Blue Land has long standing territorial disputes with Red Land and Yellow Land over the past many decades. A highly infectious pandemic has broken out throughout the world and very soon effects were to be seen in Blue Land as well. On L Day, the Blue Land PM announced a nation-wide lockdown. By L plus 3 days, all rail, air and road traffic had come to a grinding halt on an as-is-where-is basis. Concurrently, the Blue Land Armed Forces got extensively engaged in Aid to Civil Authorities combating the pandemic.
On L plus 7 days, Red Land without any provocation, carried out ballistic missile strikes on ten major airports and fifteen Indian Railway loco sheds. Concurrently, with a massive cyber attack, mobile telephony and internet connections were impaired throughout Blue Land. On L plus 8 days, Red Land carried out several incursions all along the LoC and IB. All this while, Blue Land was facing the multidimensional challenges of mobilising, building up combat power in the unit and also protecting troops from the disease.
This can be the Opening Narrative of an Exercise / Tactical Discussion being conducted at the Staff College / War College / National Defence College in the near future or worse, an actual scenario when the next lockdown due to a pandemic takes place. While for many such an attack may sound unethical, this will be an opportunity for a revisionist country to alter the status quo. In the scenario painted above, it can be assumed that the aggressor’s Concept of Operations is to take advantage of an adverse humanitarian situation to launch an attack while simultaneously disallowing build up of combat power by own forces.
The Indian Army (IA) has over a period of time refined mobilisation drills to reduce time taken from a couple of months to a few days. This however has been based on the presumption that the Nation’s infrastructure is readily available for use by the Armed Forces – which is not the case during the current lockdown necessitated by the outbreak of COVID-19. It therefore becomes very important for IA to critically examine effects of the lockdown and its aftermath with particular emphasis on ensuring operational readiness. The IA should be able to mobilise even when resources, whose availability is otherwise taken for granted, are not available. Apart from this, it is also important to ensure that IA is shielded from the debilitating effects of a pandemic, particularly the highly contagious ones like COVID-19. This calls for analysis of the subject. However, it would be pertinent to first analyse what should be guiding the thought process during such a situation.
Availability of Manpower in IA. When not mobilised, about 35% of any unit’s manpower (approximately 3.5 to 4 lac IA personnel in all) is away from their base. This is primarily on account of leave with other reasons like courses, temporary duties et al adding to the tally. Units and formations have extensively practiced getting back these personnel from even the farthest part of the country within an acceptable time frame. These plans are however based on the premise that all means of transport viz Rail, Road and Air are available. If any adversary decides to attack India during such a crisis, there will be a situation where up to 40% of IA’s manpower to include a few Commanding Officers and some of the best JCOs/NCOs (detailed on courses) get ‘left out of the battle’. A deeper analysis will also reveal lopsided trade availability within units. So it will suffice to state that in the event of a suddenly announced lock down, over 1/3rd of IA’s manpower will be out of the unit. Furthermore, in case of a pandemic, troops on leave continuing to stay in civil areas will entail prolonged exposure to the pathogen. Therefore it is imperative that these personnel are brought back to the unit without wasting any time.
Indian Railways Infrastructure. There is no doubt that the Indian Railways (IR) will leave no stone unturned in making available all resources required by the IA to transport men and material. However, in case of a lockdown, IR too will be functioning in a different manner. On a normal day, IR resources are on the move across the country but during a lockdown, the coaches and wagons (rolling stock) would have been marshalled at various yards whereas the locomotives (electric and diesel) would be standing in various loco sheds throughout the country. In other words, IR resources are concentrated at locations which are not as protected as a military installation would be and therefore are susceptible to being attacked, particularly by missiles. In the event of the enemy striking the yards/sheds, IR would not be able to operate at the capacity desired by IA. In addition, the time lag between receipt of orders (to lift lockdown) to IR functioning on optimum capacity also needs to be factored in while planning rail move.
Commercial Air Transport Infrastructure. In India, there are six major airlines operating scheduled flights from over 100 airports (some of which are also IAF air bases) throughout the country. With a combined fleet size of over 600 aircraft and with an average seating capacity of 150 passengers per aircraft, almost 180,000 troops can be airlifted (assuming the entire fleet flying two flights per day). While the IAF would be doing most of the air lifting, IA should plan on utilising civil aircraft for mobilization / getting troops back. However, during a lockdown, these aircraft would have been parked at a handful of airports throughout the country. A missile strike at any of these airports (especially the hubs) will result in a large number of aircraft being destroyed thus making them unavailable to IA.
It therefore becomes evident from the above that while there is a requirement to build up manpower within IA units even during a lockdown, the means to do so are highly prone to disruption and possible destruction. Even after having brought the troops back to base, there is a telling requirement to protect them from the disease. This calls for fresh thinking on the subject wherein IA can be ready to be launched into operations even when the Nation is reeling under a pandemic (which may be man-made, if certain reports pertaining to outbreak and spread of COVID-19 in sections of the media are true). For being a viable fighting force during a pandemic like COVID-19, IA should aim to address two issues which are :-
- Building up manpower in the shortest possible time frame.
- Force Preservation.
Building up Manpower. This should be the most important thing to be done whenever a lockdown has been announced. One may say that IA should cancel leave/courses at the slightest indication of a pandemic however this is fraught with the risk of ‘false alarms’ upsetting leave and training plans. Troops need to be brought back to bases by the fastest means only once the pandemic has been confirmed. But getting back 3.5 to 4 lac troops hailing from every part of the country is no mean task. For this, IA will have to team up with State Governments and Central Ministries to include Railways, Civil Aviation, Surface Transport, Information & Broadcasting et al. One suggested model is to direct troops to reach the Administrative Division HQ of their leave station from where trains/aircraft as available is used to ferry them back. The District Administration will facilitate intra district move. Of the 102 Administrative Division HQs of India, all barring few are served by IR and many have both – a railway station and an airport. The relevant branch at the IHQ of MoD (Army) needs to maintain a real time location state of troops who are away from their units to that the information is used to plan movement in conjunction with the Movement Control Organisation detachments spread across the country. For this, IA should leverage the ARMAAN App, wherein every person moving out moves with an electronic Leave Certificate/Movement Order which will update the individual’s location on the Central Server. Alternatively, the soldier can share his/her location on receiving a message through the app. When such a movement plan is put to effect at the earliest, it will ensure that troops are out of harm’s way even if the pandemic assumes alarming proportions. Apart from this, the Ministries of Railways and Civil Aviation also need to be impressed upon to distribute resources around the country so that strike(s) by the enemy don’t prove to be debilitating.
Force Preservation. It needs no emphasis that troops be protected from the effects of the pandemic at all times. This has been more than stressed upon by IA leadership at all levels. IA, by the very nature of its work, is constrained to live and work in closed groups. Any contagious pathogen, having found its way into a soldier, will not take much time to spread across the military installation. The recent example of USS Theodore Roosevelt becoming non operational due to COVID-19 is a stark reminder of such a possibility. Therefore, getting back troops to the base is the first part of the task. On arrival, troops need to be expeditiously tested for the pathogen and all those infected need to be given medical intervention. Thereafter, exposure of troops to the outside world needs to be curbed through quarantine. In India, the National and State Disaster Management Authorities, since inception in 2005, have progressively built capabilities to face challenges thrown up by a pandemic. This should free up IA so that it can orient itself to carry out its mandated task. The Government should ensure that the National and State Disaster Management Authorities independently handle the effects of any pandemic without having to take help of the Armed Forces. Lateral entry of ex-servicemen into various Disaster Management organisations will be a step in the right direction towards augmenting these institutions.
Preparation for a pandemic has to start much before it actually strikes. This time, IA like other peer armies, has handled the challenges as they came, without much forewarning. The next time around, IA should learn its lessons and be prepared. While issues mentioned in the paragraphs above need to be addressed, IA also needs to take a fresh look on how troops are quartered. One of the biggest challenges faced by Commanders at all levels during the COVID-19 crisis is ensuring proper social distancing in the lines. At present, the Other Than Married (OTM) accommodation scales preclude adequate social distancing. Nostalgia of the old long barracks notwithstanding, IA should now aim to ensure that not more than six persons are housed in a room which also includes the associated sanitation arrangements. The KLP matrices should be reworked accordingly. In addition, the layout of old Cantonments should be such that the military portion is completely segregated from the civil portion. This will involve a lot of building and rebuilding but in the long run, the gains will more than compensate for the effort and money put in.
The outbreak of COVID-19 is a watershed moment. It is perhaps for the first time in living memory that a large part of the world has been locked down. Even the next time, it would be naive to assume that humanitarian considerations will stop a revisionist adversary from waging war. While a lot has been written about ‘fighting dirty’, it’s about time that fighting during pandemics also be added to the list of ‘dirty wars’. IA should take note of what Helen Branswell who writes about infectious disease posted on Twitter on 09 April 2020 – “The timing of pandemics is unknowable. The inevitability of pandemics is very much knowable. Pandemic preparedness is just a very smart investment. And it’s a lesson we keep not learning.” (sic)
(The views expressed and suggestions made in the article are solely of the author in his personal capacity and do not have any official endorsement. Attribution of the contents lies purely with the author. This article was written during the 21 Day Lockdown and issues pertaining to civil departments have been culled from open sources)
