India-Pakistan Crisis Exposes Modi’s Dilemma - The Diplomat, 28 February 2019

In a first, Rajesh (Rajagopalan) and I have a joint article on the India-Pakistan crisis post-Balakot air force strikes and what Modi's options are. In the piece, India-Pakistan Crisis Exposes Modi’s Dilemma, we argue that the decision about whether to escalate or not is much more complex than it appears.

The India-Pakistan confrontation over the terrorist attack on Indian troops in Pulwama does not appear to be easing just yet. After the Indian air strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist camp in Pakistan, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) retaliated by bombing several “non-military” targets across the Line of Control.

What happened subsequently is a bit hazy, but it appears that at least one Indian MiG-21 fighter was shot down as it chased the PAF fighters away, with the pilot falling into Pakistan’s hands. India has demanded that he be handed over. Paradoxically, this could be a blessing in disguise as it provides an avenue for both sides to deescalate the crisis.

On the other hand, the current situation does put Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the horns of a dilemma. He has incentives both to escalate and climb down, and the stakes for him are the upcoming elections.

For the full post, click here.



The incentives to escalate are clear: if this is where the confrontation ends, India has clearly lost, and the Modi government will be held responsible. Already Indian opposition parties are blaming the government for the situation India finds itself in. Twenty-one of these parties have jointly blamed the government for the “blatant politicization of the sacrifices made by our armed forces by leader of the ruling party”, a clear indication that Modi will be personally targeted if this does not end well for India. With barely a couple of months left for polls in India, it will be difficult for him to spin this as an Indian victory if this is where it ends. Moreover, it strikes at the root of the Modi persona as a strong man, and as a decisive leader.

The other strong incentive for India to escalate is the strategic equation if the crisis ends now. The Balakot strike was designed to demonstrate that India had the upper hand because of its conventional military superiority and that it had the space to escalate if it wanted to. If India had been able to do this successfully, it could have fundamentally changed the India-Pakistan dynamic, because it could have set up a template for future Indian military action. By the same token, an Indian failure does not return the situation to status quo ante, but to a much worse place for India. It would reinforce Pakistan’s deterrence logic, tie India’s hands in future confrontations, and give Pakistan a free hand to continue with its strategy of using terror against India. It would have been better for India to not have launched the Balakot attack at all because India’s conventional deterrence, such as it is, will lie in tatters.

Set against these are two disincentives for escalation, again one political and the other strategic. The political one is that after this taste of the unexpected turns in a test of arms, Modi will have to worry about whether he can trust the Indian military to carry out subsequent actions successfully. Further confrontation carries with it the possibility of retrieving the situation but equally, further risk that the situation could get worse. Though it is reasonably certain that India will come out on top in a long drawn out fight, a long drawn out fight itself would be humiliating for a country that is by many orders larger and more powerful. Modi will find it difficult to go campaigning if India has not won decisively, and the risk of escalation is that there will be no immediate or decisive victory.

A second disincentive for escalation is that India may not have militarily prepared for this confrontation. Doubling down on escalation with a military force that is not ready is a recipe for disaster. The Modi government has only itself to blame, having paid little attention to the military and starved it of funds to the point that it is not certain that it would perform much better if the situation worsens. The unpreparedness provides a good disincentive for further escalation because of the uncertainty.

It is not clear in which direction Modi will push. But beyond this iteration of India-Pakistan confrontation, this should hopefully demonstrate to Indian political leaders that they need to pay greater attention to military and security matters than they have hitherto and make the necessary adjustments before a crisis hits rather than after.

India’s Big Defense Acquisition Challenge - December 22, 2018

In this week's column for The Diplomat, I wrote on India’s big defense acquisition challenge. I argue that occasional concerns about corrupt defense deals are merely the symptoms of broader structural issues that need to be addressed.

Accusations about corruption in defense deals are once again roiling in Indian politics. This time, the charges pertain to India’s decision to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France. Questions have been raised about why the deal was abruptly changed from 126 fighter jets, many of which would have built under license in India, to just 36, which are being bought as fly-aways.

Irrespective of the veracity of the charges, it is clear that opposition parties will use the issue in the upcoming general elections in mid-2019. The case illustrates the broken nature of India’s defense acquisition process, but even more importantly, it demonstrates that the Indian political system and governing institutional mechanisms have not come up with a way to adjudicate these issues outside of the political arena. The consequence is that Indian defense acquisitions are likely to continue to suffer for the foreseeable future.

The immediate consequence will be felt by the Indian Air Force (IAF). The IAF has a sanctioned strength of 42 squadrons but it is currently down by a quarter at just about 31 squadrons. Even of these 31, almost half of the aircraft are of the 1960s and 1970s vintage, such as the MiG-21s, MiG-27s, and Jaguars.



The IAF was planning to replace these under the MMRCA (Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft) program, which featured competition between fighter planes from several countries, with Rafale emerging as the ultimate winner. Negotiations for the acquisition of the Rafale, however, proved to be difficult and the Congress-led UPA government, which initiated the deal, was replaced before the deal could be concluded.

But in 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi changed the deal and decided to purchase 36 jets outright. Questions were raised about the sudden change but more recently, opposition parties have charged that the new deal and particularly its offset clause favors business interests, who are alleged to be close to the ruling BJP and specifically Modi. While the deal itself is going through, it still leaves the IAF with a huge shortfall. The IAF has restarted the process for buying another 110 fighter planes, which would see a re-run of the MMRCA competition with the same planes once again competing for more-or-less the same deal.

More importantly, the travails of the MMRCA deal highlight once again the politically fraught nature of large defense acquisitions in India. The charges of corruption in defense deals are not new. There have been accusations of corruption in previous defense deals also including the Bofors artillery gun, coffins bought for soldiers during the Kargil War, and the purchase of Augusta Westland VVIP choppers.

While none of these accusations have been decided by the courts in India, the political and bureaucratic effects on India have been far more damaging. Fear of accusations has slowed Indian defense procurement to a crawl as illustrated by the nearly two-decade long MMRCA case.

Part of the response to these problems has been to write very elaborate rules for acquisition, with the hope being that such rules will eliminate any element of discretion because any exercise of discretion could potentially be challenged as being motivated by ulterior reasons. But other than complicating the process, these rules really haven’t helped smooth the path of defense acquisition. Bureaucrats are increasingly worried about having their name attached to any such deals because they could later be called to answer questions if the deals run into problems at the political level. Thus, they would rather postpone making decisions, leaving the choice to their successors rather than risk being caught up in political games.

An important part of the problem is also the inadequacy of Indian police agencies and Indian courts. These cases are usually handled by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), but the CBI has a very poor record of being an effective or independent police agency. It is usually seen as acting on the whims of the government in power, changing its positions on criminal and corruption cases when its political masters change. Even the Supreme Court (SC) has criticized the CBI, calling it a caged parrot.

Even more importantly, the CBI’s investigative capacity is also clearly wanting. Even in cases where political masters are presumably interested in letting the CBI move ahead, such as the cases involving a previous government, the CBI has not been able to effectively investigate or close these cases. The consequence of the CBI’s lack of autonomy and its incompetence is that these cases are likely never to be closed but continue to run in political cycles for decades on end. The absence of a neutral and effective investigative and judicial process means that accusations of corruption essentially become simply political ploys rather than matters of justice that eventually reach any closure.

Thus, India is likely to continue facing to have difficult time with large defense acquisitions, especially when they involve foreign military equipment. And consequent to this, India’s defense acquisition is likely to continue to be slow and creaky. Combined with low levels of defense budgets, the effect on India’s defense preparedness is likely to be telling.

China’s military advantage over India vanishing, says analyst

Last month, India's Chairman of Chiefs of Staff Committee and Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta, speaking on National Security Challenges at the National Maritime Foundation, New Delhi admitted that India neither has the “capability nor the intention” to match China’s military strength. He added, “Common sense dictates that cooperation with China would be preferable to competition or conflict, as it would be foolhardy to compare India and China as equals... Whether in terms of GDP, defence spending or any other economic, social or development parameter, the gap between the two is just too wide to bridge and getting wider by the day.

An analyst, however, claims that China's military advantage over is vanishing.

Such OpEd pieces may be soothening to the ears of many, but this is not the reality. The reality of the situation may be hardhitting. What is needed at this hour is a realistic assessment of the kind of capabilities that exist on both sides of the border and beyond. Such a reality check may help India prepare better for the future.



The infrastructure on the Indian side is quite deplorable. Indian military and political establishment appears to have believed for a long time that if it undertakes major infrastructure development, it would actually enhance the Chinese ability to move into Indian territory. However, the Indian government has recognised, of late, the need to upgrade the general infrastructure in the region. In June 2006, the Indian Cabinet sanctioned a series of infrastructure projects along the border. These projects include the building of 72 roads, three airstrips and several bridges in the border areas along the undefined LAC that would enable the Indian military to move troops quickly into the region.

In terms of forces, India has about twelve mountain divisions capable of swift offensive operations in the mountainous areas. Two of these were reportedly created in February 2008, specifically for combat in Arunachal Pradesh. Two additional such divisions are estimated to become operational by 2015-16, at a cost of around INR 14 billion (USD 358 million). These will be reinforced by air power, including possibly, AWACS, and fighter jets. There have also been reports of India’s plans to procure 140 ultra-light 155mm artillery pieces, as also a large number of heavy lift and combat ready helicopters, all of which would have special utility in mountain warfare. Although India has tested a number of intermediate-range missiles, including the Agni-3 capable of hitting both Beijing and Shanghai, these missiles are still not operational. Additionally, India has recently deployed two army divisions and two air force squadrons in Assam. With this new deployment in Assam, India’s troop strength in the region will cross more than one hundred thousand. Meanwhile, the Indian Air Force (IAF) announced (June 2009) that it will deploy two squadrons of advanced Sukhoi-30 MKI aircraft in Tezpur, Assam. Though only four fighters are deployed now, there are plans to increase it to its full complement in a gradual manner. Additionally, India has acquired three Airborne Warning and Control Systems (AWACS), which also potentially has uses on the Eastern border. In addition, India is also undertaking upgradation of airstrips and advanced landing stations along the Northeast, including at Tezpur (Assam), Chabua (Assam), Jorhat (Assam), Panagarh (West Bengal), and Purnea (Bihar). If the AWACS are deployed to the northeast, it could be significant as it is a potent force multiplier capable of monitoring the movement and activities of troops and aircraft on the Chinese side. The state of Arunachal Pradesh is also planning to raise a 5,000-strong force, comprising of local populace, to supplement Indian Army efforts during a crisis. This is being modeled on Ladakh Scouts that proved useful during the 1999 Kargil War with Pakistan.

On the other hand, the infrastructural developments that China has undertaken in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) as well as on the India-China border is remarkable. It provides the potential to the PLA Army to mobilise forces and equipment in a much shorter span of time. It would enable China to quickly mobilise large forces by train and by road onto Indian borders. Earlier this exercise not only took a long time but also was impossible during periods of snow. The new rail line into Tibet, and expressways, have changed the scenario totally. Besides, it is believed that China has about 160,000 troops in Tibet, and with improved infrastructure, it will be able to amass another 100,000 troops from the central reserve in a span of six weeks. Indian military planners have also noted that China has vastly improved its air force capability in the region, with multiple air bases and forward airstrips near the border. The PLA Air Force is also believed to have improved its command and control structures. China can also deploy heavy-lift planes in Tibet, though they may not be able to land and take-off fully loaded because of altitude restrictions. Besides the positioning of intermediate range ballistic missiles such as DF-4 and DF-21 in Tibet, it is reported that they could also deploy DF-31 ICBMs in bases such as at Delingha, near Tibet.

This is in essence India's defence as far as China is concerned. How is the military balance favoring India?