India’s military spending

Courtesy:- Asif Ezdi
Monday, March 26, 2012

Presenting the country’s annual budget for 2012-13 in the Indian parliament earlier this month, Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced a massive 17 percent increase in spending on defence services, raising it to 1.93 trillion Indian rupees ($40 or 38.6 billion). Of this outlay, 41 percent would be spent on procuring modern weapons systems and military hardware. This year’s rise follows a 12 percent increase in the previous year’s budget. Mukherjee offered little explanation for this massive boost in military expenditure, apart from stating that the allocation was “based on present needs” and that “any further requirement will be met.” India’s actual military budget is even higher, as the figure for “defence services” does not include spending on its nuclear weapons programme, military pensions and the paramilitary forces.

Three days after India’s budget was presented, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a reputed think tank, released a study on global arms transfers according to which India has now overtaken China as the world’s biggest importer of weapons. India purchased some $12.7 billion in weaponry during 2007-2011 from foreign countries and accounted for 10 percent of all arms imports during this period.

India’s future arms acquisitions plans, as it goes on a major military spending spree to expand and modernise its armed forces, are even more staggering. In a report published last month, Jane’s Defence Weekly estimated that India will spend $100 billion on defence procurement between 2011 and 2015.

In the past, India bought most of its advanced weaponry from Russia. This is changing now, as India increasingly looks to western countries in building up a modern arsenal. The US and other western countries have not only been aggressively marketing their military hardware, they have also feverishly been wooing Delhi politically in order to get a share of the Indian market for fighter jets, tanks, artillery, small arms, transport planes, submarines and a range of naval vessels. According to a Pentagon report, India was the third largest purchaser of US arms during fiscal 2011 – after Afghanistan and Taiwan – with contracts worth $4.5 billion.

In the largest-ever bilateral defence deal between India and the US, Delhi last year ordered 10 C-17 Globemaster-III strategic airlift aircraft for $4.1 billion. Together with the 12 C-130J Super Hercules India has ordered from the US, these aircraft will greatly enhance India’s capability to swiftly move troops and equipment to forward areas. The Kargil airstrip is being extended to enable these large transport planes to operate from there.

The biggest prize in the Indian arms market, that for the supply of 126 multi-role fighter aircraft to replace the Soviet-era fleet of MiGs, has been won by Dassault Aviation of France, manufacturer of Rafale warplanes. The contract has an estimated worth of $12-15 billion. The addition of another 63 probably at a later stage would take the overall cost to over $20 billion.

Delhi’s plans for a blue-water navy are also on track. India already has an old aircraft carrier, the Viraat, which will remain operational for some years to come. The refurbished Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, rechristened as the Vikramaditya, is expected to be delivered by the end of 2012. In addition, an indigenous aircraft carrier which is being built at the Cochin Shipyard is expected to become operational in 2015. The Indian navy is confident that it will have two full-fledged aircraft carrier battle groups by 2015 or so.

India is also going ahead with the development of its own nuclear-powered submarine. In December last year, it took delivery of an Akula II class nuclear-powered attack submarine on a 10-year lease from Russia.

It is remarkable that there has been little public debate in India on the purpose or justification for the country’s hugely ambitious military build-up plans. Anyone who questions the programme immediately risks being labelled as unpatriotic. Nor has the Indian Government ever clearly articulated the strategic priorities that drive its military expansion and modernisation programme or given a coherent rationale for its costly investment in military hardware.

In May last year, Defence Minister A K Antony expressed “serious concern” over growing defence ties between Pakistan and China and said that India would have to bolster its own military capabilities to meet the challenge. “The main thing,” he said, “is we have to increase our capability. That is the only answer.” Antony made these comments following reports China planned to accelerate the supply of 50 new JF-17 Thunder multi-role combat jets to Pakistan. Delhi’s claim of a “challenge” from Pakistan is of course nothing but fiction in view of India’s overwhelming conventional superiority over Pakistan, on land, in the air and on sea.

In testimony before the US Senate last January, James Clapper, Director of US National Intelligence, expressed the view that the Indian military was strengthening its forces “in preparation to fight a limited conflict along the disputed border, and is working to balance Chinese power projection in the Indian Ocean.” Yet the fact is that the chances of even a “limited” military conflict between China and India are zero.

The People’s Daily, mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, came nearer to the truth in a commentary on December 18 last year titled “Risks behind India’s military build-up”. India, the newspaper said, had strategic ambitions and was strengthening its military clout to match its status as a major power. The newspaper advised India that instead of being hostile to its neighbouring countries, it should reduce its own “persecution mania”.

The main reason for India’s splurge on modern military hardware is that it wants to flex its military muscles to gain recognition as a major regional or even global power. India is particularly unhappy at Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean region and is having to play catch-up in what it likes to think is its own strategic backyard. To assert this claim, Delhi has gone into overdrive cultivating relations with countries up and down the length and breadth of the Indian Ocean. Last month, it hosted naval exercises with 14 Indian Ocean countries on the Andaman Islands. Pakistan and China were not invited. India is also spending $2 billion to set up a military command on Andaman Islands.

On a visit to India last year, Hillary Clinton publicly urged India to turn its “Look East” policy into one of “Act East.” With Washington’s encouragement, Delhi is now hoping to carve out a role for itself not only in the Indian Ocean but also in the South China Sea and the Western Pacific. For this purpose, India has struck a strategic partnership with Vietnam, a country which has historically been distrustful of China. India’s first foray into South China Sea did not end very happily though. An amphibious assault vessel, INS Airavat that sailed from the Andamans to Vietnam last July on a goodwill visit was challenged in the South China Sea by the Chinese navy which asked the Indian vessel to leave Chinese waters. Both sides later played down the incident but the message seems to have been registered.

One of the widely circulated myths about our defence expenditure is that we spend a far bigger portion of our GDP on our military than India does. The data published by SIPRI tell a different story. Pakistan’s defence expenditure as a share of GDP for 2009, the latest for which data has been published by SIPRI, was 2.8 percent. India’s defence expenditure was also 2.8 percent of the GDP for that year.

The long-term trend in Pakistan is downwards. Defence expenditure fell from 6.2 percent of the GDP in 1988 to 2.8 percent in 2009. In India it has remained more or less constant. It was 3.6 percent in 1988 and 2.8 percent in 2009.