A Year On

A full year has gone past since the horrific events of 26/11. Writing at that time, I wondered whether three months would be too long for India to adopt the hardline against the terror sponsors. We have complained loudly to all and sundry about the number of suspects still walking about freely or the number of terror training camps, their precise locations, the number of attempted border incursions, the upgrades weapons and communications technology, new tactics and all the statistics that can pave the way to decision lululand and back many times over. Frankly, no one is listening and I doubt if anyone gives a damn. I get the impression that this apparent "soft approach" has nothing to do with the maturity of the Indian polity or bureaucracy. It is more likely, that our decision makers have no clue how to wield the hard edge of state power in all its graded scalability beyond soft diplomacy. One often hears statements like "we cannot set deadlines for sovereign states to take a decision" or that "we are willing to wait until all the perpetrators are bought to book" or that "the due process of law should be allowed to take its course". Yes indeed, in a country where there are institutional frameworks that can enforce due process. Is that condition applicable here? Of course not! Yet, there has been little credible action beyond an attempt to pressurize. And of course, the parties involved in the Mumbai carnage, their financial infrastructure, the terror camps, and the infiltration go on. There is a sense of stupor and a feeling that we can do only so much and no more, induced by the fact that both the countries in the equation are nuclear weapon states and any attempt to escalate would result in a holocaust. Is that true? It appears again that, much like a duck, while we have a calm checkmate on the surface, there is vigorous paddling going on below. What if we reach a point where terror organizations possess nuclear weapons? What would we do then? Will we continue to maintain a similar reticent posture for the same reason?

26/11 - where are we today

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since the eventful days in November last year. India has been through a lot since - financial crisis, economic slowdown and inflation followed by the general elections, the run up in the stock markets, drought, swine flu, and a new tax code. Enough to distract attention away from all the failures that led to 26/11. Except for the occasional news about the trial of the lone surviving terrorist - Ajmal Amir Kasab - that appears in the news more for his frivilous antics than the seriousness of the crime perpetuated, it is as if the event never even occurred. Anything else to show that we have learnt some valuable lessons? New NSG hubs? Okay, except for the part that they will mobilize through Mumbai's notorious rush hour on BEST buses (and that's a noun, not an adjective - for those not familiar with Mumbai). There is also provision in its charter to requisition any form of transport - suburban trains, taxis, motorcycles, cars, buses, the Volvo service to Pune, private helicopters - and press it into service when needed. The Mumbai police have been modernised - Colt M4 5.56 mm carbines, MP9 subcompacts, Smith and Wesson 9mm pistols, M107 50-calibre SARs. Impressive. Now all that remains is to figure out how to use it.

Recently, I happened, quite by chance, on the attempt by a large hotel group, to find a suitable person to head the security organization of the entire chain. The process was an eye-opener. For starters, the requirement came up not in the aftermath of the 26/11 carnage, but after the bombing of the Pearl Intercontinental in Peshawar on 10 June 2009. The chain first hired a specialist in counter-terrorism from Europe to evaluate the security requirements. Based on the recommendations of this specialist, they were in the process of expanding the security infrastructure. The selection of a person to head this new organization appeared to be an afterthought. Repeated requests to the chain to send a written job specification yielded the following:

"...In this regard, we are looking for a very senior Defence Personnel in the rank of Brigadier and above, preferably a Lt General / Maj General to head the Security Operations for the group ..."

The specification went further to state:

Background, Education and Experience:

The candidate should have :

· A high status (in the Indian context)

· Served in the Security Forces – in a high ranking position

· Proven field experience

· Proven management experience

· Management capability

Personality Traits:

Ideally the candidate should demonstrate the following personality traits:

· Charisma

· Authority figure

· Flexible thinking

· A natural leader

· Assertive

· Good interpersonal skills

The two other conditions on the JD was that the candidate should be in the 40-45 years age group and be approved by two specified stakeholders.

I was appalled! Here was a hotel chain that had just been through one of the most horrific terrorist incidents that had ever been perpetuated in this country. And the job specification appeared to read more like a matrimonial than the description of a key role. Having had some counter terror experience myself, I offered to reevaluate the European security specialist recommendations within an Indian context, but I was told to stay off. I then tried to tell them that it would be difficult to find a Maj Gen or Lt Gen in the 40-45 years age bracket or even in the 50-55 years age bracket, stating that they would personally prefer to be on the board of directors of the company than at an executive level. Even that did not cut the ice. It appears, that even in the otherwise ingeneous private sector, there is very little we learn from a crisis of unimaginable proportions.

Life goes on. India's first nucleared powered submarine was launched with much fanfare and heralded as a significant milestone - even though it was not clear on whose roadmap! For about thirty years now, India has been blundering in the dark in its quest for a coherent nuclear doctrine. With its operationalization still at least two years away and its value as a component of credible deterrence at least a good eight to ten years away, it was difficult to see what all the fuss was about, at least from a national security strategy perspective. A lot of the other pieces of the great Indian nuclear deterrence jigsaw is still either on the drawing board or withering away in the grey cells of military greybeards the government appears unwilling or unable to recognize.

Then there was the great Baluch theatre of the incredulous - Pakistan's claim that India is the prime driver in a secessionist movement. And our prompt endorsement, at least on paper, of that possibility. Statesmanship? Blunder? Trust then verify? Verify then trust? Either way, I guess the jury is still out on that, at least for now.

There appeared an eloquent article, published on the website of an influential Chinese think-tank, that laid open at least the possibility of that country's ambition of creating multiple independent nation-states by dismembering India with the help of a bunch of friendlies - both external and internal. Do we just dismiss it as the rantings of an insignificant figure with a mindset stuck fifty years in the past? Or do our strategic honchos see a pattern emerging? How would China benefit if they are the only credible military and economic powerhouse in the region with the scale required to do business with the rest of the world on a sustainable basis? Food for thought.

And we have news of yet another North Korean ship wandering wide off the beaten track and caught this time, hiding in the waters off the Andaman and Nicobar Islands - the base of India's only military theatre command - where news has it, there is trouble brewing of the turf-war kind, but that's another story. The last time when one of these ships were intercepted they were carrying sugar, and some critical components for a few nuclear missiles. This time, they are carrying sugar. Only? Apparently. Given the political trouble in West Bengal and the Maoist movement in the neighbourhood, the captain sure has a lot of explaining to do. The last time we had some suspicious activity in this neighbourhood was in Dec 1995 when a Latvian AN-26 with a British-Russian crew did a low flight into Indian airspace to airdrop a few hundred AK-47s and a few million rounds of ammunition to friendlies below. While the court case dragged on for years, the weapons and ammunition disappeared. We will continue to watch this space.

Somewhere on Pakistan's western front, a missle fired from an US UAV blew the upper half of a very good Taliban person to bits while he was enjoying a few quiet moments with his second wife. The US could have waited until he finished. Talk about the mean Americans! This good man was what the Pak military called a "strategic asset" though well past its useful life. Then to add insult to injury, the succession planning meeting ended in a few less than desirable outcomes, leaving Pakistan to conduct an emergency review its inventory of strategic assets. This bellyache in Islamabad resulted in a headache in New Delhi, and caused the Indian Army Chief to comment on Pakistan's 'dichotomous policy' of appearing to fight terrorism on its western front while encouraging it on its eastern front. The statement by the chief however, did not cause any flutter across the road - the bureaucrats ignored it due to constraints of protocol, and the politicians were busy addressing concerns that they could get their heads around without putting their foot in their mouths.

Situation normal.

Life goes on!

100-day plan to take on terror

It is interesting that just days before the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, the PM called for a 100-day plan under a high-level central task force to develop an integrated mechanism to fight terrorism and naxalism on the lines of the Department of Homeland Security in the US. He was at that time addressing the 2-day annual conference of Police Chiefs organized by the Intelligence Bureau (IB). The main emphasis of the conference would be on sensitising different states on terrorism related aspects, challenges posed by cyber crimes and the need to have adequate security to ensure national security. The PM had explained the impact of globalization, not just on the financial system, but also on its influence in the realm of security in India. This alludes to the centralized institutional mechanism for coordination among different agencies and state police. With the country having experienced 64 terror attacks - Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Jaipur and Guwahati among others - in the past six months, the PM stated that "time is not on our side". There appeared to be some appreciation that the US model was not replicable in India except in concept and in specific areas such as an integrated system for information collection, analysis and dissemination. Not surprisingly, he also suggested that it was time to induct some executive level police personnel into the home ministry and induce a degree of field experience into police matters and policy formulation. A welcome change indeed!

Though that still leaves the question open, of when the bureaucrats running the Defence Ministry will feel the need to induct senior executives from the military for strategy and policy formulation on defence matters. After that we still have the question of when - with the merging external and internal threat domains - a greater level of integration of agencies - with their divergent strategies, disparate structures, inimical cultures, outdated processes and arcane systems - would result.

Terrorism Legislations Passed

The two bills related to terrorism, introduced by the UPA, was cleared by the parliament after all the opposition parties pledged to support the measures. These two pieces of legislation include:

- National Investigative Agency (NIA) Bill
- Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Ammendment Bill

The NIA Bill provides for setting up an agency at the Central level with powers to probe terrorism and other crimes having national ramifications. The agency will be established in a "concurrent jurisdictions" framework with provisions for taking up specific cases under specific Acts for investigation. It also envisages provisions for setting up of Special Courts to try terror-related cases. The agency will deal with all ramifications of terror including complex inter-state and international linkages and possible connections with other criminal activities such as drugs and arms smuggling, transfer and circulation of fake currency and infiltration across national boundaries. It also includes a schedule of acts covering offences against the state, terrorism, atomic energy, hijacking, WMD, etc, all of which are already in the federal ambit, creating a clear division of center-state agency responsibilites. This however, does not preclude agencies working together at different levels and at different times as required by a situation.

The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Ammendment Bill that seeks to ammend the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967 (UAPA), aims at strengthening the arrangements for speedy investigation, prosecution and trial of cases related to terrorism while at the same time guarding against any possible misuse of such provisions. The earlier ammendments to the UAPA to facilitate terror related investigation do not take into consideration various new facets of terrorism and terrorist activities including financing of terrorism, recruiting persons for terrorist acts and for organizing camps to impart training in terrorism.

The idea of a federal agency to deal with grave offences which have interstate or nationwide ramifications had been mooted in the Parliament in 2001. It has taken several terrorist attacks, three different committee reports and seven years since to pass the bill to constitute the NIA. Though a small step in the right direction, these focus on investigation and prosecution AFTER the acts of terror are committed - an element of PURSUE. There is no word yet on the other three aspects of countering terror - PREPARE, PREVENT or PROTECT - especially the mechanism to integrate the functioning of various existing agencies at the center and from the central level, down to the regional and local levels. The recent ruling by the Bombay High Court to constitute an interim committee headed by a retired supreme court judge to recommend measures to the government with a view to prevent recurrence of last month's terror attacks in the city is significant as for the first time, it includes, besides officials from the police, bureaucracy and the judiciary, eminent citizens from different walks of life in Mumbai. Whether other cities follow the precedence set by Mumbai is yet to be seen. What is however apparent is the fact that citizens councils will increasingly provide a way for capable individuals to participate and contribute to the finding solutions to challenges facing society and to hold those in elected office accountable for their actions.

Global Response to Terror: UK

The UK has had a history of terrorist attacks as a fallout of the long running problems in Northern Ireland. However the current threat is primarily from radicalised individuals who are using a distorted and unrepresentative version of the Islamic faith to justify voilence. The UK government has assessed the threat from such "Islamic terrorism" to be serious, sustained and geniunely international in scope, involving a variety of groups, networks and individuals who are driven by particular violent and extremist beliefs. In response the UK put in place a long term strategy to counter international terrorism (CONTEST) which aims to "reduce the risk from international terrorism so that people can go about their daily lives freely and with confidence". The strategy is divided into four principal strands:

• PREVENT - prevent terrorism by tackling the radicalization of individuals, by tackling disadvantage (inequalities, discrimination), supporting reform, changing the environment in which these elements operate and challenging ideologies that justify use of violence.
• PURSUE - pursue terrorists and those that sponsor them including gathering intelligence, disrupting terrorist activity, strengthening legal framework and working with partners to strengthen different areas of international cooperation.
• PROTECT - protect the public, key national services and UK interests overseas including strengthening border security, protecting key utilities, working with the private sector, reducing risk and impact of attacks on transportation and in crowded places.
• PREPARE - preparing for the consequences including identifying potential risk and assessing their impact, building capabilities to respond and continually evaluating and testing preparedness.

Subsequent to the terrorist attacks in London on 07 July 2005, the government has worked with others to strengthen and deepen the counter-terrorism effort. On 05 Aug 2005 the British Prime Minister set out a 12-point action plan principally focused on strengthening powers to tackle those committed to facilitating and promoting terrorism and on strengthening community integration.

GBP 775 million was made available following the 9/11 attacks to provide additional resources to respond to terrorist events and in support of the delivery of the counter-terrorism strategy, including increasing the funding and capacity of security and intelligence services and the police. By 2008, annual spending on counter-terrorism, intelligence and resilience will reach GBP 2 billion.

The Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS) in the Cabinet Office coordinates the UK governments work to enhance the country's resilience to the full range of emergencies. The CCS coordinates the work of the Government departments who are responsible for contingency planning and response within their areas.

A horizon-scanning and national risk assessment capability has been established in central government to spot trouble in advance and ensure long term preparedness. The horizon scans and risk assessments issued by the Domestic Horizon Scanning Committee serve to give the Government Department and others a heads-up on approaching potential disruptive challenges up to 12 months ahead, and a common understanding of the likely nature and extent of the impacts. This operates in harness with a national risk assessment framework, which identifies over a five year period and forms the basis for decisions about emergency preparedness and about capabilities planning.

The UK is one of the pioneers in coordinated risk management for emergencies. The World Economic Forum (WEF) report on "Global Risks 2008" recognized UK's National Risk Assessment as the keystone for national risk management. Publication of the National Risk Register (see http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/) will mean that UK will meet most of the five principles of country risk management established by the WEFs Global Risk Network as outlined below:

• Accountability: the need for accountabilityof risk assessment as a condition of the legitimacy of the assessment as a basis for concerted government action both within and across departments of government
• Integrated Assessment: establishing common procedures across government departments to assess risks reduces the changes of exaggeration of the risks and understatement of the more positive aspects of risks
• Devolved Implementation: integrated assessment of the risks should not imply centralised implementation of risk management and mitigation
• Seperation of analysis and policy: analysis is best kept within a seperate structure from policy implementation, to prevent pressures from policy makers from impinging upon the independence of the analysis
• Disclosure and transparency (if possible): the Global Risk Network recognises that Governments are caught between pressure to disclose risk assessments and the need to keep some assessments confidential so as to avoid panic, protect sources, and maintain resilience. But it considers that disclosure is to be preferred to avoid a situation in which incomplete or inaccurate information causes a popular reaction that may be worse than the risk itself.

The Capabilities Program is the core framework through which the Government is seeking to build resilience across all parts of the UK. The program identifies the generic capabilities that underpin the UK's resilience to disruptive challenges and ensures that each of these are developed. These capabilities include dealing with mass casualties and fatalities, response to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incidents, provision of essential services and warning and informing the public. Some components of the capabilities relate to the activities of central government, such as central crisis management faciliteis or the use of the Armed Forces. Other components are delivered by regional or local responders, but developed within the framework established at the center by the capabilities programme to ensure consistency and high standards. The program consists of a total of 19 capability workstreams which in turn fall into three groups:

• three workstreams which are essentially structural, dealing respectively with the central, regional and local response capabilities
• five which are concerned with the maintenance of essential services: food and water, transport, health services, financial services and utilities
• ten functional workstreams, dealing respectively with the assessment of risks and consequences, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) resilience, site clearence, infectious diseases (human), infectious diseases (animal and plant), mass casualties, evacuation and shelter, warning and informing the public, mass fatalities, humanitarian assistance, flooding and recovery.

Each of these workstreams is the responsibility of a designated lead department. Within each lead department, a workstream leader at senior civil service (SCS) level is responsible for the management of a program of work set out in a delivery plan agreed with Ministers and with the civil contingencies secretariat (CCS) at the center. Within the Cabinet Office, an SCS-level program director reporting to the Director of Civil Contingencies is responsible for the management of the program as a whole, on behalf of the Permanent Secretary, Intelligence, Security and Resilience. The program director holds quarterly meetings of workstream leaders (the program management team) and provides quarterly report of progress to the committee on Domestic and International Terrorism - TIDO(SD)(PREPARE) - the official committee on UK resilience chaired by the Permanent Secretary, Intelligence, Security and Resilience. Ministerial oversight of the program is exercised through Defence and Overseas Policy - DOP (IT)(PSR) -committee, the Ministerial committee on UK resilience chaired by the Home Secretary. Leaders of the ten workstreams have responsibility for developing capability at the national level. The well-established regional resilience teams in each of the Government Offices for the Regions are responsible for coordinating activity at the local (local authority or police force) area, and for communications between workstream leaders at the national level on the one hand and the local authorities and first responders on the other. Responsibilities at the local level have been formalised through the provisions of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, and through regulations and guidance issued after the Act passed into law. The program has no defined end-point or outcome. An important part of the work is to continually identify, challenge and monitor the current levels of resilience in each of the areas covered by the workstreams. This enables Ministers to decide what increased levels of resilience they wish to acheive in each area and then to plan and if necessary to allocate additional resources to acheive that increased level of resilience.

Integrated emergency management (IEM) comprises six related activities: anticipation, assessment, prevention, preparation, response and recovery. The first four of these relate to pre-emergency elements of IEM while the last two can be described as the post-emergency elements of IEM.

Responding agencies at the local level include Police Services, Fire and Rescue Services, Health Bodies, Coroner, Local Authorities, Government Agencies and other NDPBs, the Armed Forces, private sector, voluntary sector and the community. It is interesting to note that the UK authorities understand that the Armed Forces maintains no standing forces for Military Aid to Civil Authorities (MACA) and hence cannot make a committment that guarantees assistance to meet specific emergencies, that the armed forces should be called upon only as a last resort, and responding agencies should not base plans upon assumptions of military assistance. There is a distinction between the defence of the UK against military threats and UK civil protection as established in statute by the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. All military operations undertaken within the UK fall under the generic title of "UK Operations". This designation includes the Defence contribution to resilience, which is provided at the specific request of the civil authorities, is subject to civil primacy and requires the authorization of the Defence Minister.

For management and coordination of local operations, there is an agreed national framework for managing the local multi-agency response to, and recovery from, emergencies - the bronze or operational level, the silver or tactical level and gold or strategic level. Tactical command will be done from an established incident control point near the scene of emergency and will address issues such as the setting up of an outer cordon and the location of key functions or facilities such as a survivor assembly point, casualty clearing station and media liaison point. While the generic framework is designed to be flexible enough to be used to manage a wide range of emergencies.

There is also special provision for communicating with the public and for media management incorporated into contingency planning. First of all, there is the Media Emergency Forum (MEF) that have been working with the media to establish arrangements to ensure the delivery of information to the public in an emergency. A protocol for the delivery of urgent public safety information has also been agreed with national broadcasters. As an emergency develops, there will be a requirement for a more comprehensive media response structure to ensure consistency in the information provided at all levels of the response. The Cabinet office communication group may activate the news coordination center (NCC). The NCC supports the LGD in their communications management of the overall incident.

The UK government considers investment in counter-terrorism and resilience to be a priority and this has been reflected in the resources which have been made available both to respond to terrorist events and in support of the delivery of the counter-terrorism strategy. As the knowledge of the effectiveness of counter-terrorism capabilities increased and as new threats and opportunities have emerged, the government has allocated further resources to this area to enable increased capacity. Since a lot of the Indian central, state and local structures and policies have their origins in British India, the UK's response to terrorism holds a wealth of information that can provide guidance to establishing the new institutional framework for countering terrorism.

Global Response to Terror: EU

In her treatise titled "EU Strategy on Counter-Terrorism - Steps towards a coherent network policy" Annegret Bendiek of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs writes about the difficulties in realising the harmonisation of member state policies against terror into a unified EU Counter-Terrorism strategy, adopted by the European Council in December 2005. The strategy reflects the EU's aim of forming a network of the member states foreign and domestic policies in the fight against terrorism. The accompanying action plan on combating terrorism contains 160 separate measures in the four strands of work of the EU strategy (prevent, protect, pursue and respond). The main objective of this EU policy is to confront "the network of terror with networks against terror". The scale of attacks in Madrid, London and a series of disrupted plots across the EU were not profound enough to resolve coherence issues plaguing the EU level policy harmonization across member states, but it has definitely become a catalyst for increased levels of cooperation and coordination among them. Soon after 9/11 the Heads of State and Government declared their intention of making the fight against terrorism a foremost priority of the EU. This intention was emphasised in the adoption of a comprehensive 64 point "Plan of Action on Combating Terrorism". The plan of action, within the framework of the CFSP (Common Foreign and Security Policy), was aimed at enhancing police and judicial cooperation, putting an end to the funding of terrorism and improving air security. At the Extraordinary Summit in Sept 2001, the European Council found military retaliation by the USA against any states abetting, supporting or harbouring terrorists to be generally legitimate on the basis of UN Resolution 1368. However there was no consensus for a common EU position on the issue of when and under which circumstances "prevention" needs to be enforced through military means in combating international terrorism. In the aftermath of the London bombings of June 2005, the member states agreed to accelerate the implementation of the action plan on combating terrorism which at that point, read more like a list of deficiencies.

Fundamentally however, the strategic committment boiled down to "combatting terrorism globally while respecting human rights". The four functional streams that emerged were (a) PREVENT, dealing with factors or root causes leading to radicalization and recruitment, (b) PROTECT, to ensure safety of citizens and infrastructure while reducing vulnerability, (c) PURSUE investigation globally, impede planning, travel and communication, disrupt support networks, cut off funding and access to weapons and other implements and bring all terror network stakeholders to justice and (d) RESPOND, by ensuring adequate levels of preparation, manage and minimize the consequences of an attack, improve response capabilities including dealing with the aftermath i.e., coordination of response and the needs of the victims.

Overall, this makes for an interesting case study of how different countries can come together to combat the menace of terrorism through an institutional framework. This is however, a long term approach requiring high levels of mutual trust, understanding and funding, and there is always the danger of gold-plating specifications and over-bureaucratization.

Institutional Framework: Institutions

In his book "Power and Governance in a Partially Globalized World", Robert O Keohane says that institutions arise, according to institutional theory, largely because of uncertainty, which generates a need for information. In this specific case of countering terror, India lies at the center of a region in turmoil. With Pakistan to the west a failing nuclear weapons state with a single point agenda, and China to the North, an emerging economic and military superpower, Burma in the North East Bangla Desh to the East and Sri Lanka to the South - our uncertainty lies in not having information about the other states intention and likely choices.Keohane states that since choosing a strategy depends not merely on what a state wants but also on what it believes other states seek, uncertainty can be a very significant problem in security relations. That governments therefore find it worthwhile to invest in information that will enable them to design strategies that are appropriate to their environments. And one way of investing in information is to create institutions that provide it. Institutions can serve as the informational and signalling mechanisms that enable states to get more information about the interests, preferences, intentions and security strategies of other states. They reduce uncertainty by providing credible information. Furthermore, successful institutions may regularize the behaviour of the states belonging to them, making it more predictable and decreasing uncertainty. Hence, if it is rational for states to invest in information, they may also invest in institutions that reduce uncertainty. India as one of the largest (only after China) countries in the region definitely should play a leading role in initiating such institutions. The mechanism of bilateral talks that has been the precedent over so many decades has brought very little in terms of institutionalization. On the other hand, countries like the United States have the power to influence the way others see the world. Much of this soft power is exercised through international institutions ranging from the IMF to NATO. The mere ability to provide credible information to others is a source of influence. Keohane goes on to say that since uncertainty is high in world politics, the credibility of a state's own threats and promises becomes a factor in its ability to exercise influence over the behaviour of others.

But what if the degree of mutual distrust, as has been in the case of India and Pakistan, is still so high, that it does not provide an environment for creation of such institutions? Compounding the problem is also the fact that there are, as someone pointed out recently, there are many Pakistans and it is difficult to gauge who actually you are engaging, putting into question, the sustainability of any such engagement.

The alternative, for the moment at least, is an unified prevention, protection, response and recovery system. Some of the key elements of this system would be an ubiquitous intelligence web, fully integrated with the executive, law enforcement, investigative elements, response units, civil defence and presumably, the criminal justice system, fire and ambulance services, hospitals, private sector representatives and citizen councils among others - essentially, all stakeholders in the response network. The role of private security organizations would need to be reviewed as these provide for custom security requirements of the private sector over and above that given by the federal and state systems. Information is key. Integrated collection and processing web upstream connects seamlessly to a downstream distribution web through the collation and analysis nodes with each stage of the interchange having its in-built governance mechanisms.

The good news is that all the elements needed for such an institution exist today. What is missing is only the integrated institutional framework.

To integrate the existing elements into a unified framework, some understanding of institutionalization is necessary. Institutionalization can be measured along three dimensions: commonality, specificity and differentiation. Commonality refers to the degree to which expectations about appropriate behaviour are shared by stakeholders. Specificity refers to the degree to which specific and enduring rules exist, governing the practices of officials, the obligation of related organizations and legitimate procedures for changing collective policy. Functional differentiation refers to the extent to which the institution assigns different roles to different members. In the absence of visionary and strong leadership, this exercise would, yet again, deteriorate into another bureaucracy within a bureaucracy.

The national strategy for this initiative could be defined as a national effort to (a) prevent terrorist attacks within India (b) reduce India's vulnerability to terrorism (c) minimize the damage and (d) recover from attacks that do occur. This definition should help the government more effectively administer, fund and coordinate activities both inside and outside the proposed new structure and ensure all parties are focused on the same goals and objectives. The initial challenges of the leadership role would entail (a) establishing a leadership structure for national security (b) defining the roles of different levels of government (c) developing performance goals and measures and (d) deploying appropriate tools to best acheive and sustain national goals. The structure would integrate existing organizations, many of which are already entrenched within a ministry or the cabinet secretariat, from a federal level down to the jurisdiction of well over 10,000 police stations across the country. Acheiving national preparedness and response goals hinges on the central government's ability to form effective partnerships with state and local entities. Decision makers will have to balance the national interest of preventiona nd preparedness with the unique needs and interests of local communities. A 'one-size-fits-all' approach will not serve to leverage the assets and capabilities that reside within state and local governments and the private sector. By working collectively with the state and local governments, the central government gains the resources and expertise of the people closest to the challenge. This is not entirely without risk. The state and local governments may not share the same priorities for use of federal funds. This divergence of priorities can result in state and local governments simply replacing their own previous levels of committment in these areas with the new federal resources. From the state and local perspective, engagement with central programs opens them up to potential central preemption and mandates. From the public perspective, partnerships if not clearly defined, risk blurring responsibility for the outcome of public programs.

Initiatives at all levels would also need accountability metrics in terms of a baseline set of goals and measures upon which to assess and improve many of its initiatives to prevent attacks, reduce the nation's vulnerability to attacks, or minimize the damage and recovering from attacks that do occur. Performance measures will need to be used to evaluate effectiveness of programs, alowing agencies to measure their progress make resource allocation decisions, and adjust priorities. As national strategy and related implementation plans evolve, clearer performance expectations will emerge. Given the need for a highly integrated approach to the security challenge, national performance goals and measures may best be developed in a collaborative way involving all levels of government and the private sector.

Assessing the capability of state and local governments to respond to catastrophic terror strikes is an important feature of the national strategy and the responsibilities of the new framework. The national strategy should recognize the importance of standards and performance measures in areas such as training, equipment and communications. For example, the national strategy may propose the establishment of national standards for emergency response training and preparedness. These standards would require certan coursework for individuals to receive and maintain certification as first responders and for state and local governments to receive central grants. The national strategy could establish simulation programs or exercises to educate and evaluate civilian response personnel at all levels of government. It would require individuals and government bodies to complete successfully at least one exercise every year. The new framework could use these exercises to measure performance and allocate future resources.

Communication and communication interoperability would be a key requirement across all levels where standards, protocols and processes would need to be developed. It would also require setting national standards for technology acquisition. Central grants can be tied with state and local government procurement of terrorism-related communication equipment to this communication plan.

The choice and design of policy tools to engage and involve all levels of government and the private sector will have important consequences for performance and accountability. Governments have a variety of policy tools including grants, regulations, tax incentives, and information sharing mechanisms to motivate or mandate other levels of government or the private sector to address security concerns. The choice of policy tools will affect sustainability fo efforts, accountability and flexibility, and targeting of resources. The design of central policy will play a vital role in determining success and ensuring that scarce funds are used to acheive critical national goals.

Bottomline, the focus would be on strategy, structure, culture, process and systems - the five elements of performance and organizational effectiveness.