Miscalculated Papers: IPS officers Seriously Need Strategic Affairs and National Securtiy Lessons

This time DGPs/IGPs conference had an abnormal development, where academic papers on security and strategic affairs authored by IPS officers were taken down by the Government. The reasons are also quite comprehendible. The top security official said that the papers suffered from strategic deficiency and a narrow display of strategic application of mind by the IPS officers. Writing on security and strategic affairs requires an absolutely essential skill- 'Art of Long View" however with the quality of papers authored by IPS officers, either the skill is severely under fire or invisible. For instance, IPS officers were given the 'China theme' and its security implications. Some IPS officers in the quest to become 'analytical or critical' forgot to assess- International relations, India's strategic response to China, and most importantly failed to understand China.  The papers run on generic assessments and being generic while giving a strategic outlook or foresight will invite miscalculations. In one of the papers, one IPS officer argued on how China can use Bangladesh as a pawn or as a base against India via Indian policies such as CAA. However, the IPS officer made an error in his Bangla-China understanding. Sheikh Hasina is very clear when it comes to China, Hasina rejected China's request for docking its surveillance ship in August. "Though it can be argued that Hasina maintains relations with China but those are limited and will not give an adverse impact on India especially when Bangladesh is going into elections mode soon," a top security official said. "Instead, IPS officer should have argued on Myanmar where China exercises its maximum influence rather than fixating the threat matrix on Bangladesh". This shows that the paper went too extreme or too generic with an obvious miscalculation on part of the IPS officer. On the other hand, IPS officers argued mainly on threats and security issues but did not thoroughly discuss India's strategic response which to a certain extent already addresses the challenges which are discussed by these IPS officers. Top Intelligence establishments- Intelligence Bureau and Research Analysis Wing(R&AW) have a way better understanding than the normal IPS officers. Sources say that after this incident it appears that only IPS officers of R&AW and IB have a deep understanding of strategic and national security affairs. One top source in power corridors say that it is quite disturbing to see that academic papers are down as it shows an unsatisfactory understanding of the security landscape by IPS officers which will eventually become problematic to IPS officers in dealing with critical issues during their service" Sources add that Government must think on inculcating 'strategic and hardcore security culture' in IPS officers especially in their formative stages in NPA so that these IPS officers don't do miscalculations at responsible and serious places. Moreover, once strategic and hardcore security culture gets cultivated, the policing and other parameters will automatically see improvements as it increases one's calculative and strategic thinking capacity, top further add.