(This is an expanded version of a talk delivered at aseminar on "National Security--Internal and External Dimensions"jointly organised by the Association of Retired Senior Indian Police ServiceOfficers (ARSIPSO) and the India International Centre (IIC) at New Delhi onJanuary 15, 2005)
1. Does India have the national security mechanism it needs? What are theinherent strengths and weaknesses of the mechanism it has presently?What modifications are required to remove the weaknesses while at the same timepreserving and further adding to the strengths? What are the lessons which wecan learn from the mechanisms of other countries? These are some of thequestions that need attention in any debate on national security.
2. National security, which, in Israel, is treated as synonymous with nationalsurvival, has the following five major components--- diplomatic, military,internal security, economic and intelligence. These components are closelyinter-linked and even if one of them is weak, national security as a whole willbe correspondingly weakened. National security management is the art andtechnique of integrating these components and making them function in aco-ordinated, effective and harmonious manner in times of normalcy as well as intimes of crises.
3. The post-Second World War evolution of the concept of national securitymanagement has identified certain other sub-components, which need equalattention for preserving national security and well-being.These are riskmanagement, disruption control management, disaster mitigation and management, whether the disaster is natural (the recent Tsunami which struck Indonesia,Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Myanmar and the Maldives in the Asian region) orman-made (the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984), and consequence and nationalresilience management.
4. As unconventional threats to nation-States from non-State actors suchas insurgents and terrorists, trans-national criminals, narcotics smugglers,counterfeiters etc have increased, there has been a realisation that techniquesand tradecraft, which served us fairly adequately against predictable State adversaries, may not be adequate against often unpredictable non-Stateactors, and that new analytical tools are required to meet the new threats. Theold concept of threat analysis has been supplemented by risk analysis andvulnerability analysis. Lucid analysis---whether of threats, risks orvulnerabilities---is the starting point of effective national securitypolicy-making, implementation and co-ordination.
5. Al Qaeda's terrorist strikes of September 11,2001, in the US homeland hadimportant lessons not only for the US, but also for the rest of the world. Amongthese lessons, one could mention: