Editorial Board Contents - Bureau of Police Research and ...

extremely expensive and time consuming.Unfortunately, even in areas where suchinitiatives were viable, we were not able toexploit them due to paucity of funds and lack offuturistic vision in organizational leadership. Thecoming up of the National Technical ResearchOrganisation (NTRO) is a welcome move but itsfunctioning so far does not inspire confidence. Itsfocus should be more on developing intelligencetechnological capabilities rather than gettinginvolved in intelligence production, for which itis least qualified.Revolution in informatics and emerging cyberthreats will constitute another area of challengefor the security agencies. The task of handlingmassive open data emanating from diversesources, both secret and classified, will makethe task of analysis quite difficult. Deliberateefforts to use the information highways fordisinformation, propaganda and subversion,will compound the problem. Of late, manyyouth in different parts of the world are beingsucked into the vortex of radicalism, withoutany physical contact. Concurrently, terroristand other anti-national forces are acquiringcapabilities to wage cyber wars, targeting criticalinfrastructure, intrusion in classified domains,damaging vital national data etc. The challengeis compounded by the fact that the perpetratorsare able to operate from unknown destinations,using inaccessible platforms, thousands of milesaway from Indian soil.Another futuristic challenge against which Indianintelligence will have to brace itself will be itscapacity and resilience to cope with challengesof Covert Action (CA) and the Fourth GenerationWarfare (4GW). The traditional use of militarypower to further a nation’s strategic, politicalor economic interests has been undergoing achange since the late eighties. This trend is goingto further consolidate in times ahead.With wars increasingly becoming cost-ineffectiveventures of unpredictable consequences, CovertAction will increasingly be used as a newvariant of ‘war through other means’, to achievestrategic and political objectives. Covert Action,is a deliberate state policy, directed against thetarget state manifesting itself in various formslike engineering political instability, causingsocial disruption, retarding economic progress,accentuating disaffection and unrest in civilsociety and manipulating media. In violent forms,it includes promoting terrorism and insurgencies,political assassinations, social disruption,sabotage, subversion etc. It is a low cost sustainableoffensive with high deniability, aimed to bleedthe enemy to submission. Moral pretensions andinternational laws notwithstanding, this optionhas been equally used by developed countrieslike USA, in Afghanistan against the Soviets andpoor countries like Pakistan against India inKashmir, Punjab etc. Unfortunately, the doctrineof ‘protecting supreme national interests throughall means’ has bypassed India.Conventionally, the causes, instrumentalities,resources and consequences of internal threats aredomestic, as against the external threats, in whichthey are of external origin. However, in the newdispensation, internal security has become highlyvulnerable to external manipulations. Hostilepowers target it to achieve their politico-strategicobjectives by internally bleeding the adversary,exploiting its internal faultlines. In Covert Action(CA) the planning, motivation, finances and oftenmanpower is of the sponsoring country and sois the strategic objective it is aimed to achieve.Today, in India, while conventional internal threatsinvolving violence are steadily on the decline,threats from externally sponsored covert actionhas gone up several notches. Though beleagueredfor nearly two decades, India has failed to developcapabilities and a viable national response to theCA threats, both at the strategic and tactical levels.Response has been episodal with short memories,often with time consistency not lasting beyond thenext election. CA is a threat against which Indianintelligence will have to develop capabilities,both in defensive and offensive-defense modes.Their role will assume added importance since inthis war intelligence agencies would be primary,if not the sole, players. Besides collection ofintelligence, the new role will necessitate proactiveand interventionist operational actions requiringadequate legal empowerment. Seen in thisperspective, opposition to the National CounterTerrorism Centre (NCTC) in India was ill-advised.Thus, both the internal and external adversarieswill try to achieve their political objectivesby coercing the Government through internal36The Indian Police Journal, October - December, 2012, Special Issue