India Security Threat Environment
The intelligence apparatus in India faces challenges on four main fronts (being the world largest democracy and that too in a region where there no other single stable democracy comes with a price):
1) There has been a sea change in the perception of what constitutes Indian "national space." The definition is much broader now and issues such as economics, media, and science that were for some time considered removed from the realm of intelligence targeting are now indivisible parts of it. At the very least concepts such as Economic-Warfare, Cyber-warfare, and Media-Offensive, etc... have served to increase intelligence targeting needs.
2) There is a change in the tenor of revisionist sentiment within the country. Revisionists today are able to use sophisticated resources to aggressively project their views. In some cases this leads to advanced forms of terrorism. It can also exacerbate the existing fissures and divisions in society i.e. caste, religion, ethnicity, and economic disparity. Intelligence agencies today are under a lot of pressure to predict and thus help contain revisionism.
3) The nature of organized crime has changed and its infiltration into society is growing. The merger of the local crime syndicates with narcotics distributors and arms smugglers has increased their destabilizing influence on society. This element often interacts with the elements mentioned in point 2, and produces extremely serious threats to national security. Intelligence targeting of these elusive and dangerous criminals is a difficult task especially as it involves crossing national borders.
4) Increased nuclear and missile technology proliferation to India's hostile neighbors has imposed more demanding requirements on all three aspects of intelligence targeting, i.e. collection, collation and dissemination. The need in this case to provide accurate and actionable intelligence assessments regarding these threats is paramount.
The [Kargil Review Committee] task force on Intelligence Apparatus raises such issues in the chapter titled `The role of intelligence in the changing security environment'. The changed environment clearly places great strain on the intelligence services, so severe are the demands that in the case of the Central Intelligence Bureau that the task force on Internal Security has gone so far as to recommend that the charter of the IB be re-written. It is also quite clear that an emphasis is needed on the use of technical means of handling intelligence and the task force on Intelligence Apparatus was asked to look into ways of merging TECHINT into the entire intelligence collection system.
Sources and Methods
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/india/threat/
Maintained by Steven Aftergood
Created by John Pike
Updated Sunday, May 24, 1998 7:46:48 AM