Inadequate military budget, political short-sightedness and inter-service turf wars stymie defence modernisation
Col Yogander Singh
It was in the Combined Commander’s Conference on board the INS Vikramaditya in 2015 that Prime Minister Narendra Modi enunciated three principles for the Indian military. Emphasising upon the need to shrink the size of the force, he urged greater use of technology, especially cyber and space capabilities as enablers. At the same time, he underscored the imperative of promoting jointness. Since then, three terms that have come to dominate the discourse on Indian defence are ‘Aatmanirbhar’ (self-reliance), ‘Adhunik’ (modern) and ‘right-size’. However, in the absence of authoritative definition, these terms mean different things to different people. To develop a coherent conversation, we shall start by fixing definitions for these terms.
Self Reliance: Prime Minister Modi has described the economy, infrastructure, technology-driven system, vibrant demography and demand as five pillars of self-reliance. Applied to the Indian military, it would mean ability to field combat forces composed of highly motivated, well trained and well led soldiers employing contemporary weapon systems made in India to prevail against spectrum of threats ranging from non-state to conventional and nuclear. It would also demand agile organisations and robust command and control systems. In this article, we shall be limiting ourselves to modernisation as applicable technological threshold of the three services, leaving the discussion on other aspects for another day.
Desired Technological Threshold: The developments over the last decade and especially the stand-off in eastern Ladakh that lasted from 2020 to 2024, have made it clear that it is China and not Pakistan which is the primary military opponent for India and hence matching the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA’s) capabilities is the desired technological threshold for the Indian military.
Right-size: For the army, emergence of PLA as primary military opponent in no way diminishes the potential military threat for Pakistan. Rather it gets further attenuated. While in the case of Indo-Pak conflict, China may restrict itself to sabre-rattling, Pakistan will have strong motivation to utilise the opportunity for substantial gains in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) theatre. Thus, the reality of a two-front war must underscore any discussion on the size of the Indian Army.
During the recent stand-off in eastern Ladakh, China deployed a ground force worth two corps while maintaining a strong offensive posture in western Tibet against Indian eastern Army Command. In response the Indian Army had to hastily induct major portion of its 1 Corps from the plains into Ladakh as also pull forces from J&K counter-insurgency grid. To avoid similar knee-jerk reactions in the future, the army needs to restructure to create strong reserves in the mountains, as also rebuild offensive capabilities in the western theatre.
As for the maritime threat, China now possesses the world’s largest navy of 234 combat ship with the numbers ‘expected to grow to 395 ships by 2025 and 435 ships by 2030.’ With its sights firmly set on posing credible challenge to the US Navy in the Pacific, the PLA Navy (PLAN) proposes to have six aircraft carriers. It already has two and recently commenced sea trials of its third aircraft carrier, the 80,000-ton Fujian as also laid keel of the 4th carrier.
Taking PLAN as the primary potential adversary and Pakistan as secondary, the Indian Navy would need to deploy both sea-control and sea-denial capabilities within Indian Ocean Region (IOR), including three carrier group task forces and a robust attack submarine-based sea-denial capability besides nuclear submarine-based nuclear weapons capability.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) has a sanctioned strength of 42.5 squadrons of fighter aircrafts to meet single front war obligations. A recent paper on the ‘IAF Equipment and Force Structure Requirements to Meet External Threats, 2032’ in IDSA’s Journal of Defence Studies, noted that ‘for a two front war it would require 63 squadrons.’ In case it has to meet a two-front obligation, the number of squadrons will go up substantially. Today, it is making do with barely 31 fighter squadrons.
The Indian Reality
Inadequate Budgetary Support: To simplify the issue, let us start by understanding some basic features of a military budget. Peter Robertson, one of the foremost scholars on the subject has, in an article in 2021 recommended that any discussion on military spending of a nation should be based on military-purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange. He argues that, firstly, we need to adjust for local price differences when making international comparisons of real GDP because relative prices differ across countries, a dollar spent on non-traded goods and services can go a lot further in some countries than in others.
Secondly, market-exchange rate (MER) is another factor that affects military spending. This exchange rate is one that tells us the relative price or unit cost of defence services across countries—that is, a ‘military-PPP’ exchange rate which breaks down each country’s military budget into three broad categories, personnel, operations, and equipment, and then constructs a relative unit cost ratio across counties for each component. Applying this method to the military budgets of the US, China and India, over a five-year period (2019-2024), we arrive at the conclusion given in the table extracted from Peter Robertson’s, Debating Defence Budgets: Why Military Purchasing Power Parity Matters, for the Lowy Institute.
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