India’s Defense Chief Opposes Aircraft Carrier Plans - The Diplomat, 14 May 2020

In this week's column for The Diplomat, I write on the Indian military debate about the Navy's plans for a third aircraft carrier. The piece looks at the CDS General Bipin Rawat's comments that reiterated doubts about acquiring a third carrier.

Last week, India’s Chief of Defense Staff General Bipin Rawat said in an interview to an Indian newspaper that the Indian military is not an expeditionary force and should not be deploying forces around the globe. He said that Indian forces have “to guard and fight only along our borders, and, of course, dominate the Indian Ocean Region.” He went on to add that the military services should not seek large imports “by misrepresenting our operational requirements.” He targeted the Indian Navy’s carrier plans, saying that because carriers, as surface vessels, can be “knocked off by missiles,” the Navy should invest more in submarines.

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Rawat’s statements have several implications. Most importantly, it calls into question the Indian Navy’s and the Air Force’s acquisition plans. These are particularly important at a time when China has been both putting pressure on the Sino-Indian border and venturing into the Indian Ocean Region. Rawat’s comments could also bring back concern within the Navy and the Air Force about the Army’s dominance within the Indian military and potentially lead to intensified interservice rivalry among the three services. The creation of the chief of defense staff (CDS) post was meant at least partly to create greater synergy among the services and greater jointness, but that could be at risk if the two smaller services feel the CDS is being partial to the Army.

Clearly, the economic impact and the financial implications of the COVID-19 pandemic is going to be significant. The Indian defense budget allocation over the last two years has been the lowest since the early 1960s, but the COVID-19 impact is likely to lead to further slashing the defense budget. This in turn will affect major defense procurements, particularly for the Navy and Air Force. Both are services that require capital-intensive investment in acquisitions that take longer term planning and a lot of lead time. They are not going to be happy about the CDS’s comments.

This issue has clearly been on Rawat’s mind for some time, and possibly has been under debate within the government too; the CDS was repeating earlier comments. In February this year, Rawat said that the Indian Navy’s request for a third aircraft carrier may not be approved any time soon because the priority is to strengthen the submarine fleet. The CDS cited cost as the major factor for this pushback. Rawat of course has to prioritize the military’s acquisition, depending on the available funds, but cutting down on aircraft carriers is likely not going to be easy. The Indian Navy is already pushing back.

Sources in the Indian Navy are reported to have said that the service is certain about its plans for a third aircraft carrier. They added that “the third aircraft carrier is an operational necessity. It is not that an aircraft carrier can be bought off the shelf. Even if all permissions are given today, it will take 15 years for the carrier to be inducted.” Admiral Karambir Singh, chief of the Indian Navy, previously stated that he was convinced that “the country needs three aircraft carriers, so that two are operational at all times. And it should be 65,000 tonnes with electromagnetic propulsion,” probably a misquoted reference to the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) with which the Navy plans to equip future aircraft carriers. Navy sources have also argued that shore-based aircraft operations, as indicated by the CDS, will be limited in terms of range.

India currently has one operational aircraft carrier, the INS Vikramaditya, which can host around 30 aircraft. The second, INS Vikrant, is still being built at the Cochin shipyard in south India, and is expected to be operational only by 2022, though even that is likely an optimistic timeline.

But Rawat’s emphasis on dominance in the Indian Ocean Region also cannot be addressed adequately if he plans to shrink the naval budget. Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar have emphasized an ambitious agenda for the Indian Ocean Region. To play an effective role in this vast maritime space, India would need a much higher number of ships. A falling naval budget would not permit this. India’s declining submarine fleet has been an additional matter of concern. With only 13 operational submarines, many of which are old, India cannot match the more capable navies in the Indo-Pacific, such as those of China and Japan. Unless India adds to its submarine fleet quickly, it may move down to the level of Pakistan, which has just eight operational submarines.

But the budget woes are unlikely to ease. The CDS and the Army leadership are also likely come under pressure to seriously think about downsizing the Army. With a strength of around 1.4 million personnel, the Indian Army is the world’s largest land force, followed by North Korea and China. China, in its attempt at modernizing its military, reduced the size of its Army by half and is now increasing its emphasis on the People’s Liberation Army Navy and Air Force. Pensions and salaries are becoming the biggest burden on the military budget and crowding out capital investments and much of this is the result of India’s massive army. The CDS is right in arguing for budget prioritization, but this might lead to calls for pruning the Army.

India’s New Defense Budget: Another Year, Another Disappointment? - The Diplomat, 6 February 2020

In this week's column for The Diplomat, I looked at India's defence spending for 2020-21 and it is another year of disappointment, as far as military modernisation of the Indian armed forces are concerned. The new numbers highlight New Delhi’s continued challenge of investing in its much-needed military modernization.

Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the new budget for the country last week. From the perspective of defense modernization, the budget has yet again proved to be disappointing, with significant implications for India as well as other key partners and competitors.

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Sitharaman announced an allocation of 4.71 trillion rupees (about $66.9 billion) for the Ministry of Defense (MoD), 15.49 percent of the total central government expenditure. Of this, almost $45.8 billion goes to meet the expenses of the army, navy, and air force as well as the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO). The rest of the allocation goes to meet defense pensions (about $19.0 billion) and MoD (Civil) (about $2.1 billion). The revised estimate for the previous year, 2019-20, was $65 billion.

The allocations for the various services are once again not very different from previous years: the army has received the biggest chunk of the allocation of 56 percent, the air force at 23 percent, and the navy has the smallest share at 15 percent. Over the last few years, India’s defense budget allocation has drawn unfavorable comparison to the budgets in the period prior to the 1962 war with China.

This year’s defense budget without the defense pensions amounts to a mere 1.5 percent of the GDP, which is noticeably low considering the state of the military. This figure is made worse by the fact that pensions accounted for only about 5 percent of the defense budget in 1960-61 but have skyrocketed to over 40 percent now, which in essence means that much less of the budget is going toward modernization of military equipment.

As I have written previously in The Diplomat (in 2018 and 2019) the current defense budget allocation comes against the backdrop of the 2018 Parliamentary Committee Report, which brought out severe deficiencies in the Indian military. Indian Vice Chief of Army Staff Lt. Gen. Sarath Chand in 2018 lamented the budget allocation, saying that it “has dashed our hopes.” He argued that as India looks at potentially fighting a two-front war scenario, the Indian military’s deficiencies are that much worse. He said then that unless the government makes necessary funds available for emergency procurement, the army, for instance, did not have war reserves to fight a high-intensity war beyond 10 days. In addition to the two fronts in the east and west, the Indian Army is also bogged down in internal security operations in the northeast and in Jammu and Kashmir.

Two years later, the situation has not improved much. Despite the Modi government’s national security rhetoric, it has failed when it comes to military modernization.

The capital expenditure that is available for the army is slightly less than $5 billion, for the navy it is less than $4 billion, and for the air force slightly more than $6 billion. These in effect cripple the Indian military’s efforts to modernize their weapon platforms. The Indian Army has been making efforts to procure a number of different platforms, including the M777 ultra-light howitzers and the K-9 Vajra self-propelled gun. Buying the indigenously produced 155 mm towed howitzers has also been an issue.

The Indian navy’s deficiencies are again well known. The fact that the number of operational submarines stands at 13 should be a reminder and warning to India of the state of the navy, especially at a time when the Chinese navy is probing the Indian Ocean. Indian efforts at developing the French Scorpene submarines has run into massive delays. The second of the six Scorpene submarine, INS Khanderi, was inducted into service only in September 2019. With the naval capability build-up being a time consuming and capital-intensive exercise, inadequate attention to and slow development of India’s naval capabilities can negatively affect India in any confrontation, including with Pakistan.

The Indian Air Force has its own woes, be it strengthening of the number of squadron or strengthening air defenses. Even though the Indian Air Force has a sanctioned strength of 42 squadrons, it is currently at a low of just about 31 squadrons. Out of the 31 squadrons, close to half of them belong to the vintage category such as the MiG-21s, MiG-27s, and Jaguars. The effort to get the French-built Rafale fighter has been caught in all sorts of problems, and the first four of 36 on order will only arrive this May.

There are no easy solutions to India’s budget problem. But the Indian government needs to consider radical solutions, including curtailing the size of the Indian army, and fast. The alternative is to have a very large but poorly-equipped force that will not be able to meet the challenges it is facing.

Why India’s New Defense Budget Falls Short - The Diplomat, 12 February 2019

For The Diplomat this month, I start with an analysis of the Indian defence budget and highlight that the new budget does little to advance the very objectives the country has outlined for itself.

On February 1, India’s acting Finance Minister Piyush Goyal (presented the Indian interim budget for 2019-20. Unsurprisingly for an election year, there was a big focus on agriculture and social sectors, and the defense allocation was certainly not the highlight.

Specifically, Goyal, in his speech said, “Our Defence Budget will be crossing 3,00,000 crore rupees [INR 3 trillion or about $42 billion] for the first time in 2019-20. For securing our borders and to maintain preparedness of the highest order, if necessary, additional funds would be provided.”

Newspaper headlines highlighted the fact that the defense budget had crossed the INR 3 trillion mark. But the key question is if this is sufficient against the backdrop of growing security challenges and the life-cycle driven military modernization that Indian military forces urgently require.

In fact, the defense allocation in real terms has gone down if one were to look at the rate of inflation and foreign exchange depreciation over the last year. Commenting on the defense budget, Air Marshal Nirdosh Tyagi, a former Deputy Chief of Air Staff, said, “Last defence budget had increase of just about 7.7 percent over the previous year. Inflation and rupee depreciation more than neutralized this. Thus, no increase in real terms.” Other commentators also echoed this general sentiment that Indian defense budget has stagnated.

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With major plans for defense modernization on the anvil, the current defense allocation is far too meager to make any meaningful progress. In fact, in the last few years, each Indian defense budget has been criticized as being the lowest budget allocation since the 1962 war with China. Indian defense spending in the pre-1962 phase was about 1.5 percent of GDP annually, going up only as a consequence of the disastrous border war with China in late 1962 and the rebuilding of the Indian military that took place subsequently. It peaked at over 4 percent of GDP in the mid-1980s, according to the World Bank (based on SIPRI data), declining since then.

The government has made a total allocation for defense of INR 4.31 trillion which is slightly over 6.35 percent of the revised estimates for 2018-19. The total Ministry of Defense (MoD) budget includes all allocations to the Ministry of Defense, revenue allocations to the three services, Defense R&D Organization (DRDO) and Ordnance Factories and capital allocations to these entities and also defense pensions. Thus, the actual allocation for the defense forces is only INR 3.01 trillion, of which only a third (INR 1.03 trillion) is allocated for capital expenditure, which goes into modernization of the military.

Analysts have provided further break down of the budget in terms of the modernization funds available to army, navy and air force which shows that the resource crunch will continue to be a major problem for all the services. Most of the 6.3 percent hike in the defense budget actually goes to meet the salary and pension requirements, thus making the allocation for modernization a lot smaller than even the previous year. A quick look at the modernization budget shows that Air Force has got the largest share at INR 363.7 billion followed by Army and the Navy at about INR 220 billion.

Why does the continuing almost-stagnant defense allocation create anxieties? This year’s defense allocation is despite the Parliament Committee Report of 2018 which highlighted the serious deficiencies faced by the Indian military. India’s Vice Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Sarath Chand had last year made a case for increasing the budget, telling a parliamentary panel that the budget “has dashed our hopes”. He pointed to the possibility of a two-front war and to the continuing threats that India faced, saying India did not have sufficient funds for emergency necessary purchases, and the army did not have sufficient war reserves to fight a high-intensity war for more than ten days. He is not likely to be pleased with this year’s budget either.

More recently, the Indian Army has released its Land Warfare doctrine which clearly emphasizes a two-front threat scenario (China-Pakistan) for which the Indian Army has to be prepared against, signifying a shift from the single-threat scenario, which was the predominant thinking until a decade ago. Similarly, last year the Indian Air Force (IAF) conducted the Gagan Shakti exercises reportedly with a two-front war scenario.

It is somewhat surprising that a nationalist government that prides itself on a muscular foreign policy devotes so little for defense. While the current budget may be dictated by the impending elections and the need for providing sops to various domestic groups, that does not explain the consistently lower defense budget for several years. This also has an impact on India’s strategic options: India’s much softer approach to China over the last year may very well be dictated by the realization that New Delhi simply does not have the military capacity to do anything else.