DC Pathak
In the sphere of national security, the rationale for cooperation with other countries in both ‘Intelligence-sharing’ and a ‘coordinated response’ in regard to a ‘threat’ is the convergence on the identification of the ‘enemy’ behind the threat. This is the raison d’etre of strategic alliances. Conventional threats to national security emanated from the ‘military’ power of the enemy, the adversary’s plans of espionage and, as is now an accepted phenomenon, the induction of ‘non-state’ actors — a term used for armed militants fostered by the adversary — to conduct a ‘proxy war’ through acts of terrorism.
By the turn of the century, two distinct areas of non-traditional threats to national security had emerged prominently – and this was a development of the post-Cold War era. One was what Warren Christopher, Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, hinted at when he famously said in 1993 that ‘national security is inseparable from economic security’. Damaging the economy of the enemy was a way of weakening the latter — this is how the term ‘economic warfare’ became a currency of combat — and the attack on the economic strength of the opponent could be made through the use of ‘Competitive Intelligence’ on one hand and the stark reality of ‘sabotage’ on the other.
China’s planned effort to garner business intelligence as well as information on crucial scientific research in US universities is widely known. In the wake of the corona, the finance media has created a scare that China was moving in to buy out businesses across the world. That this could become a credible ‘threat’ is implied in the decision of India to screen all FDI proposals originating from neighbours ‘across our land borders’. Intelligence agencies now have an expanding area of responsibility in the sphere of economic security. Take-over of businesses elsewhere can be used by a country like China to find ‘berths’ for its agencies in the new corporate entities — this may become a new tradecraft of Intelligence — gathering in times when international travel was on a discount.
The second threat that has grown exponentially is Cyber Warfare that represents the flip side of the IT revolution. The transformational event that brought about the shift from the Industrial Age to the Age of Information came as a boon to the world community as it created a globalised economy to the advantage of all countries big or small. However, since life of the nation today runs on systems based on IP networks, a major threat to national security now comes from a planned disruption of these systems carried out by the enemy through resort to hacking, planting of malware or subversion with the help of an ‘insider’.
India faces an entire set of security risks, traditional and non-traditional. This country had established Intelligence-sharing arrangements with the US on terrorism emanating from Pakistan, while China, as expected, came to the rescue of its ‘all-weather-friend’ by resisting the UN move to designate LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammad chiefs as ‘international terrorists’. A new geo-political threat to India is also emerging on the marine front as China, with the silent support from Pakistan, tried to enhance its access to Indian Ocean.
Some non-traditional security threats that are universal in the sense that they demanded a global response include repercussions of Climate Change and environmental degradation, disaster caused by seismic events like Tsunami and the recent spread of the Corona pandemic about which many things are still unknown. Building a united approach to these is a work in progress. However, the Corona virus episode has on one hand raised questions about timely dissemination of information available at the level of a country — China in this case — or an international agency, such as the WHO, and created, on the other, a lurking doubt about the possibility of biological weapons being still developed as part of warfare. The American establishment is raising a host of issues around the ‘Chinese designs’ while a probe into the biological and chemical research conducted in Wuhan, the science hub of China, is also being demanded from many quarters. As a major power, India has to have its own information gathering mechanisms to keep abreast — with or without collaboration with a country like the US — of what was going on in the world.
On the home front, the Corona pandemic has added to the burden of keeping track of events that could deepen the internal divides in India and in particular aggravate the Hindu-Muslim tensions. India’s Intelligence agencies, who were adept at assessing the rise of any caste, communal or regional tensions here had to help in the search for the ‘missing’ Tabligh elements and also look out for possible agents provocateurs or enemy agents trying to endanger India’s security during the corona pandemic. The reported participation of many Rohingya Muslims from the camps in India in the Tabligh Ijtema and their subsequent flight from there had added to the security concerns. Fortunately, India has seen a phenomenal rise of tech-Intelligence and this has helped our agencies to deal with the information challenge posed by the corona crisis.
Finally, the adverse economic impact of the corona lockdown on large sections of people dependent on daily wages or small jobs in metropolitan centres, will have to be monitored for any signs of public unrest brewing in any area. While the central Intelligence machinery does its job, the Intelligence function of the state police has to be constantly evaluated by the Centre in the interest of internal security and stability. The horrific incident of planned lynching of an aged leader of a known Hindu sect along with his fellow saint and the driver of their car by a large group of miscreants in Palghar district of Maharashtra — in the presence of two policemen from the nearby police post — is a warning to the Centre that disruptive forces might be out there to create chaos in this moment of national crisis. Was the SP not in touch with his police stations who would have the local Intelligence about all that was cooking up in the area?
The Centre should make an example of this case to create an effective deterrence against what might otherwise become an unsettling trend of politically instigated public violence in the country. Our agencies must unearth all aspects of the ugly Palghar episode. –IANS
The writer is a former Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) under the Union Home Ministry.