Indian Navy

Professional Ethics for the Armed Forces in War and Peace

This article looks at the current situation in the armed forces, which has been in the news for all wrong reasons recently. The author undertakes an analysis of the causes of this state of affairs and suggests that the armed forces, which were well known for their ethics and code of conduct, need to review the situation and take radical steps to ensure a return to their ethics, values and traditions.

Ethics and Military Leadership

‘Ethics’ derived from the Greek word ‘Ethicos’, means character or manners and guide actions thereby becoming a ‘normative discipline’. Military Ethics applies to a specialized realm and has developed principles appropriate to it over time to help guide future operations. The armed forces must be always ethically led to uphold the defence of the nation and its national interests. Ethical leadership embodying the ideals of the profession of arms entails creating ethical command climates that set the conditions for positive outcomes and ethical behaviour.

Needed: A Better Appraisal System for Better Leaders

There has been a palpable decline in the standards of morals, ethics and values as observed by officers in the armed forces and the bond between officers and men has weakened. This could be because officers with the requisite qualities are not adequately groomed to rise to the level of battalion commanders. The present appraisal system is largely to blame, it being based on a single Annual Confidential Report. A further drawback is that only superior officers report on a ratee. Inputs for appraisal need to be drawn from multiple sources geared towards a ‘360 degree evaluation’.

‘Strength One’ on the Moral Highway

The erosion in moral values in the armed forces over the past few decades has left India’s political and military leadership bewildered and befuddled. No amount of preventive or curative measures appear to be succeeding in arresting this fall, as day after day dawns with news of fresh instances of impropriety and indecorum. This article attempts to examine the issues of morals and ethics as relevant to the profession of soldiering across the time continuum. It dwells further on the probable causes of the erosion of moral values and ethics in the Army.

Ethics and Morals in the Armed Forces: A Framework for Positive Action

Value systems form the spine of modern society, religion and every individual’s conscience with moral codes defining ‘appropriate’ and ‘expected’ activity. Ethics refer to an individual’s actions that are consistent with such value systems. While the former constitutes a basic human marker of right behaviour and conduct, the latter are a set of guidelines that define acceptable behaviour and practices for a certain group of individuals or society.

Naval Operations Analysis in the Indian Ocean Region A Review

The end of the Cold War resulted in a fundamental swing from a navy designed to engage a blue water battle fleet to one focused on forward operations in littoral waters. The Cold War era had fuelled massive research and development (R&D) in design of sonars that was able to substantially minimize the uncertainties of the underwater environment. The shift of the naval theatre to the littoral waters led to a paradigm change in terms of technology requirements to retain the effectiveness of these sonars.

Transformation of Indian Naval Aviation Post New Inductions

The need for credible surveillance over the high seas forms the bedrock and foundation of infallible maritime security, and Maritime Reconnaissance (MR) is the basic input for any successful maritime operation. For the last two decades, Indian naval aviation assets have been dependant on the Ilyushin (IL), the Tuplov (TU) aircraft, the Kamov (KM) 31 and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The Fleet Air Defence has also received a fillip by the induction of the MIG 29Ks.

Outcome Budgeting for Naval Dockyards

The Indian Navy (IN) has one Naval Dockyard (ND) each at Mumbai and Visakhapatnam and one Naval Ship Repair Yard (NSRY) each at Kochi, Port Blair and Karwar. The repair and refit requirements of IN ships and submarines are collectively met by the above mentioned repair agencies. NDs have the capacity and capability to handle Major Refits (MR). The Operational-cum-Refit cycle of each ship / class of ship is promulgated by IHQ MoD (N) from time to time.