A Case For Intelligence Reforms In India

This book covers a vast canvas historically as regards Indian Intelligence, and gives an adequate insight into the functioning of the important intelligence agencies of the world. The author has analysed the current functioning of Indian Intelligence agencies in great detail, their drawbacks in the structure and coordination and has come out with some useful suggestions.

India's internal and external intelligence agencies-the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing, respectively-carry out numerous operations ranging from counter-terrorism and tackling separatist movements to critical infrastructure protection: all without any statutory charter in place empowering them to do so. In addition, we have the National Technical Research Organization, modeled on the USA's National Security Agency, set up as an intelligence-gathering agency in 2004. With the rising threat to national security comes the need for the strongest, most efficient intelligence framework possible-provided it remains grounded in a sphere of legality. Taking lapses of security, efficiency, and privacy as points of concern, this monograph begins by making a case for crafting an oversight framework for India's intelligence agencies. Examining statutory frameworks in other jurisdictions in detail, it goes on to analyse best practices and insights from legislations across the world to make recommendations for the kind of structure most suitable for India.

As Asia increases in economic and geopolitical significance, it is necessary to better understand the region’s intelligence cultures. The Handbook of Asian Intelligence Cultures explores the historical and contemporary influences that have shaped Asian intelligence cultures as well as the impact intelligence service have had on domestic and foreign affairs. In examining thirty Asian countries, it considers the roles, practices, norms and oversight of Asia’s intelligence services, including the ends to which intelligence tools are applied. The book argues that there is no archetype of Asian intelligence culture due to the diversity of history, government type and society found in Asia. Rather, it demonstrates how Asian nations’ histories, cultures and governments play vital roles in intelligence cultures. This book is a valuable study for scholars of intelligence and security services in Asia, shedding light on understudied countries and identifying opportunities for future scholarship.

"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.

This book examines India’s foreign intelligence culture and strategic surprises in the 20th century. The work looks at whether there is a distinct way in which India ‘thinks about’ and ‘does’ intelligence, and, by extension, whether this affects the prospects of it being surprised. Drawing on a combination of archival data, secondary source information and interviews with members of the Indian security and intelligence community, the book provides a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of Indian intelligence culture from the ancient period to colonial times and, subsequently, the post-colonial era. This evolutionary culture has played a significant role in explaining the India’s foreign intelligence failure during the occurrences of strategic surprises, such as the 1962 Sino-Indian War and the 1999 Kargil War, while it successfully prepared for surprise attacks like Operation Chenghiz Khan by Pakistan in 1971. The result is that the book argues that the strategic culture of a nation and its interplay with intelligence organisations and operations is important to understanding the conditions for intelligence failures and strategic surprises. This book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, strategic studies, Asian politics and International Relations.

Deterrence Is A Policy That Fashions A Situation Whereby War Can Be Limited If Not Averted. It Rests On The Capability Of A Nation To Deter The Enemy, Ensure That The Credibility Of The Threat Is Maintained, And Respected, And Use That Capability When Necessary. Nuclear Weapons Deter, But There Is The Pursuit For The Absolute Means To Seek Foolproof Deterrence. Herein Lies The Dilemma. The Stakes Involved In A Nuclear War And The Use Of These Weapons Stimulate Varied And Worried Debates.To Justify A War, Arguments Tend To Get Grounded On Just War The Doctrine Of Just War Is Concerned Not With What Men Did In War But What They Ought To Do Or Refrain From Doing; The Jus Ad Bellum Or Justification Of War And The Jus In Bello Or The Limitation Of War.

Since the mid-1990s, Indian thinking on national security has been based on the assumption that the country would progress on a growth trajectory sufficient to modernise its defence capacities and thereby enable some form of parity with a rising China. The reality has been otherwise. China's spectacular growth – and accompanying military modernisation – has hugely outpaced that of India while the Indian military modernisation has moved fitfully. In the past several years, budgets have committed less than 2 per cent of GDP –the lowest levels since the war of 1962 – for the military. Even if spending were to rise to 3 per cent, little funding would be available for modernisation after allowing for rising pensions, salaries and other components of the budget. Put simply, the authors state, India needs a national security strategy for hard times. It would be a strategy grounded in reality – India's priority has to be the raising of vast numbers of its people out of abject poverty, even if the strategies of countries like China and the United States, economically more developed, can aim at being global powers. In Hard Times is an important collection that highlights the major challenges India confronts and the ways they can be tackled, especially in the light of the upheavals caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Its contributors include former military officers, including Admiral Arun Prakash and Lt Gen. D.S. Hooda, whose views have helped shape discussions on strategy, as well as commentators such as Dr Sanjaya Baru. Experience tells us that in war it's often the smarter side that wins, not the stronger one. These essays point us in that direction.