The Defence Minister AK Antony today asked the top brass of the Armed Forces to adopt and further strengthen the Tri-Services approach to security related issues by telling them that victory in modern warfare can be achieved only through jointness. Inaugurating the Unified Commanders Conference here, Antony said no one service can by itself protect the nation’s security as war-fighting is today a complex and highly skilled business.
‘The traditional approach of combating threats with individual services acting according to their own plans must be shed. Jointness seeks the development of core competence by each service and synergising these capabilities. Requisite response can then be chosen from a “menu” of capabilities, to achieve specific military goals under varying conditions. Some may view this as being counter-intuitive, but it saves the military force undesirable redundancy. At the same time, it allows each service to maximise its yield by utilising its core competences to achieve a common goal. Therefore, it is our duty to resort to joint planning and develop integrated capabilities’, he said.
The two-day conference with the theme ‘Victory Through Jointness’ is being attended among others by the chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee Admiral Sureesh Mehta, Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal PV Naik and Chief of Army Staff General Deepak Kapoor, the defence secretary Vijay Singh, the secretary defence production Pradip Kumar, scientific advisor to the defence minister M Natarajan, secretary defence finance Indu Liberhan.
Secretary ex-servicemen’s welfare Neelam Nath, Air Marshal SC Mukul, CIDS,C-in-Cs of Andaman & Nicobar Command and Strategic Forces Command and heads of various Tri-Services training institutions like Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, College of Defence Management, Secunderabad and National Defence Academy, Pune, Senior officers from the Ministry of Defence and the three Services also attended the event.
Focus on the seas
Underlining the importance of the Indian Ocean region, Antony said, with a rapidly growing economy our dependence on the ocean is increasing by the day. “It is imperative for our Armed Forces to ensure that the sea lanes of communication are not dominated by any one power to the exclusion of others”. Delving further on the issue, the defence minister said, sea lanes could easily become security threats.
“Last year, piracy emerged as a major challenge for sea-borne traffic, off the coast of Somalia. Sea routes can be used to transport weapons of mass destruction and arms and ammunition by terrorists. They are also commonly used for illegal migration and drug trafficking. water-ways are used by terrorists to reach the hinterland, as was done by the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attack,” he said.
Antony said, the government is trying its best to provide financial resources, surveillance equipment and adequate manpower to bolster Coastal Security. At the same time, he asked the Armed Forces to make optimum use of available resources both in terms of infrastructure and manpower. He said the onus lies on security forces, intelligence agencies and coastal police stations to work in tandem.
Huge war chest
The defence minister assured the top brass that funds would never be a constraint for the modernisation of the Armed Forces and their welfare. He, however, asked them on improving efficacy and efficiency of delivery mechanisms at all levels. He sought the cooperation of all senior officials to eradicate corruption and urged them to ensure ‘impeccable honesty, integrity, and transparency in all transactions’.
Antony emphasized the need to achieve greater indigenisation in defence sector. He called for increased and better synergy between the DRDO and the Armed Forces to achieve at least 70 per cent indigenisation in procurements within the next ten years.
