Techno-nationalism vs. techno globalization: India’s military acquisitions and arms production dilemma

Abstract

Since independence the Indian government has pursued a state-driven approach to arms production that has led to lengthy delays, cost overruns, and not fulfilled the desired goal of autonomy in weapons production. At the same time, a weapons acquisition policy that is marked by lengthy negotiations and an emphasis on unrealistic technology transfers has led the Indian armed forces to be shortchanged in their attempts to build up a modern force structure. The pathologies of arms production and weapons acquisition have left the Indian armed forces less effective than they would like to be in combatting a two-front challenge to the country’s security. The article suggests that moving from a techno nationalistic arms production policy to one of techno globalization (with realistic outcomes) is the best step forward for India.

Notes

1 In an interview about the dogfight with the PAF the then Chief of Air Staff Air Marshall B.S. Dhanoa said that had the Rafale fighter been available at the time of the February 27, 2019 attack by the PAF it would have made a significant difference, “If we had these two platforms [Rafales and S-400 Surface to Air Missiles] or only Rafale with us on 27 February, and we had shot down four or five of their aircrafts, the behavioural change would have taken place immediately.” Shishir Gupta, “If we had Rafales, we’d have shot down 4–5 Pakistani jets after Balakot: IAF ex-chief Dhanoa,” The Print, February 12, 2020.

2 Amit Gupta, Building an Arsenal: The Evolution of Regional Power Force Structures (Westport CT and London: Praeger, 1997), 31–33.

3 Robert S. Anderson, Building Scientific Institutions in India: Saha and Bhabha, Occasional Series Paper Number 11 (Montreal: McGill University, 1975), 33.

4 Raju G. C. Thomas, The Defence of India: A Budgetary Perspective of Strategy and Politics (New Delhi: MacMillan, 1978), 10.

5 Tom W. Graham, “India,” in James Everrett Katz (Ed.), Arms Production in Developing Countries: An Analysis of Decision Making (Lexington MA: Lexington Books, 1984), 170.

6 Bhabha came up with the revolutionary plan to run India’s nuclear fuel cycle on Thorium which in the 1950s was considered an impractical idea but now researchers see the value of Thorium since it is the one nuclear fuel that cannot be reprocessed to be used for nuclear weaponry.

7 P. M. S. Blackett, The Scientific Problem of Defence in Relation to the Needs of the Indian Armed Forces, Report to the Honorable Defence Minister of India, 10 September, 1948.

8 See Lorne Kavic, India’s Quest for Security: Defence Policies 1947–1965 (University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967), 121 and Thomas, op. cit., 204.

9 Susan Maitra, “Indo-Soviet Trade: Rubles and Rupees, EIR, Vol. 13, No. 50, December 19, 1986, 10–11.

10 In both the 1965 and 1971 wars the United States imposed embargoes on both Pakistan and India but it was the Pakistani armed forces that suffered most since their weaponry was mainly American while India had a collection of European, Soviet, and to a much lesser extent American arms.

11 Ramesh Thakur, “The Impact of the Soviet Collapse on Military Relations with India,” Europe-Asia Studies 45, no. 5 (1993): 837.

12 Design, Development, Manufacture and Induction of Light Combat Aircraft, Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Union Government Defence Services (Air Force) Performance Audit No.17 of 2015, iv.

13 Philip Rajkumar, The Tejas Story: The Light Combat Aircraft Project (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2008), 28.

14 Design, Development, Manufacture and Induction of Light Combat Aircraft,” op. cit., vi

15 Ibid.

16 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India for the year ended March 2013, Union Government (Defence Services) Army, Ordnance Factories and Defence Public Sector Undertakings, Report No. 35 of 2014, 162–163

17 Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, New Delhi, 10th March, 2017 CAG Performance Audit Report on Working of Army Base Workshops Presented in Parliament, 2.

18 Ajai Shukla, “Ministry of Defence orders 118 Arjun tanks for over Rs 7,000 crore,” Business Standard, September 24, 2021.

19 Public Accounts Committee, Sixteenth Lok Sabha Thirty-Second Report, Indigenous Construction of Indian Naval Warships, Lok Sabha Secretariat, New Delhi, December 2015, 3.

20 “No renegotiation on price of Gorshkov: Navy Chief,” Hindu, 4 December 2007.

21 Sandeep Unnithan, “Battle over Gorshkov,” India Today, 7 December 2007.

22 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India for the year ended March 2015 Union Government (Defence Services) Navy and Coast Guard Report No. 17 of 2016, 57–60.

23 Ibid., 15.

24 Ibid., 22.

25 Ibid., 25–27.

26 “As India’s 2nd Aircraft Carrier Vikrant Gears for Action, Rafales, Hornets, MiGs Vie for Business,” Eurasian Times, August 22, 2020.

27 Claude Arpi, “The Rafale deal and after,” Uday India IX, no. 39–40 (2018): 15.

28 Mohal Joshi, “A History of how India zeroed on Rafale and why the Congress charge of corruption in the Rafale deal is absolutely bogus,” Uday India IX, no. 39–40 (2018): 22.

29 Amit Gupta, “India: Missions, Technologies, and Constraints,” in Amit Gupta (Ed.), Air Forces: The Next Generation (Howgate Publishing: Havant, Hampshire, 2020), 175.

30 “Forget Rafale, HAL cannot even produce and deliver Su-30MKI’s on time to the IAF,” Defence News, October 2, 2018.

31 Amit Gupta, Grand Strategy for Modi 2.0, Geopolitics, July 2019, 30.

32 Clary, Christopher and Vipin Narang. “India’s New Nuclear Thinking: Counterforce, Crises, and Consequences.” Policy Brief, Quarterly Journal: International Security, May 24, 2019.

33 Ibid.

34 Manu Pubby, “India’s Rs 1.2 lakh crore nuclear submarine project closer to realization,” The Economic Times, February 21, 2020.

35 Sandeep Unnithan, Why India could be leasing a second nuclear powered attack submarine from Russia, India Today, September 4, 2021.

36 See, Yogesh Joshi, “Samudra: India’s convoluted path to undersea nuclear weapons,” The Nonproliferation Review 25, no. 5–6 (2019): 487 and 489–491.

37 Jyoti Malhotra, “How India’s pride INS Arihant was built,” Business Standard, August 19, 2013.

38 Interview with former head Strategic Forces Command, India, New Delhi, December 9, 2019.

39 Raj Chengappa, "Arsenal for The Gods," Weapons of Peace: The Secret Story of India’s Quest to Be a Nuclear Power (New Delhi: Harper Collins Publishers, 2000), 279.

40 Gaurav Kampani, Stakeholders in the Indian Strategic Missile Program, The Nonproliferation Review 10, no. 3 (Fall/Winter 2003): 51.

41 Discussion paper Foreign Direct Investment in Defence Sector, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, May 17, 2010.

42 Ministry of Defence, Indigenization of Defence Production—Public-Private Partnership, Standing Committee on Defence, Fourteenth Lok Sabha, New Delhi, 2008, 1.

43 “Centre allows up to 74% FDI in defence sector under automatic route,” Hindustan Times, September 17, 2020.

44 L&T Defence, K-9 Vajra-T 155m howitzer. Available at, https://www.lnt-defence.com/our-offerings/land-systems/artillery-systems/k9-vajra-t-155mm-52-cal-tracked-self-propelled-sp-gun/

45 Manu Pubby, Make in India: Bharat Forge & Punj Lloyd in race for Rs 16,800 crore contract to make anti-aircraft guns, The Economic Times, May 11, 2015.

46 Ajai Shukla, “With on-time delivery, L&T stakes claim to build warships and submarines, Business Standard, July 4, 2018.”

47 Ibid.

48 Caleb Larsen, India and Russia’s Missile Alliance: Why BrahMos Family of Missiles Could Be a Game-Changer The National Interest, March 24, 2020.

49 Sergey Denisentsev, The Brahmos Project: History and Outlook, Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, September 14, 2016.

50 Ibid.

51 Ashley J. Tellis, Troubles the Come in Battalions: The Manifold Travails of the Indian Air Force (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2016), 49–50.

52 Ibid.

53 Joseph Trevithick, “It’s no surprise India finally ditched Stealth Fighter program with Russia, The Drive, April 23, 2018.

54 “Russian, 5th Generation, PAK FA Jet, Not Worth the Cost without Technology: India,” EurAsian Times, July 8, 2018.

55 Matthew Moss, India’s AK-203 Program Delayed, TFB, June23, 2020.

56 Snehesh Alex Phillip, “India and Russia set to close deal for over 6 lakh AK 203 rifles, production to start soon,” The Print, August 31, 2020.

57 Shubhajit Roy and Krishan Kaushik, “India, Russia sign AK-203 rifle deal, military logistics pact is ‘put off’,” The Indian Express, December 7, 2021.

58 Vivek Raghuvanshi, “India makes initial bid selections for $7 billion submarine project,” Defense News, January 22, 2020.

59 Krishn Kaushik, “Govt’s new defence acquisition policy drops offsets in 3 types of contracts,” Indian Express, September 29, 2020.

60 Manu Pubby, “India looks at a tight deadline to develop next generation fighter jets,” Economic Times, October 6, 2020.

61 “IAF may get indigenous jet engine for AMCA 5th gen fighter as French tech giant Safran is set to join hands,” Indian Defence News, October 2, 2020.

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Amit Gupta

Amit Gupta ([email protected]) is an Associate Professor in the USAF Culture and Language Center. His research and writings have focused on international security issues particularly in the realm of arms production and weapons acquisition. He has also worked on sports and politics and popular culture and politics. He has published in Asian Survey, Security Dialogue, The Round Table: Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, Mediterranean Quarterly, and Orbis. In the realm of popular culture his writings have appeared in Sport and Society and the International Journal of the History of Sport. His latest books are, Air Forces: The Next Generation, Amit Gupta (Ed.), (Havant, Hants: Howgate Publishers, 2020 and Interests, Objectives, and Contemporary Policies in a Globalized Space: Naval Powers in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific. Howard M. Hensel and Amit Gupta (Eds.) (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2018).