In today&rsquo;s era, knowledge-driven decision-making is a prerequisite for success across all sectors, particularly in the sphere of national security, where hidden threats from adversaries can only be neutralised through Intelligence regarding their covert strategies and modus operandi.
Security, by definition, implies protection against unseen dangers from the enemy. Any overt military attack on the country would be repelled by our Defence Forces, who remain in a constant state of preparedness and benefit from their own Military Intelligence units monitoring early signs of hostile moves.
Intelligence is not ordinary information, it carries certain distinct attributes: it must be reliable, relevant to national security, forward-looking, timely, and confidential. As the saying goes: &ldquo;all Intelligence is information but all information is not Intelligence.&rdquo;
Our Intelligence agencies issue alerts only when they are fully convinced of the authenticity of the inputs. Intelligence essentially concerns &ldquo;what lies ahead&rdquo; and must arrive early enough to allow meaningful response. Its confidential nature grants the nation a &ldquo;secret edge&rdquo; over adversaries since the enemy should never know &ldquo;what you know.&rdquo;
Security collapses for three reasons: absence of Intelligence, failure in communicating Intelligence, or delays so significant that there is no time left for effective action. Sometimes, even when timely inputs are shared, failure to act leads to unfortunate consequences.
Intelligence is a scarce asset and must not be lost &ldquo;in transmission&rdquo; or dismissed as &ldquo;non-actionable&rdquo; merely because it is not highly specific. Even a broad alert about an impending danger provides sufficient scope for preventive measures, and the authorities must ensure all possible precautions are taken.
Since most nations have multiple Intelligence agencies, institutional mechanisms are essential to integrate their findings. In the US, the Director of National Intelligence performs this role, while in India, the National Security Council Secretariat under the National Security Advisor coordinates inputs at the apex level.
Security is constantly evolving. The office of NSA was created in 1998 during the Vajpayee government, followed in 2002 by the establishment of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) to coordinate among the Intelligence chiefs of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The Intelligence Bureau coordinates civilian inputs through the Multi-Agency Centre (MAC), which now extends its function to state-level Subsidiary Intelligence Bureaus (SIB).
India&rsquo;s gravest internal security challenge remains terrorism sponsored from across the border. Cross-border terrorism has kept Jammu &amp; Kashmir destabilised, compelling prolonged deployment of Army and central paramilitary forces.
Terrorism is best defined as the &ldquo;use of covert violence for a political cause.&rdquo; Without a cause, it degenerates into mere criminality. A cause fuels commitment, and commitment stems from motivation, whether ideological, as in Naxalism, or ethnic, as in the North-East insurgencies of the past.
In Kashmir, however, the motivation behind terrorism is faith-based, exploited by Pakistan&rsquo;s ISI to indoctrinate recruits under the banner of Jehad. This narrative has influenced not only the economically disadvantaged but also educated individuals.
Pakistan deliberately stoked communalism in the Valley, forcing the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s and, more recently, orchestrating the killing of 28 Hindu tourists in Pahalgam on April 22, aiming to ignite communal discord across India. In response, the Modi government authorised the Army to launch multiple retaliatory strikes against nine terror camps in PoK and along the Indo-Pak border, establishing a new doctrine: any future act of terrorism against India will be treated as an &ldquo;act of war.&rdquo;
Since the end of the Cold War, open conflicts have increasingly been replaced by &ldquo;proxy wars,&rdquo; with terrorism emerging as the preferred covert weapon. The anti-Soviet campaign in Afghanistan, waged under the banner of Jehad, was the first asymmetric war to defeat a superpower, forcing Soviet withdrawal. Since then, terrorism has proven to be a cost-effective substitute for conventional warfare.
Faith-driven terrorism today poses the gravest threat to global democracies. US President Donald Trump&rsquo;s strong denunciation of Islamic terrorism and his focus on China as an adversary have brought the US and India into greater strategic alignment, despite differences on trade and tariffs.
Following the Pahalgam attack, military tensions between India and Pakistan highlighted China&rsquo;s role as Pakistan&rsquo;s backer, providing both arms and technological support. India&rsquo;s proactive engagement in the Quad further strengthens its diplomatic leverage, ensuring Indo-US relations serve the interests of both nations, two of the world&rsquo;s largest democracies. While Trump&rsquo;s &ldquo;America First&rdquo; approach has created transactional challenges, India has managed to safeguard its interests while advancing global peace and security.
The significance of Intelligence-led operations becomes clear when the Army is deployed domestically for counter-terrorism, as in Kashmir. Intelligence serves three critical functions: it shapes the Army&rsquo;s orientation towards restraint in the use of force, it minimises collateral civilian damage by enabling targeted operations, and it supports the principle that the Army, even in conflict zones, is ultimately aiding civilian authority.
While the Army may develop its own sources, all Intelligence inputs must be consolidated for a coherent response. In Kashmir, strategic decisions are taken at the highest level under the Governor/Lt Governor, ensuring coordination across agencies and meeting operational demands.
At the national level, Intelligence is no longer a stand-alone activity, it is embedded in governance itself. By projecting &ldquo;what lies ahead,&rdquo; it highlights both threats to mitigate and opportunities to harness, guiding policy-making without dictating it, and allowing for necessary course corrections in a rapidly changing geopolitical and domestic landscape.
[Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by the Benefit News editorial team and is published directly from the IANS news feed]

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August 24, 2025 | 16:58 IST