Budgeting India’s Military Modernisation with Myopia
March 2, 2011 by Team SAISA
Filed under Modernising The Military
Armed Forces are not meant to parade on the Raj Path on Republic Day displaying their might to impress the domestic and international audience. They are the vital instrument of implementing a nation’s will both in peace and war. To this end, the nation’s military represents the ultimate and final arbiter in projecting “National Will”. This calls for planned growth over the years based on a sound modernisation plan. This is a must to ensure that the forces retain their edge and win India‘s wars and serve as a credible deterrence during peace.
It can be proved without doubt that India’s past two wars of 1965 and 1971 were actually two front wars with China managing to tie down India forces by its pro Pakistan stance. This relation ship has only grown stronger over the years. Add to this Chinese theory of “String of Pearls“ and the picture is complete.
A country which faces threats on a two and a half fronts cannot but strengthen this instrument of state’s Comprehensive National Power. This, apart from keeping the military current and potent through tough training, requires pragmatic investments in its arming. Economics plays a crucial role here. When the potential adversaries are spending to the tune of $150 Billion on their militaries, the current Indian defence budget, which promises a mere Rs 60,000 crores for product acquisition, is grossly inadequate. If we study the numbers, we come to the conclusion that the capital budget of Rs 60,000 leaves only about one third or so for new acquisitions. The remainder being used to service the existing commitments.
For a nation with a periphery of contradictions, this is grossly inadequate. We want the military to be wired, lethal and light. This calls for right investments to be made across the three services to develop capability and threat based forces.
Our neighbours and potential adversaries merit a look here. As General Ashok Mehta comments, “If India-China relations are at the lowest today, China-Pakistan relations have climbed to new heights and there will be more than menacing sounds in the event of conflict. The speed of Chinese defence modernisation is in sharp contrast to India’s lethargic response. The PLA’s first aircraft carrier, Shi Lang, will take to sea four years ahead of schedule at the end of the year and five more will follow in a decade. China’s submarine fleet will reach 100 vessels in the next three to five years and its stealth fighter has been tested. A new anti-ship missile is also reported operational. Technology and fire power at the disposal of the PLA have grown fast and thanks to the Chinese economic miracle, the Defence Budget has been boosted five-fold in the last decade, touching nearly $90 billion though the actual figure could be as high as $150 billion. China has sent a general warning to keep off South China Sea, Taiwan and Tibet”.
Can India sharpen the Look East Policy to counter the String of Pearls? This would take the sheen off the string and enable India to concentrate on Public Diplomacy to meet its ends on this front. It will require a commitment borne out of a high degree of pragmatic application of India’s politico military diplomacy. Are we ready to use this instrument? This notwithstanding, Indian military needs to modernise despite a counter to the string of pearls through public diplomacy. A respected analyst argues:-
Cant we puzzle China by creating a counter pearl necklace around it? They seem to be becoming aware that we just might do that and are worried. Cultivate all the ASEAN countries, join them; invest in them financially, commercially, educationally, culturally, socially and you will have created a huge problem/ alternative for SEAC which wasn’t there earlier. That would be exposition of Indian jugad at its best.
This is one area where the Defence forces, MEA, Finance, Education, Oil, Industry, Commerce, Culture ministries all have a stake.
The trouble is that we have given no credence to military diplomacy else countries like Bangladesh, Myanmar, Vietnam and Indonesia would have been helping our string of pearls. Bhutan and some African countries are examples of our successful military diplomacy through organisations such as IMTRAT. The Look East is a must and we have written adequately on it but who is listening. Else Bangladesh and Myanmar would have been our friends with strong military to military contacts.
This notwithstanding, the “why” of modernising the military has unfortunately still not sunk in completely. In our earlier article we had argued for a military commission to be set up to ensure modernisation of the military lest we continue to arm without aiming. History has it that the Indian Military was found wanting in previous incidents of using hard power to meet the national interests due to its ‘unpreparedness’. Even today the situation has not changed much.
To that end, this is a populist budget and “more will be made available when needed” proves our willingness and compulsions to follow knee jerk responses to National Security.
To put the record straight, our China threat has only multiplied over the years while Pakistan continues to poke a finger at us through incidents like Kargil. Recent assertions of being capable of managing the India threat after Exercise Azm e Nau are not new. Together, the two pose a strong case for a credible military capability under the nuclear shadow. The “half front” of a full blown insurgency and naxalism requires a “third force” capable of handling threats to internal security. This article in rediff.com calls for serious introspection, “China lends us; we give to Pak; Pak makes nukes”. All the tears we expend; all the railing we do will not change the main lack/lacunae in our military thinking that we gain nothing by ruing China’s military reach over us. It has always been there; will always be there.
However, the nation has to modernise the armed forces in tune with its threats it faces and is likely to face over the next decade, China not withstanding.
Restructuring and modernising the armed forces will require political courage, military astuteness, a non parochial approach and a singularity of purpose.
With India’s defence budget now pegged at less than 2.0 per cent of the GDP, the funds available for modernisation of the armed forces are grossly inadequate. Or do we need to restructure the formula to a threat based dispensation. This way we would have the luxury to be ostrich like in relegating threats to national security. Then there is the need to build capabilities to keep India secure. Whatever the formula, the need to keep the military capable of dealing with any exigency is paramount.
The essence therefore is in instituting pragmatic approach based on our capability to meet all the threats with suitable capabilities. Till that is comprehended as a sub set of Comprehensive National Power, we shall evolve all wrong formulae with requisite myopia in place.
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India sits on a variety of threats internally and externally. The way to counter these to keep the country secure is to develop lean, wired and lethal forces. This calls for equipping them with strategic, operational and tactical capabilities. Since capability building takes time it is prudent to modernise the forces with a long term vision. The current method of resource allocation falls between the need to have a capable force to meet the complex threats that face the nation and the guns versus bread debate and does not help both.
Public diplomacy should be used to counter and reduce threats where they exist to ensure we have suitable alliances and friendships in place to reduce the burden of wars thrust on us.
I agree that in the final analysis the country needs to follow some of the recommendations in the book, Long View from Delhi in ensuring that the country of Kautilya talks with a smile while yielding a strong stick. This calls for positive investments to be made.
I hope India is not taking Aman Ki Asha seriously! That there is and will be space for conventional war under the nuclear lexicon in the India Pakistan China trio must be understood. We cant afford to give up our sovereignty for sake of economic pundits faking numbers. I am not being a hawk but our past experience and future prognsis indicates that we need to keep our powder dry.
There are two aspects to this conflict management. Resources will always be competed for priorities by various sectors in budgeting requirements. Some have to be short term while others have to have a long term perspective. The balance has to be found keeping both these in mind. Secondly, threats like string of pearls can not be totally avoided but it would help to counter them through diplomacy including military diplomacy.
Budget shows only a perspective of how the country is managing its defence. It is important to monitor optimum utilisation of resources and spend wisely. Unfortunately there are no measurement tools available to quantify how the given resources have been managed or mismanaged.
To negate modernisation on the plea that we can counter string of pearls by diplomacy sounds a difficult proposition considering India’s track record.
This sums up India’s dilemma and provides options in which India has to keep its neighbours and ASEAN countries humoured to keep China at bay
“China appears to be acting out of insistence of its military to keep India engaged regionally while it tackles the American influence in the region. China is therefore attempting to de isolate itself from a larger encirclement while encircling India – a game that will never end. As K Subrahmanyam says:
”Times have changed, as has the international strategic milieu. Even while retaining Russia as a friend in the Asian context, India has to develop a new balance of power equation to deal with the challenge from China and Pakistan not merely to our external security but to our national development as a pluralistic, secular and democratic nation”.
India too has its ancient strategic wisdom, preached in the Panchatantra, Hitopadesa and Arthasastra, encompassing sama (cooperation), dhana (buying up), bedha (causing division) and dhanda (use of force). It is time to invoke that ancient wisdom and devise an appropriate international strategy to counter the Chinese-Pakistani challenge.
This Indian ability to call the China Pakistan bluff through artful state craft is critical to the present regional equation.
The foreign threat to any country Most of all to India arises inside the country. And by that I mean to stress the historical fact that Muslim Conquest of India century after century arose from the disunity that Indian body politic then consisting of Rajas and Maharajas actively invited foreign invaders to come trundling into the country and occupy it.
[Quite the converse is true of Afghanistan which despite its tribal society it has always thrown out the invaders, one after another, even when they are the much feared Super Powers of the current history]
Now it is Indian ethnicity reflected in the proliferation of political parties represented in the Lok Sabha. And those who are not in Lok Sabha are involved heavily in the insurgencies that are eating into the soul of the country of Upanishads. Read Indian Netas which were formerly Maharajas. Read Shivaji instead of Maoists. Therefore the highest priority must be given to integrating Indian society.
The bottom line is that South Asian society is now suffering the Strategic Stresses of gargantuan post colonial readjustment, AND NO SCALE OF ARMAMENT BY INDIA CAN ALTER INDIA’S STRATEGIC DILEMMAS.
I think the article is examining a situation from just one perspective and not in a multi dimensional model as it is required. What probably has been left out is the way the modernisation is taking place in both the nations, not to forget the reducing intensity of internal troubles or insurgencies for one and rising for another. The way this article has been written takes absolutely no cognisance of the fact that while India is looking to impact the world through multiple policies including engaging various nations through dialouge and taking a global stage / stand on larger issues, sending out capacity building packages for the third world countries, China is largely secretive about her intentions and policies on most of these issues.
What possibly is also not understood by many is that China is not particularly competing with India but has her eyes set on the status held by US, although it would not be wise to say that they do not have India’s capabilities in their mind. The string of pearls strategy, as may have been misunderstood, is not an offensive plan of action but more importantly an alternate to keep itself from being cutoff by the US and Japan in the Pacific. Afain, it may not be wise for India to ignore it, but its sure not something to lose our nights sleep on it.
Coming on to the spending capability of India, which actually experienced a major economic uplift about less than two decades back, she is doing a pretty good job. At least she has been able to maintain a very fine and planned uplifting for all its sectors including the defence infrastructure. Comparing it with a nation which has a virtual dictatorship (please don’t take it literally, but I would call it so if the decisions are being forced down the population) and has seen the same kind of revolution almost thirty years before us is totally unfair. Add to that the unrest which is rising in large sections of the population because of her policies and losing popularity of its goods in the world market due to its poor quality. Further the credibility of spending is also under a serious question mark as the media isn’t free to report a project failure or success. Compare the last one to a media which tries to make out of a mountain of a mole of practically every issue (which eventually is fissed out).
So, in my personal analysis and opinion, some of us are unnecessarily making a far larger issue out of one of the many we are quite capable of dealing with.