India & the world - Articles

India intends spending an equivalent amount it spent on armaments over the last decade in half the time this decade. Whether this US$50 billion is necessary is a valid and timely question. Multiple arguments in favour of this spending are given as answer; with deterrence usually being the main one. In case these falter in the face of scrutiny, then India needs to rethink.

Firstly, India’s growing economy requires securing through deterring threats. Future threats need to be catered for now since incorporating weapons into the repertoire requires time. India has to be prepared for a ‘two front’ eventuality as the worst case scenario. India’s expanding economy would in future require access to energy, trading routes, resources and markets. This entails a strong Navy, an ‘out of area’ capability for the Army and strategic reach for the Air Force. The ‘credible’ in ‘credible minimum deterrence’ requires missiles of requisite range, the sea leg of the ‘triad’, an elastic quantity of warheads of varying types and yields, and missile defences of command and control and second strike assets.

Secondly, current threats compel preparedness. An offensive doctrine is backed by a capability enabled by defence budgets that have hiked three fold over the past decade. An ‘assertive’ China can only be dissuaded by a visible and usable military capability.

Lastly, India is seen as an emerging power that needs to carry its weight in international affairs. With the United States facing prospects of long term decline, India needs to redress the balance on the side of democracies.

No better place to begin interrogating this logic than ‘On War’. Clausewitz’s most significant idea was on the two types of war. The first was a war of conquest and annihilation and the second a limited war to bring about a negotiated settlement. While the first amounting to Total War is unthinkable in the nuclear era, the second is seen as feasible. The Indian Army Chief in late November said: “The possibility of limited war under a nuclear overhang is still a reality, at least in the Indian sub-continent…”

Since the kind of war that can be fought is only a ‘limited war’, do the preparations reflect this?

Armaments can well be used to prosecute both types of war. The logic is perhaps that once a war is begun it could end up as a wider war, even if the original intent was to keep it a limited one. Paradoxically, the purchases by deterring enemy escalation through escalation dominance, help keep war a limited one.

The problem with this argument is that if there is no guarantee that a war can be kept limited, there is no question of getting into one since we are now in the Nuclear Age. And if war is not an option, then arming for one is not necessary.

The range, quality and depth of capabilities that India is acquiring enable India to prevail over Pakistan. Pakistan cannot know what Indian aims are. If India advertises its limited aims, Pakistan can ensure it denies these with greater energy. Denied a ‘win’, India, seen as the bigger power, would be facing a ‘loss’ and, worse, a loss of ‘face’. It may then be tempted to widen war aims or escalate. It can be denied even these by Pakistan going nuclear. This is not in Indian interests, even if it is decidedly not so in Pakistani interests either. Therefore, even a limited war makes little sense.

The supposed aim in such a war is to ‘punish’ Pakistan. The satisfaction cannot be risked. Even if the war is intended to bring Pakistan to the negotiating table, then root causes such as Kashmir would require to be addressed on the table. Such negotiations can be done without a war forcing this, undercutting the prohibitive option of war and costs of armaments. This means that more needs be done than mere rounds of ‘talks about talks’ and ‘trust’ building.

With respect to China, having military power to fall back on makes diplomacy less amenable to the ‘give and take’ of negotiations.  Politically, there would be little incentive to arrive at solutions to the border problem, since militarily there would be no need to. The militarist argument can be identified as a cyclic one:  military preparedness delays solution to problems and their continuing existence gives military power a seemingly plausible rationale. Arming now for the envisaged future threat of the two Asian giants fighting over strategic space in Asia, markets, resources and energy, and for prestige, would amount to a self-fulfilling prophecy. Events early in the last century bring out that such problems between rising powers are not amenable to a military solution.

As a nuclear power, all India need have is the capability to defend itself. A peace dividend is what India was promised. K Subrahmanyam, arguing for nuclear weapons, had written, ‘…our defence burden is likely to go even higher if India does not exercise its nuclear option…(The Nuclear Challenge, New Delhi: Lancers, 1986). The promise has been belied. Indians demand being convinced why.