Rewind: Kargil, 25 years on
The Kargil War was a turning point in India’s military history and forced the govt to strategise its warcraft but even after over two decades, several reforms are yet to be ushered in
Dr Akhil Kumar, Anudeep Gujjeti, Dr Manoj Babu Buraga
On 26 July 2024, India celebrated Kargil Vijay Diwas. Twenty-five years ago, in 1999, the icy heights of Ladakh and Kargil sectors went through a turbulent phase since India’s independence. This 60-day-long Kargil War between two nuclear-armed neighbours — India and Pakistan — proved to be a turning point in India’s military history as it launched Operation Vijay and Safed Sagar to reclaim the occupied territories. The war not only drew global attention but also forced India to strategise its warcraft.
The long impending border standoff continues even today and over the past two-and-a-half decades, India witnessed several terror attacks, ranging from 26/11 in Mumbai to Pulwama in 2019, in which several soldiers lost their lives bringing our military apparatus under scrutiny on several occasions.
Reforms on Paper
The K Subrahmanyam-led Kargil Review Committee (KRC) set up in 1999 made certain recommendations to enhance military preparedness. However, several reforms are yet to be ushered in to meet the contemporary security challenges to safeguard sovereignty and territorial integrity, especially in view of escalating tensions with belligerent China and the resurgence of Pakistan-based terror groups in the Jammu region. Two other major committees since then — the Naresh Chandra Committee in 2012 set up to assess the implementation of the KRC recommendations and the Lt Gen DB Shekatkar Committee in 2016 — also suggested several reforms to revamp our security architecture.
The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) was one of the recommendations by the KRC, backed by the Group of Ministers (GoM) set up by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, but it materialised only in 2019, nearly two decades after the war. In times, when several security challenges are increasingly rising in the changing global security landscape, and army recruitment policies such as Agnipath coming under scrutiny, an unfulfilled agenda continues to stare at India’s preparedness to secure its borders.
Though India aims to attain indigenisation of the defence sector through programmes such as ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’, to cut down its overreliance on foreign arms manufacturers, the innumerable delays in procurement of defence supplies, rising cost, outdated equipment and red tape continue to haunt its military infrastructure. The capital allocation of less than 2% of the GDP is a major resource crunch for the armed forces in strengthening their military weaponry.
In this context, the then Army chief’s statement, “We shall fight with what we have” still rings a bell while talking about military modernisation, proving that only a crisis makes the establishment talk about increasing the spending. A case in point was the demand by the Ministry of Defence for Rs 20,000 crore to meet defence preparedness amid the Dokalam standoff with China. Such requests for “emergency procurement” can prove costly in the event of a prolonged war with China or Pakistan as supply chains are vulnerable to any major crisis.
Intelligence Architecture
India’s defence spending has increased in the last couple of years. Beginning at Rs 4.71 lakh crore in 2020-21, it is pegged at Rs 6.21 lakh crore in 2024-25, although it still lags behind major powers like the United States, China and Russia in absolute terms. India is even the world’s largest arms importer according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) report — this also proves a point that India needs a robust indigenised military-industrial complex to overcome bottlenecks in supply chains in the event of war.
Owing to the intelligence failure during the Kargil War, one of the major recommendations by the KRC was to improve the intelligence architecture of the country. India’s intelligence framework comprises multiple agencies under different authorities, including the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).
Additionally, the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), a major outcome of the KRC, was established in 2002. Various technical intelligence units, such as the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) under the National Security Adviser, were formed in 2004. Even after such an elaborate intelligence setup, India is unable to keep China at bay, as seen during border skirmishes, and more recently failed to contain terrorist activity in Jammu, especially in a year when it celebrates the 25th anniversary of Vijay Diwas.
Though the security and military structure,such as the National Security Strategy (a document from which the military security strategy and force planning will flow) and integration of MoD with services headquarters (The three services need to be integrated into the MoD), recommended by the KRC, has taken shape, its implementation is moving at a very slow pacedueto the resistance from various agencies and armed forces,thereby lacking effective coordination and communication.
Diplomacy Redefined
The Kargil War not only brought significant changes in India’s security strategy but also redefined its diplomacy with various countries. Following the war, the relationship between the United States and India gained momentum. Both countries wanted to improve ties with each other after the culmination of the Cold War but the nuclear tests conducted by New Delhi in 1998 drew condemnation and offset the ties with Washington, leading to sanctions on India.
After the Kargil War, Bill Clinton became the first President to visit India after nearly two decades, thereby changing the trajectory of Indo-US relations by de-hyphenating Pakistan in US-India ties, and with the 9/11 terror attack, the relations between Islamabad and Washington further deteriorated.
After the upgradation of ties with Israel in 1992, India turned to Tel Aviv for defence support, a nation which attained technological superiority and immense experience in dealing with border control and counter-terrorism. Although Israel assisted India in wars against China and Pakistan, the defence engagement between the two was widely publicised and picked up thereby shedding its ideological hesitancies. In the same way, India’s global standing has improved in the past 25 years and it is now counted among major powers such as France, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany and Russia, which allows India to take any decision without any worry about international fallout.
However, the perception of security threats has also changed in the last decade which includes the pandemic, illegal migration, maritime threats ranging from the Gulf of Aden to the South China Sea and cyber threats, highlighting the need for technological advancements in defence preparedness.
(Dr Akhil Kumar is a PhD from Department of Political Science, University of Hyderabad. Anudeep Gujjeti is a PhD candidate, Department of Political Science,University of Hyderabad, Research Associate,Council for Social Development, and Young Leader, Pacific Forum, USA. Dr Manoj Babu Buraga is Assistant Professor, Manipal Academy of Higher Education [MAHE])
Tones of Triumph
Dr Suman Kumar Kasturi recounts his experience as a young air warrior in the Kargil War
It gives me nostalgic remembrance of being an active participant in the Kargil War operations as a young air warrior. It was on July 26, 1999, that India efficaciously took command of the high outposts that were otherwise lost to Pakistani intruders.
Insofar as the Kargil War is concerned, indubitably, Pakistan had much of the circumstantial preparation that took account of the building of logistical supply routes. The war occurred due to the infiltration of Pakistani soldiers into locations on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC) that functions as the de facto border between India and Pakistan. It is worth mentioning that the Pakistani soldiers infiltrated in the guise of Kashmiri militants — documents left behind by casualties prove this.
It was a war between two sides —Pakistan on one side with a concrete plan, and India on the other, facing an unanticipated contingency. Even though India was not fully ready to face the situation, the Indian Army which was supported by the Indian Air Force, recaptured a mainstream of the intruded areas on the Indian side of the LoC. Far along, bowing to international diplomatic antagonism, the Pakistani forces pulled out from the residual Indian settings along the LoC.
The interesting points of observation that could be drawn from the epic confrontation are Territorial Imperative battered with the Game Theory and Minimax approach. Let’s first get acquainted with the concepts.
Territorial Imperative
Usually, the term Territorial Imperative is used in the milieu of ‘total war.’ The Kargil War, which was fought for more than 60 days resulting in India’s victory, can be considered a mini ‘total war.’ The territorial imperative is the need to claim and defend a territory.
The initial situation in the Kargil War was to confront a condition wherein the Pakistani infiltrators occupied a sporadically inhabited region Kargil located in isolated valleys disjointed by some of the world’s uppermost mountains. To encounter such a situation, there was certainly a demand from the top brass of the Indian Army to execute great forward-thinking on top of numerous administrative and wartime strategies. There is no doubt that the Indian armed forces were effective in taking up such a challenge and defending our territories.
Game Theory
In the beginning, game theory spindles zero-sum games, in which one person’s gains result in losses for the other participants. Going back to India’s triumph in the Kargil War, our side achieved what a zero-sum game intends to do. What the Indian Armed Forces gained through their immaculate peace-time training resulted in the loss of the opposition. Also, sensible strategic communication played a key role in India’s triumph.
Minimax Approach
The Minimax approach is an administrative principle by which when offered with two conflicting strategies, by the use of logic, one should determine and use the strategy that will minimise the maximum losses that could occur.
Applying the minimax principle here, it is substantial that the Indian armed forces, by restraining themselves from making the situation more offensive, minimised the maximum losses that could have otherwise occurred. It was a strategic move that concerned India because the Kargil War was purely a startling upshot in India’s war history. While confronting a situation that is not estimated, going for offensive strategies will result in huge losses rather than paybacks. The Indian Armed Forces adopted a self-induced war strategy of restraint in keeping the war limited to the Kargil sector.
The Kargil War is a saga of resilient political, military and diplomatic engagements. To sum up, India’s victory in the Kargil War modestly reverberates, “The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war!”
