Defence Planning : Problems and Prospects

Contents: Preface. 1. Defence planning: an introduction/R.K. Mishra. 2. Defence planning in India/V.P. Malik. 3. Changing nature of warfare/Gurmeet Kanwal. 4. Defence budget and the planning process/T.R. Sivasubramanian. 5. Defence procurement/Yogendra Narain. 6. Defence procurement process: bottlenecks and solutions/H.S. Sehgal. 7. Higher direction of war in the future/Kapil Kak. 8. Integrated Tri service perspective planning/B.M. Kapur. 9. Transforming the army for the future/V.K. Kapoor. 10. Defence planning : maritime dimensions/R.B. Suri. 11. A Navy for 2020/P.S. Das. 12. Emerging contours of air power in Southern Asia/Jasjit Singh. 13. Defence and political interface: a commentary/Shankar Roychowdhury. 14. Defence planning in India: concluding observations/V.P. Malik and Gurmeet Kanwal. Index.

"Defence planning has been neglected for long in India. This has led to ad-hocism in decision-making and adversely affected the modernization plans of the services. This volume brings out in detail the inadequacies in our planning process: the lack of a cohesive national security strategy/defence policy and inadequate coordination of defence planning and economic development. Long term perspective planning is still a sum total of respective service plans. Also, in the absence of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) there is a lack of inter-services prioritization.

The key issues needing immediate attention include the need for formal prior approval for five-year defence plans, better management of the defence revenue and capital acquisition budgets, streamlining the defence procurement process and better human resource management.

The chapters, written by renowned defence professionals, including two former chiefs, comprehensively and critically examine the issues involved in the defence planning process and make a number of recommendations for policy planners in India." (jacket)