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{"source_url": "https://web.archive.org", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201029101508id_/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/strategic-insights/why-merit-alone-should-triumph-in-the-armed-forces/", "title": "Why merit alone should triumph in the armed forces", "top_image": "https://static.toiimg.com/imagenext/toiblogs/photo/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/unnamed.jpg", "meta_img": "https://static.toiimg.com/imagenext/toiblogs/photo/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/unnamed.jpg", "images": ["https://static.toiimg.com/imagenext/toiblogs/photo/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/unnamed-37x52.jpg", "https://static.toiimg.com/imagenext/toiblogs/photo/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/default2.jpg", "https://static.toiimg.com/imagenext/toiblogs/photo/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Capture-4-50x52.jpg", "https://mytimes.indiatimes.com/image/thumb/2/136371", "https://static.toiimg.com/photo/5848326.cms", "https://static.toiimg.com/imagenext/toiblogs/photo/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/unnamed.jpg", "https://static.toiimg.com/photo/21704451.cms", "https://static.toiimg.com/imagenext/toiblogs/photo/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Chen-Shih-chung-52x50.jpg", "https://mytimes.indiatimes.com/image/thumb/0/default", "https://static.toiimg.com/photo/5552682.cms", "https://static.toiimg.com/photo/75433513.cms"], "movies": [], "text": "In the final analysis, when all is said and done, merit alone triumphs. Ultimately it was PM Modi who was responsible for Balakot, so the people of India reposed their faith in him once again.\n\nI am not going into the merits or the demerits of having a chief of defence staff (CDS) position. The PM in his eternal wisdom has decided that there will be a CDS. So be it.\n\nLet\u2019s return to the question of merit. Who in the defence forces has been responsible for Balakot, India\u2019s greatest military triumph since 1971. I am ignoring Kargil here because I don\u2019t really regard it as a victory, no matter the spin given to it. In Kargil, intruders entered our house, and we utilized military and diplomatic means to push them out. What kind of victory was that?\n\nIn Balakot, the air force coordinated with the navy to give the enemy a stunning riposte. The navy blockaded Karachi port making the enemy believe that an attack was imminent from there, while the air force utilized the feint to knock out Balakot. There was great coordination between the air force and the navy. The army seemed to have been an alert bystander.\n\nMilitary credit for Balakot should, therefore, go to Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa as well as Admiral Sunil Lamba, who headed the air force and navy respectively at the time of Balakot. Both are recently retired officers now but that should not have stopped any of them from being made the CDS, because their ages are well below the retirement age of the CDS, which is 65.\n\nIn such a high-profile role as the CDS, the military will respect only someone with outstanding merit, someone who has shown exemplary success in his military career. The three five-star officers, Cariappa, Manekshaw, and Arjan Singh would have all made outstanding CDSs. Some might even consider Sundarji, dubbed the thinking general, as apt for the role, but Sundarji could have fallen into Bonapartism.\n\nCertainly, he took the surprise to the Pakistanis (and some say even to his own PM Rajiv Gandhi) with his aggressive tactics in Operation Brasstacks, but it was his teaming up with the then-minister of state for defence, Arun Singh, to coerce Gandhi to send the Indian Peace Keeping Force to Sri Lanka that stained his legacy.\n\nGeneral Bipin Rawat has become the first CDS of the country. My heartiest congratulations to him. In his capacity of the army chief, General Rawat had spoken out against the recent countrywide protests, which statement drew sharp ripostes from politicians, especially P. Chidambaram.\n\nWhen the government made General Rawat the army chief, it superseded two generals more senior than him. More recently, it made Admiral Karambir Singh the navy chief by superseding a naval officer six months senior than him. In both instances, the government stated that merit, and not just seniority, should decide who becomes a service chief, effectively bucking the trend of governments of the recent past who tended to stick to the seniority principle.\n\nGeneral Rawat has had a full three-year term as army chief. He has managed the counter-insurgency in Kashmir relatively well, but is there a signal military success that can be attributed to him? He has been voluble in the media, but is that necessarily a good thing?\n\nHe is perceived as close to the national security adviser (NSA), Ajit Doval. That actually is a good thing now that he has become CDS. But the post of NSA itself is new, starting only with the Vajpayee regime. The NSA heads the national security council, of whose part all three services chiefs are, so in effect, there is already an overall boss of the military, albeit a civilian. Now with the CDS, another layer is being added.\n\nThe CDS will have to earn the respect of the entire military. The military only respects those who have succeeded in battle, not those who interfere in civilian affairs, even if delicately. The recent military officers who have seen signal success are the aforementioned Dhanoa and Lamba. The government should have brought one of them from the cold and made him the CDS.\n\nThe army is by far the biggest defence service and has therefore dominated the overall military. Having a Dhanoa from the air force or a Lamba from the navy as CDS would have redressed the balance in favour of the smaller services.", "keywords": [], "meta_keywords": ["India blog", "politics blog", "Sunil Sharan blog", "Strategic Insights blog"], "tags": ["modi", "narendra-modi", "china", "Featured ET", "arun-jaitley", "supreme-court", "featuredet", "bollywood", "pakistan", "Facebook", "congress", "rbi", "us", "india", "featured", "delhi", "Sunny Leone Photos", "You Tube", "rahul-gandhi", "economy", "gst", "gdp", "arvind-kejriwal", "bjp", "aap", "demonetisation", "donald-trump", "cricket"], "authors": ["Sunil Sharan"], "publish_date": "Wed Jan 1 00:00:00 2020", "summary": "", "article_html": "", "meta_description": "In the final analysis, when all is said and done, merit alone triumphs. 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