Homeland Security

The Price of Security
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Issue Net Edition | Date : 29 Aug , 2011

The political and administrative elite of India has yet to assimilate a fundamental lesson in the management of the Country’s defense policy. Like in almost every other sphere the quality of security will largely depend on the kind of money we are prepared to pay. While making this observation it has to be conceded that there is nothing like absolute security. To that extent the expenditure on security must fall within what is frequently described as affordable; for if we exceed the affordability criteria there may be pretty little left to defend. Obviously affordability has considerable elasticity. The catch is in getting our balance right.

There is an urgent need to bridge the gap between what the defense forces believe they need and what the Government has been giving. This has to be on the basis of an informed debate and not arbitrary.

Since independence the defense establishment has consistently held the view that the nation is not spending sufficiently on the Country’s security. The refrain it would appear has been falling on deaf ears. The neglect in the early years of our independence can be explained away to the belief in the character of our civilization and the principles of Panchsheel, which Nehru bequeathed upon us. But how does one explain the continuation of the same approach even after the Nehru era and under the BJP led present alliance. The BJP has traditionally emphasized nationalism and national security and had been consistently critical of the Congress’s defense policy. Yet in the fiscal management of the Country’s defense apparatus the party’s approach has not been significantly different. In the close to five years that the BJP has been in power the budgetary allocations contrary to promises have been at about the same level as during earlier regimes.

The most glaring example of Defense being given the short shrift was when recently the Finance Minister withdrew approximately Rs. 9000 crores form the capital expenditure budget of the defense Services simply to fuddle figures of the financial year. And this too by someone who has served in the Army and has frequently expressed the view that India does not possess the necessary force surplus required for strategic flexibility. Perhaps the problem is in the institutional mindsets over which the political leadership is unable to prevail.

“¦glaring example is the terrorism and militancy that Pakistan is inflicting on us. Pakistan is pursuing this strategy to compel us to come to the negotiating table and concede the Valley because it knows that we do not have the force surplus to take punitive action against it.

Similarly the management of expenditure has not reflected expected efficiency. To the contrary because of Tehelka and the CVC/ CAG inexplicably choosing to bring defense procurements under special scrutiny some kind of a paralysis seems to have permeated the defense procurement establishment. Regrettably the political establishment instead of being concerned about the Country’s defense preparedness and intelligently monitoring the pace of modernization and capability accretion has resorted to a mindless boycott of the Defense Minister in the Parliament thus further freezing the procurement process. Who suffers? The Military and the Nation. Who benefits? Our adversaries.

Any discussion of the adequacy of defense expenditure must take into account the view that perhaps the expenditure on defense has been sufficient and that the Country could not have afforded more- because of its pressing developmental needs. Militaries the world over are seldom satisfied with the money that they get and therefore while they may be given a patient hearing the Government will sanction expenditure based on its discretion. Though in defense of the Indian military establishment one would hasten to state that because of years of denial and deprivation it has been conditioned to generally ask for just the barest minimum.

If we look carefully at the threats to our National Security and territorial integrity over the past fifty- six years our vulnerability because of inadequate military capability stands out. The invasion in 47/48 can be discounted. But what about 1962, 1965 and the Kargil aggression in 1999 or the covert war being waged against us since1990? Then again we have the problem of China’s intransigence over the border issue or the hostile postures it adopts in support of the occasional bouts of adventurism by Pakistan. Obviously if we had adequate dissuasive military strength our adversaries would have been inhibited from taking such liberties. This could have possibly led to the settlement of bilateral issues on terms acceptable to us and then maybe permitted us to reduce expenditure on defense and focus on development. A more glaring example is the terrorism and militancy that Pakistan is inflicting on us.

China is currently spending six to seven times more than what we spend on defense.

Pakistan is pursuing this strategy to compel us to come to the negotiating table and concede the Valley because it knows that we do not have the force surplus to take punitive action against it. The incidental payoff for Pakistan is that the purely defensive battle against terrorism and insurgency consumes resources that would otherwise be employed by India to create asymmetries in capabilities. Enhanced capabilities that could be employed to increase the cost for Pakistan in the covert war that it is waging- to the extent that we make it so prohibitively expensive that it is persuaded to abandon its aggression and forever forsake the notion of annexing Kashmir.

That we are not spending enough on defense is established. The question therefore to be addressed is that given our security environment what proportion of the National income should we invest in our security. The aggregate allocation since the nineties has been around 2.5 percent of our GDP. Taking into account the size of our defense forces this amount has just been enough to keep our forces fed, clothed and paid. There was very little left for modernization or capability accretion. As a matter of fact the allocations have been so insufficient that the armed forces were unable to even replace wastages due to normal wear and tear or expiry of shelf life of sensitive items like propellants and mines Consequently voids in our establishment have been growing and what is worse is that occasionally we are losing quite a few precious lives due to handling explosives that have been rendered unsafe.

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China is currently spending six to seven times more than what we spend on defense. Pakistan has dropped its defense expenditure to about four percent of its GDP in the last couple of years only because the country was on the verge of going broke. Otherwise it has been allotting seven to eight percent of its GDP towards defense. World wide the normative allotment to defense ranges from two to ten percent of the GDP. A large economy enables a country to reduce its expenditure on defense as a percentage of the Country’s GDP. It follows that if as and when our economy maintains a sustained growth of what we are aiming at –eight percent annually- we too would be in a position to drop our defense budget to percentages that our economists are comfortable with. There has to be a rider to this formulation. Either our adversaries’ economy grows at a relatively slower rate or there is a change for the better in our security climate.

“¦if the Government could commit to an allocation of about 3.5 percent of the GDP annually for the next fifteen years they could acquire some semblance of health and balance. Is this too much for the Nation to afford?

A more pragmatic way to assess the capabilities that the defense forces must possess would be to take stock of the threats to national security and the strategic vision that we have drawn up for the next fifteen to twenty years. Such an appraisal may suggest requirements that cannot be afforded or impose an undesirable burden on the Country’s economy. A conscious decision may then have to be taken to moderate and modify our political and diplomatic postures. Or alternatively the political leadership on the advise of the security establishment may resolve to find the resources that the defense forces need. For a variety of complex reasons we have rarely undertaken such an exercise. On the occasions that the odd individual has pushed for such an approach the effort never succeeded in that no decisions have ever been recorded by the Government and without recorded decisions there can be no follow-up. In the eighties the Army formulated a strategy paper and drew up a plan that attempted to define the capabilities that the Army needed to acquire by the year 2000. It was based on the assumption that the GDP would grow at about four percent annually and that the defense budget would be maintained at four percent of the GDP each year. This plan was never ratified nor formally abridged. Since then though plans are made every year they never go beyond the paper that they are written on.

Jingoistic rhetoric tends to raise the expectations from the armed forces. Without giving them the appropriate wherewithal the Nation unfairly imposes stresses and strains on our very fine sailors soldiers and airmen. The defense forces have endured such pressures for long. But the possibility of cracks surfacing cannot be ruled out. The price of repairing such cracks would inevitably be disproportionately high.  There is an urgent need to bridge the gap between what the defense forces believe they need and what the Government has been giving. This has to be on the basis of an informed debate and not arbitrary.

The services headquarters it is believed have after due deliberation determined that if the Government could commit to an allocation of about 3.5 percent of the GDP annually for the next fifteen years they could acquire some semblance of health and balance. Is this too much for the Nation to afford?

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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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