitudes. But
it is not going to be an easy task.
As
seen earlier, attitudes in the services are formed by regimental environment
(traditions, precedents, norms and conventions), personal beliefs and
experience. Manipulation of these seminal factors can facilitate management of
attitudes.
Some of the suggested measures have been
discussed below.
Common
Uniform without Regimental Entrapments
All visually differentiating entrapments
should be abolished. Regimental identity should be
limited up to the rank of
Colonel. For all senior ranks, there should be a common uniform
with no
regimental badges.
The three services could even have a common
rank structure. This is one single step that shall alter the mindset of
officers and act as a unifying factor. They will start identifying themselves
as Indian defence officers rather than be always reminded of their own service
and regimental affiliations.
The three services could even have a common
rank structure. This is one single step that shall alter the mindset of
officers and act as a unifying factor. They will start identifying themselves
as Indian defence officers rather than be always reminded of their own service
and regimental affiliations.
Abolish
the Institution of Colonel Commandant
To start with, a Colonel Commandant was like
a father figure who acted as a ‘conscious keeper’ of the regiment and a
guardian of regimental traditions. His basic duty was to foster
esprit-de-corps. However, over the last few decades the concept has got totally
distorted as some over-zealous Colonel Commandants take it upon themselves to
obtain undue advantages for their regiments, apparently at the cost of the more
deserving. Presently, it has degenerated into an anachronistic institution that
inhibits progressive thinking and restricts the focus of senior leadership to
petty issues. While heading the ‘whole’
they identify themselves with a ‘part’ and fail to rise to higher plane.
Cross-functional Training in Integrated Setup
All one star (Brigadier and equivalent) and higher officers must serve
alternate tenures in inter-services environment. It should be a mandatory
requirement. Future promotions must take due cognizance of their performance
under officers of the other services. Senior officers must also be imparted
transformational skills. They should be competent to lead integrated setups and
mould their subordinates into cohesive functional teams. They must understand
psyche of officers drawn from different services and interact with them with
empathy.
Evolution of Long Term Transparent
Policy
Members identify themselves with an organisation only when rules are
applied in an impartial, non-arbitrary and transparent manner. No individual is
going to subordinate his personal interests to organisational interests unless
there are strong merit-performance ethical linkages in place. Transparency in
policies, selection criteria and selection process will go a long way in generating
confidence in the fairness of the system.
Frequent changes in policies breed uncertainty and uncertainty gives rise
to apprehensions. For willing acceptance of jointmanship by all, it is
essential that an environment of continuity and permanence be assured. There
should be an institutionalised arrangement for collegiate decision making with
long term policy. Decisions must not be inconsistent or capricious.
Just and Impartial Environment
For leaders, impartiality is an ethical
requirement and an essential component of their functioning. Trust is the
expectancy that the followers can rely on a leader’s impartial and just
approach. Trust is valuable, visceral, complex and intuitive. It is an
incredibly potent force and virtually non-substitutable. It flourishes on
credibility that a leader enjoys in his command.
Jointmanship
can thrive only if the environment has implicit faith in the fairness of the system.
Impartiality means treating everyone as equal and rewarding them purely on
their merit - free of service or regimental bias. Stringent standards for
non-partisan conduct have to be laid down with a suitable monitoring mechanism
to rectify aberrations.
The armed forces lay a lot of stress on ‘integrity’. Of late, integrity
has come to be identified solely with financial propriety, whereas integrity
also entails just and impartial conduct.
Evolve
Healthy Norms
Social scientists
consider military as a highly structured and dynamic society which needs to
follow well laid down norms for its continued sustenance. Norms are unwritten
rules. Norms can be descriptive (what to do or Dos) and proscriptive (what not
to do or Don’ts). Norms get evolved due to precedents and conventions set over
a period of time.
Organisational
researchers have concluded that precedents and organisational norms have
profound effect on moulding attitude. Jointmanship is characterised by trust
and confidence, mutual respect for each other’s capability and cooperation,
rather than competition.[i]
A culture of synergistic relationships and mutually accommodative
demeanor will contribute immensely towards jointmanship.
Governmental Responsibility
If the services continue their quibbling and
jointmanship remains stalled, it is time the Government intervenes to fulfill
its mandated duty. It cannot let the drift continue and force introduction of
jointmanship in a time-bound schedule. The role of the Government could be in
three incremental stages, as shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Government’s Incremental Role
in Jointmanship
Stage
|
Objective
|
Methodology
|
Time
Period
(months)
|
Facilitative
|
Allow the services to sort out all
dissonance amongst themselves and reach consensus
|
·
>Apprise
the services of Government’s
determination to introduce jointmanship
·
>Prompt
the services to adopt collaborative approach to resolve differences
|
9-15
|
Persuasive
|
Adopt a pro-active approach and coax
the services to evolve joint plans for time bound implementation
|
>Identify areas of dissonance and
the personalities involved
>Provide clarification of issues,
if required
>Persuade skeptics to accept
jointmanship with credible persuasive reasoning
|
9-15
|
Decree
|
Issue unambiguous directive and accept
no disagreement or dithering thereafter. Military leadership should be given
option to accept or quit
|
>Directive must be all-encompassing
and well-reasoned.
>Piecemeal orders should be avoided
as they create uncertainty
>Implementation must be monitored
closely
|
6-12
|
Notes:
(a)
The
stages are neither exclusive in terms of time frame nor necessarily sequential
in nature. They may and should overlap. It is for the Government to initiate
simultaneous measures to keep the process on track.
(b)
The
time mentioned for each stage is indicative in nature and is based on the
normal tenures of senior military leaders.
·
Facilitative Stage
Decision by consensus is always the most preferred option as it creates
synergy in an organisation and facilitates smooth implementation. All conflicts
of interest – real or perceived – must be resolved in a spirit of mutual
accommodation.
As the term indicates, initially the Government should act a
facilitator. However, it should make its determination to introduce
jointmanship in a time-bound schedule be known to the three services in no
uncertain terms. They should be prompted to adopt collaborative conflict
resolution methodology and reach consensus.
·
Persuasive Stage
Should the facilitative approach fail to yield the desired consensus,
the Government should adopt a more pro-active approach. The services must be
told in categorical terms that the Government would intervene compellingly in
case the services fail to respond positively.
Generally, consensus building gets stalled due to the apprehensions in
the minds of a few dominant personalities. When some leaders get rooted in a
denial mode, they fail to acknowledge existence of any logic. It is also a well
established fact that changing attitudes through persuasion is considerably difficult
if the target group is intelligent and possesses high self-esteem.
It is for the Government to handle the skeptics in a more persuasive manner
to put their reservations at rest and convince them of criticality of a jointmanship
proposal. If handled with firmness, finesse and empathy, all military leaders
will come on board as their commitment to the cause of national security
remains unquestionable.
·
Decree Stage
In case even persuasion fails, the Government
should fulfill its obligation to the nation by issuing clear-cut orders to
enforce jointmanship. No disagreement thereafter should be tolerated. Even the
US Congress had to enact Goldwater-Nichols Act to force implementation of
jointmanship.[14] National interests cannot be permitted
to be held hostage to the intransigence of a few dissenting military leaders.
Conclusion
All military commanders are professedly staunch
proponents of the concept of jointmanship. In other words, jointmanship has no
opponents.[i]
Additionally, jointmanship has been universally accepted as the engine that drives
revolution in military affairs. Yet, the reality on ground is diametrically
opposite. All rhetoric in favour of jointmanship does not get translated into
ground action. Every step towards jointmanship has been painstaking and
protracted. This dichotomy has been the bane of the Indian Armed Forces.
The search for recognition is one of the
pursuits which all human beings indulge in and continuously strive for. As
regards military leaders, their affiliation to their regiments and services
generates a sense of brotherhood and intense group loyalty, thereby fulfilling
their need for identity. However, it adversely affects their growth as leaders
who need to articulate a much broader vision.
All soldiers are sworn to be prepared to make supreme sacrifice
for national security. For them, national interests remain absolute and all
other considerations become non-existent. If that be so, there should never be
any opposition to jointmanship from any quarter whatsoever. But soldiers are
also human. They have aspirations and apprehensions. An endeavour should be
made to provide assurance to the environment that the new dispensation will be
fair, just and equitable to all.
Attitudes are moulded by environment.
Acceptance or resistance of any change is totally dependent on the attitudinal
approach of the target group. Attitudes can, however, be changed by changing
environmental influences and persuasion. As seen earlier, this can be achieved
through implicit and explicit measures. But it requires mature and concerted
effort.
There are times in the life of every nation
when hard decisions are required to be taken by the leadership. Delay or wavering
can cause irreparable damage to national security imperatives. As regards
jointmanship, enough time has already been lost for specious reasons. Immediate and resolute implementation is
absolutely inescapable.
National security is too serious a matter to
be permitted to drift. Regimental and service loyalties cannot be permitted to
take precedence over national interests. If the Government and the military
leadership are convinced that jointmanship is central to India’s defence
prowess, they should force its implementation without wavering. Genuine
concerns of all must be addressed but unjustified obduracy should not be tolerated.
[1]
Kumar, Vinod A., “Will the Joint Doctrine Result in Synergy on the Ground,”
IDSA
Strategic Comment, New Delhi,
June 08, 2006.
[2]
According to Vinod Anand, the essence is an inter-service cooperation for
synchronisation of all components of military power to achieve a common
military aim. See Vinod Anand, “Future Battlespace and Need for Jointmanship,”
Strategic
Analysis, New Delhi,
January 2000.
[5]
The army had put up a case for procuring helicopters to replace its aging fleet
of Cheetas and Chetaks in 2002-03. General Staff Qualitative Requirements
(GSQR) were prepared in isolation without availing expertise available with the
Air Force. Needless to say that GSQR were highly flawed necessitating abortion
of the case and fresh initiation, resulting in time and cost overruns.
[6]
The Army needed deep sea diving equipment for its special forces. GSQR were
prepared without availing the benefit of Navy’s expertise. GSQR were so
ambitious that at the time of field trials, the Army found it to be beyond
their operational requirement and capability.
[7]
See Comptroller and Auditor General of India, “Report for the year ending
March 2006: Union Government (Defence Services),” No 4 of 2007, pp. 9-10.
[8] There
has been an exponential increase in the number of court cases being filed by
service personnel to seek justice. Seeking justice through courts shows
soldiers’ lack of faith in the fairness of the system. Soldiers knock at
courts’ doors only when driven to it as a last resort.
They feel aggrieved and deprived of their
rightful dues. Partisanship caused by affiliations is considered by many to be
one of the main contributory causes.
[9]
Other arms officers (artillery, engineers and signals) can command infantry
formations if selected for the General Cadre. There are no permanent rules in
place. It depends entirely on a Chief’s views. There is an interesting case
which occurred a few years ago. A non-infantry Chief inducted a large number of
artillery and other arms officers into the General Cadre. The next Chief who
was from the infantry reversed the policy. Such instances only go to prove that
the top leadership that fails to free itself of biases at service level can
hardly be expected to have a national perspective of jointmanship issues.
[10]
Jayal, Brijesh D., “Chinks in the Armour – How were Actual Operations Conducted
in the Kargil War,”
The Telegraph, Calcutta,
Aug 04, 2004.
[11]
Mehta, Ashok K., “Three Chiefs in Search of a Chair,”
The Pioneer, New Delhi, August 29,
2001.
[12]
Nadkarni, no. 3.
Admiral Nadkarni
laments that Indians are only aware of India's Army and the soldier. “Most
have never heard of the other two services; leave alone their contribution in
any conflict. In Punjab, for example, there
are Jarnail (General) Singhs and Karnail (Colonel) Singhs. But one has not come
across an Admiral Singh or an Air Marshal Singh, “he adds.
[14]
Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defence Reorganisation Act of 1986 (GNA) is
generally considered to be the first
step of the currently ongoing Revolution in Military Affiars (RMA). After the US failures in the Iran hostage
rescue attempt and Grenada
operations, a need was felt to reorganise the US forces through an act of
legislation.
Under GNA,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
was designated as the principal military advisor to the President , National Security Council and Secretary of Defence. The restructuring
provided unity of command, unity of effort, integrated planning, shared
procurement and a reduction/elimination in inter-services rivalry.
[15]
All the three services have laid down doctrine that support jointmanship. The
stress is on cooperation, mutual trust and partnership. According to the Army
Doctrine issued in October 2004,
future
wars are likely to be characterised by added emphasis on the all-arms concept and
need for increased jointmanship between
the land, naval and air forces.
