Defence Industry

Steering India's Military Capabilities
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Issue Vol 23.3 Jul-Sep2008 | Date : 12 Feb , 2012

Military_Capability_UG_BunkHow should our conventional forces be structured? We have unsettled borders with Pakistan and China. We have also fought wars with both these neighbours. To aggravate matters there is strategic collusion between China and Pakistan. The fallout of this collusion is a two- front situation for us. Militarily this is not desirable. Regrettably, not enough thought has been given to this problem.

Against Pakistan it should have been possible for us to create overwhelming force superiority. It can still be done. Unless Pakistan sees in India a punitive capability, it will not abandon support to militancy and terrorism. We must understand this.

China offers a greater challenge. The force equation currently is in China’s favour. We should also recognise that its capacity to invest in forces is also considerably more than us. But yet a careful analysis would lead to the conclusion that we can with some effort build capabilities that would make it prohibitive for the Chinese to go to war with us.

Besides the military capability required for fighting border wars with China and Pakistan, India also needs the wherewithal to protect its sea lanes of communication. The more we grow economically the more we will have to invest in this requirement.

Do we need excessive funds to build the capabilities just outlined? Not really. An allocation of 3 to 3.5 per cent of the GDP for about five-seven years should be enough to give us a reasonably potent military capability. This is something that the country can afford.

How should we go about this? The most important requirement is to first accept that we can no longer neglect national security. The next is to build a consensus that the Nation can afford to spend 3-3.5 per cent of its GDP on its security. Then we must task the National Security Council and the MOD to together draw up a blue print for force development. After debate, the strategy must be approved in Parliament. This is to ensure that plans do not get derailed when governments change.

Right now the headless Headquarters of the Integrated Defence Staff is a monumental waste. If the CDS is not to be appointed we might as well wind up this organisation.

Plans made should be flexible and be reviewed periodically for modification and refinement so that it does not loose its relevance with the changing security envelop.

The other important issue that must be taken into account is that if the MOD is to spend 3 per cent of the GDP in the financial year 2009-2010, it cannot. If we take the decision today, the earliest it can hope to utilise such funds effectively is perhaps 2013- 2014, not before this. The point being made is that unless fund availability is known well in advance it will remain unutilized or not spent-optimally.

Nuclear Deterrence

Moving on to the nuclear dimension, the first point to be noted is that conventional forces remain necessary and relevant even if adversaries possess nuclear weapons. All through the Cold War, neither side scaled down conventional forces, even as both continued to build nuclear arsenals to irrational levels.

The other much debated issue is the hypothesis that nuclear adversaries can fight only limited wars. The proponents of this belief then proceed to argue that if only limited wars are to be fought then you need only limited forces. The acceptance of such a prescription has serious pitfalls. All wars in some form or the other have been limited. But not one instance in military history can be cited to prove that force capability was built around this theory. Thus, the sooner we jettison such thinking the better.

Military_Capability_M-2000While we must continue to strongly propagate global nuclear disarmament we must also accept that if we are to emerge as a regional and global power we need nuclear deterrence capability. The key question that merits further deliberation and debate is the capability that we should aim at. We can begin with our nuclear doctrine. It perhaps requires a reappraisal. Moving forward to our strategic force structure we must project thirty to forty years in the future. It is visualised that by then we will be a global power. As a global power we must possess a nuclear weapons capability that is sufficient to act as a deterrent to all other nuclear weapon states. What does this translate into? Very simply stated, we should be able to absorb a first strike and yet retain the capability to strike back with our residual capability in a manner that makes the costs to the attacker unacceptable. This is the minimum capability that we must resolve to seek and not accept the imposition of terms that could cause us to accept compromises on this issue. We have the example of China. It sought to achieve this long ago, well before it embarked on the path of its now fabled economic growth.

Broadly nuclear forces have to be structured around warheads (nuclear bombs) delivery systems, an extremely sophisticated surveillance and target acquisition system and an equally sophisticated command and control system. Bombs should be efficient, mostly thermonuclear and in adequate numbers. Delivery systems must include ballistic missiles that could be launched from sea (primarily submarine) air and land. The ballistic missiles must have the reach to strike any point on this earth.

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The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Lt Gen Vinay Shankar

Lt Gen Vinay Shankar, former Director General Artillery.

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