May I Have Some More? That was Oliver Twist’s
classic question for which he got caned at the orphanage for asking for some
extra gruel. 1.5 % of the GDP allocated for defence evokes hunger of the Oliver
Twist variety in the Armed Forces who have been asking for more for from the Government
for a long time now. This has been analysed
and commented upon by many experts. All of them unanimously recommend that the
allocation should go up to 2% at least. The Government has given the same
answer repeatedly. No caning but an emphatic but silent NO. (Caning guaranteed
only if you are on Jantar Mantar!) The logic of the Government appears to be
that 1.5% of the GDP may seem static however it is of a GDP set to double from
2.5 Tn to 5 Tn USD. So, will the defence budget not be doubled? In addition, it
must cater for many more Oliver Twists’ in the Indian social welfare landscape-
Ayushman Bharat, Swach Bharat, Farmer Distress, National Water Mission etc. The
Government might also be thinking - there is ASAT capability and nuclear and
missile strength besides conventional forces which have been heavily funded.
Also has it not given 36 Rafales, S 400 and a slew of Warships and 155 mm Guns
to the Forces? So, what is the problem? In any case even if additional
allocation was made, the Armed Forces and the MOD do not have the capability to
spend it. If a starving person is given extra food, he will be afflicted with
indigestion.
Realpolitik. It is very clear that the Government's strategic assessment could be
running on lines like Pakistan is bankrupt. Post Balakot it cannot do anything
funny. Nuclear dynamics limit space for extensive battles. If it attempts
anything it can be given a fitting riposte within the diminishing window of
conventional warfare. All the Shisha Bar stories, and businesses of the
Pakistani Army could tumble out in the next round. The lesson learnt by
Sarfaraz and his teammates will be fresh in the mind. 7-0 in cricket and 4-0 in
war. Pakistan as a major threat is in recession. Just have defensive capability
with a limited punitive edge. Such punitive edge is inherent in capability
development against China. QED. In Doklam, despite grave provocation and big
talk, the Chinese blinked. After that, Chinese economy has cooled, it is in a
debilitating trade war with USA, BRI is not going well and Made in China 2025
plan is facing severe problems as seen in the Huawei episode. China has
problems whose solutions lie partly in India. War is not an option for both
countries. That is clear from the body language of leadership of both
countries. In fact, there is a decadal window before war clouds could appear
again on the horizon! In addition, there
is the factor of Indo US Strategic Partnership, QUAD in the making and other strategic
initiatives. Lastly, political capital has been made and necessity of the Armed
Forces is five years away till the next election. So? Business as usual does
not include priority for the Armed forces. While veterans and other
professionals are crying hoarse that India cannot wish the wolf away, the Armed
Forces are very clearly wishing their wolves away at a different level! Time to stop bleating and get down to real
business. Harsh? No. Realpolitik.
Turnaround Factors. The way to turn things around and make the defence budget
allocations work better is the order of the day. It must be underpinned by
three factors. One. A hard and realistic threat assessment to affect a sensible
reduction of manpower. Two. Reorganisation of public defence industry to make
it cost effective. Three. Investment in indigenous defence technology. Revisiting
these issues with purpose can contribute to the Armed Forces in making do with
the allotted budgets. Utopian? No. Realistically we have no other choice. No? We
can continue to bleat. What then is to be done?
Threat Reassessment and Downsizing. The overall threat needs a joint reassessment instead of individual
service perceptions. Ideally, we will need a CDS to do that. However, given the
reality of India, he is a mythical unicorn and best forgotten for the present. It is incumbent upon the Service Chiefs to sit
together with the CISC and relevant MOD officials and come out with a cogent threat
pattern for the next decade or so. It can be sanctified by the apex council
formulated for defence affairs under the NSA. This will give a realistic indication
of the capability and requirements to ward off these threats. For example, if
Pakistan is a receding threat, some capability development programs to cater
for a Pak based threat can be put on the back burner. Reorganisation can focus
on the China front. Maybe it will be better to reorganise our three existing strike reserves poised against Pakistan to be mountain capable and be poised
against China rather than raising a new Mountain Strike Corps. It will also
enable downsizing. These are only some thoughts. Many more realistic options
exist. Such realism is not alien to our thinking. In the late nineties we made
peace with China and shifted forces West to sort out the Pakistani threat. Unless
we factor in a realistic threat and reorganize ourselves to cater for it, we
will not be able to do realistic downsizing.
A major part of our budget woes gets
addressed if manpower is reduced.
Reorganization of Public Defence
Industry. Currently the DDP and its
constituents are working on principles of monopolistic insider trading. The
DGQA which is meant to assure quality stands compromised under the DDP. As a result, India is paying double time for
lack of efficiency and quality endlessly. For example, poor quality of
ammunition which is the norm, results in premature ageing or accidents which
implies setting aside/ destroying huge quantities of ammunition. It is a double
whammy to replace defective ammunition prematurely since it is an unplanned
cost and an operational hole not to mention of loss of confidence. Why should
the nation pay for this endless cycle of a serpent eating its tail? The
Department of Indigenisation needs focus and given tangible indigenisation
goals by cost and time or axed. Our
revenue procurement must focus on many small items which we continue to import merrily
at great cost and effort but can be indigenised. There has been talk of moving
the DPSUs out of the MOD. In my opinion, the entire DDP with the OFB and DPSUs
should be moved out of MOD and made a bespoke organization. UK has such a model. In fact, in the UK this bespoke organization takes pride in delivery on time
and at better rates. Stop monopoly and preferential treatment to DDP entities. OFB
and DPSUs cannot be middlemen or alternate channels of import. Make them
competitive and realistic. I have never understood as to how cost escalation is
over 100% for an equipment over a time period when procured through OFB or
DPSUs and it is only 20% for a similar time period when imported (I can quote
specific cases if challenged). Someone must be in line for a Nobel prize for
milking us bnmvkdry through this
organized self-loot. If the Armed Forces can put their foot down and cauterize
this internal bleeding, they will do themselves a lot of good. India is central
to international conflict and disaster zones. We need to make this count. If someone in the government can think right,
there is a huge scope for exports, which is not being exploited now.
Hi Tech Investment. Many countries make hi-tech defence exports pay for their R&D
and defence requirements. These are the countries from whom we mostly import
defence equipment. USA, Israel and Russia to name a few. Why can’t we copy
their model? In case we must export defence equipment we have to invest in
technology. That is alien to our system at present. Recently I spoke to the
future leadership of the Armed Forces as to how to ingest technology into the
Armed Forces. The sense I got from the questions posed to me was that most of
us in uniform expect others to develop cutting edge systems without putting in the
hard yards to convert technology into warfighting capability. The Armed Forces are
addicted to the lazy comfort of imported equipment. The simple truth is that
Mohammed must go to the mountain. But our Mohammed questions as to why the
mountain is not coming to him. The only Mountain which comes to our Mohammad is
good old DRDO since he has nowhere else to go. Let me give you a current ongoing
example. A student from IIT comes up with a terrific idea based on disruptive
technologies. He displays it in various Armed Forces conferences. Everyone
appreciates it and says “Oh yes. This is what we need... Great equipment… Great
idea… But we cannot fund it immediately... We have to go through our laid down procedure…
(which will take 5-10 years!)”. Along comes Microsoft. Sees this product in a
competition and awards a sum of 5 lakhs and takes the student to Seattle to
present the idea. Later Lockheed Martin also picks up this idea to be funded as
a start-up and writes a cheque out for 10 lakhs. All within three months. The
way this story is evolving, this classroom idea is going to go abroad, get incubated,
converted into a fine piece of equipment and will be sold to us at 50 times the
price ten years later when our procedures are in place. Let me elucidate
further. I was explaining some ideas to a Vice Chief. His response was – well
these ideas are great in classrooms and labs, but we need deployable equipment.
Well, all ideas emanate from classrooms and labs, get incubated and then get
developed into defence equipment. What is the sense you get? The Armed Forces are
out of the technology loop. It does not matter if the PM exhorts IITs to
contribute to indigenise defence technologies. At this rate and with this
attitude, we will never have budgets to whet our appetite. Que Sabe? Armed
Forces must develop the habit of investing in defence technology and should be
fundamental to covert ideas from classrooms to defence equipment by going
through the ingestion loop of identification, incubation, development and production.
In desi terms if you want a ladoo which you cannot afford, you must learn to
make it. Then you can even sell it! Start thinking anew.
Good Generalship. Everyone knows that India faces grave security challenges. However,
we must accept that in India we have reached a stage where Defence budgets will
remain static in percentage terms. With our present outlook and procedures, we
will continue to be Oliver Twists and keep asking for more. We must change and
put our foot forth with resolve. We must start thinking out of the box to see
how to make things work within the existing budgets. It is possible if we have
Good Generalship in the Armed Forces. If the Armed Forces have good leadership
and the will to develop technologies for themselves, it will happen. Otherwise
Fagin will continue to twist Oliver’s Tail.
Obviously the MEA must do much more to give guaranteed peace from our neighbours. However, reducing strike capability has its disadvantages in times of sudden conflict. In any case there has to be assured deterrence value to ensure there is no danger from change on posture by
ReplyDeleteanyone. Our diaspora across the world needs the strength of the Military for disuading any bullying tactics by the state where NRIs reside.Also the capabilities of the Military are always exploited by the government in times of calamities. So a shortsighted view of cutting down Milit6 spending may be considered gravely.
First and foremost, I feel, there is a need to move Veterans affairs to a separate ministry, like in US.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, the tendency to build imaginary empires based on lanyards , and ignoring professionalism of army needs to go.
Thirdly, generals and admirals need to develop spines.
Fourthly, our culture of behaving like the colonial Army under a viceroy needs to change.
Good and evil are never wrought by others.
Would largely agree that repeated bleating for more funds a la Oliver Twist is not going to work because there are many such Oliver Twists!! The solution is internal to MoD and internal to tri services, as the Gen has alluded to. Intra-service and inter-service prioritisation cannot happen without a strategic assessment. The financial process of a single file for single procurement is a complete no-no. It results in relatively easier projects getting cleared financially, thereby ensuring requisite expenditure at the end of the fin year but the really high priority items stay in orbit. These cleared cases adds to the committed liabilities year on year!! We land up with things not the highest on service priority and committed liabilities eat up capital resources !! It's a dysfunctional method. Relative priorities in service cases is a must when clearing cases..but if tough cases don't get cleared, nxt year budget gets affected adversely!! It's a crazy system..we need a better financial process to get the correct bang for the buck!! Continuous assessment of priorities in cases being considered and cleared and protection of budgets through longer term committment is the easiest and doable way!! Thank you for an imp article...
ReplyDeleteAn excellent article sir. Very precise and covers the key issues which need correction. Probably the best immediate solution is to carry out introspection within own organisation, take remedial actions to reduce expenditures and create corpus (separate financial head) for innovations from technical universities along with delegation of financial powers. Other issues for implementation could be to suitably reward ideas & innovations within the organisation and modify the posting policy to place officers in appointments in which their civil qualifications can be useful & provide them adequate time to implement complete projects.
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