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It is dangerous to aspire to a super-power status. This merely increases the conflicts a nation is embroiled in. It entangles a nation with greater responsibility, waste of vital resources, loss of life, war, and delusional self imagery of oneself that is fatal, as it has been for all great empires and states.
It is dangerous for a nation to flex its muscle, pretending that it is a great power, as EGOTISTICAL posture devoid of real value invites rivals to test and challenge the new pretender to the global crown. China year in year out does not go 19km into North Korea; 19km into Vietnam; 19km into Mongolia; 19km into Russia; 19km into Pakistan; 19km into Tajikistan; 19km into Uzbekistan; 19km into Kirghistan; 19 km into Myanmar; 19 km into Bhutan; 19km into Nepal; 19km into Kazakhstan or 19km into the USA. Yet there are these border incidents year in year out between India and China.
It is dangerous and delusional for India to aspire to a great power status simply because certain Americans urge India to be so. "We will make India into a great power'...so said Hillary Clinton. How absurd and naive of Indians to think of its pure truth in such an absurd statement. Has the USA ever made great power rivals? No never. Instead in the safety of its isolation and the two oceans, it has since the early part of the 20th century conspired, led by the BANKERS to wage and manufacture war.....WWI, and WWII both largely bankrolled by the USA Wall Street Bankers. The USA armed Nazi Germany WITH technology transfers 1933--1945; and the USA armed with technology transfers the USSR 1918--1991.
When a nation after 66 years of independence still has 850 million people living on just $2 a day, it is a serious vulnerability and contradiction of an alleged great power, which should NOT waste its resources over extending itself looking afar, but should focus on its own BASIC needs, and the right of ALL Indians to a decent meal a day, decent housing, decent FREE education for all up to the age of 16, decent living environment, decently paying work, decent reasonable universal healthcare, reasonable prices for the basic needs of life such as rice, wheat, dhal, sugar, onions, potatoes and so forth....fuel.....a decent transport system where people can go from A to Point B. Good INFRASTRUCTURE, and a big industrial sector.
When you have a mere 50 old ramshackle ordnance factories, its is seriously delusional to think oneself as a mighty military power.
When you are the biggest arms importer in the world al la the Shah of Iran, and the Saudi Monarchy, its is seriously delusional to think oneself as a mighty military power.
When 70% of your arms are from various unreliable foreign sources, at soaring costs with STATE corruption, such as to make the the imported arms unrepairable/workable, its is seriously delusional to think oneself as a mighty military power.
When 30% of the remaining indigenous manufactured arms have substantial foreign components which have to be haggled for with corruption, its is seriously delusional to think oneself as a mighty military power.
When you only spend 1.8% of GDP on national defence, its is seriously delusional to think oneself as a mighty military power. Even when the threats are GREATER than ever before.....two front wars.
The British should not have occupied India, and invaded the country even when it was divided. There was no need for 30 million Indians to die under British mismanagement and cruelty. There was no need for $1 trillion worth of wealth transfer from India to the UK. There was no need for the humiliation of foreign rule, where everything about the UK was portrayed as good, and everything about India was bad.
On a straight out slogging match on the conventional battle field the British would not have succeeded in conquering India BETWEEN 1757--1849. They would have been defeated, since Indian arms and tactics in some cases were SUPERIOR to the British.....some examples below, and a 8th grade video to reinforce the IMPORTANT point.
The British conquered India between 1757--1849, and held all of it for 98 years through corruption, wheeling dealing, delegation of power of 500 Maharajahs, and 5000 Zamindars. They did it primarily by BUYING the LEADERS and GENERALS of INDIA......not through war! They bought the generals of the Nawabs of Bengal. They bought the generals of Tipu Sultan. They bought the generals of the Sikh Empire.
THE BRITISH CONQUERED INDIA BY CORRUPTION.
CORRUPTION is the biggest threat to Indian security, in the armed forces, AND for the country generally.
CORRUPTION of the Pakistan military makes the country a failed state. 95% of the funds for the Pakistan military comes from the Pakistani taxpayer, AND YET the Pakistani military leadership look to the USA/UK for leadership and guidance.....due to corruption, and training of key military personnel. The Pakistan military leadership holds secret meetings with the USA, against the interests of Pakistan. The Pakistan military plays politics with the country. The Pakistan military destabilizes the country. The Pakistan military dissuades civilian leaders becoming too friendly with India. The Pakistan military leaders write and speak gora talking points and security jargon written in Washington or London.
1. My basic point is that the Indian leadership should firmly desist from talking about being a great power.
2. HOWEVER, India should bolster its armed forces to meet the threats from China and Pakistan in a credible and serious manner.
3. India should keep its armed forces fairly distant from the UK, a former colonial power and the USA, the current global empire with 1000 bases around the world.
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PM exudes confidence about India’s military might
By Times of India.
GURGAON: Exuding confidence about the way India has added military muscle over the last decade, PM Manmohan Singh
on Thursday said the country was "well-positioned'' to become a "net
provider of security'' in "our immediate region and beyond'' especially
in the Indian Ocean region (IOR).
"India faces the entire spectrum of security challenges. This is
inevitable as we live in a difficult neighbourhood, which holds the full range of conventional, strategic and non- traditional challenges," said the PM, after laying the foundation of the Indian National Defence University (INDU) at Binola village.
But, he was quick to add, India's ``deterrence capabilities have also
matured and have been given concrete shape'' in the last nine years. The
country already has the Agni series of ballistic missiles and fighters jury-rigged to deliver nuclear weapons. Moreover, it will finally complete its nuclear weapons triad when indigenous nuclear submarine INS Arihant — slated to begin its sea trials soon — becomes fully operational towards end-2014.
The PM also said India was now also better equipped to deal with
non-conventional threats, especially in the cyber and space domains. `We
are implementing a national architecture for cyber security and have taken steps to create an office of a national cyber security coordinator,'' he said.
Noting that the world was witnessing change on a scale and speed rarely
seen before, Singh said this was more pronounced in Asia, which was
facing multiple security challenges due to the "intersection of fragile
states, internal conflicts, proliferation of arms and terror groups".
``The nature of conflict and competition is changing at the same time when national boundaries
are being blurred by deepening global integration. Therefore, while
defending and securing our homeland, we also have to be prepared to
preserve India's expanding international assets," he said.
``These multiple challenges notwithstanding, we must also be conscious
of our strategic opportunities. India's security has never been stronger
than it is today and our international relationships have never been
more conducive to our national development efforts,'' he added.
With the government hit by a series of scams, including those related
to arms deals, the PM said the government was being guided by the
objective of making arms acquisitions ``transparent, smooth, efficient
and less vulnerable'' to unethical practices. ``We will continue to seek
the highest standards of probity in defence acquisition,'' he added. 
Antony fails to bite the bullet
Yes, the annual defence budget has slowly climbed to reach what seems an impressive Rs 203,672 crore this year. And, the armed forces have certainly inducted several new weapon systems, sensors and platforms over the last few years.
But the defence outlay itself continues to wallow well below 2% of theGDP, much less than the 3% being long demanded to tackle the twin threats from Pakistan and China. It's just 1.79% this year, the lowestsuch figure in over 30 years.
Modernization itself has taken place in a haphazard manner, with no grand longterm design to systematically build military capabilities in tune with the country's geo-strategic objectives. "Each service tries to grab whatever it can... there is poor inter-services prioritization or planning,'' says a top official.
Consequently, critical operational gaps persist, with a poor teeth-to-tail ratio to boot. If the army is grappling with the lack of howitzers, air defence weapons, helicopters and night-fighting capabilities . The IAF, in turn, is down to 34 fighter squadrons when at least 45 are needed.
"Maximum indigenization" is the "ultimate answer" to avoid corruption and ensure "Indian tax-payers' money" is not lost to "greedy players" in the arms business , says Antony. The armed forces, the minister adds, should first look within the country to meet their operational requirements and consider "imports" only as "the last resort" .
But Antony's almost-seven-year tenure in the defence ministry has not witnessed much concrete measures to build a robust defence industrial base, leaving India in the embarrassing as well as strategically-vulnerable position of being one of the world's largest arms importers.
The Jaivana canon built in 1720, is the worlds biggest canon, and extremely well crafted and modern for its time. By 1750 25% of the worlds manufacturing BASE was in India.
Even the much-touted offsets policy, under which foreign companies bagging arms deals over Rs 300 crore have to plough back at least 30% of the contract value into India, is faltering. India may have already attracted around $5 billion through "offsets" in the flurry of defence deals inked since 2007 but it has not led to any concomitant strengthening of the defence industrial base.
India General: We’re Unfit for War
By Jason Miks at the DIPLOMAT blog.
India’s million man-plus armed forces are unfit to fight a war, according to the country’s army chief. “The army’s tanks have run out of ammunition, the air defense is as good as obsolete and the infantry is short of critical weapons,” Gen. V.K. Singh wrote in a leaked letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, India’s DNA news agency has reported.
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Singh is said to have approached the prime minister after failing to get a response from the Defense Ministry. He warns in the letter that the state of India’s military is “alarming,” noting that the country’s air defense is “97 percent obsolete,” while the elite Special Forces are described as “woefully short” of “essential weapons.”
Singh is said to have approached the prime minister after failing to get a response from the Defense Ministry. He warns in the letter that the state of India’s military is “alarming,” noting that the country’s air defense is “97 percent obsolete,” while the elite Special Forces are described as “woefully short” of “essential weapons.”
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“This news is causing a lot of angst here,” said The Diplomat contributor Manpreet Sethi, who lectures regularly at India’s armed forces training centers. “Reports are pouring in from both sides – those who are angry with the general for allowing such a leak to happen, especially in the wake of allegations over a bribe he supposedly made earlier in the week, and those who believe that the corruption in the system can only be cleansed if such issues come out in the public.”
“This news is causing a lot of angst here,” said The Diplomat contributor Manpreet Sethi, who lectures regularly at India’s armed forces training centers. “Reports are pouring in from both sides – those who are angry with the general for allowing such a leak to happen, especially in the wake of allegations over a bribe he supposedly made earlier in the week, and those who believe that the corruption in the system can only be cleansed if such issues come out in the public.”
“The government is really on the back foot, as it has been on many issues for some time now,” she said.
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Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony confirmed to parliament Wednesday that Singh had indeed sent the letter, and he vowed to “protect every inch of our motherland” by upping the pace of modernization efforts. According to a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, between 2007 and 2011, India emerged as the world’s largest weapons importer. India’s defense budget, meanwhile, isrising by between 13 and 19 percent, depending on the interpretation of the numbers, against forecast GDP growth of 7.6 percent.
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“Like any commander of the armed services, he (Singh) is determined to do the best for his service and has accordingly informed the prime minister about the poor decision making in the Defense Ministry and the long delays his army is suffering,” said Devindra Sethi, a retired Indian naval captain. “What’s shocking is that it has been leaked to the media. As only two copies exist, one with the prime minister and the other with the commander of the armed services, it now remains to be confirmed which copy has been copied and leaked.”
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The leak comes at an uncomfortable time for New Delhi. With neighbor China itself ramping up military spending in recent years, and with the border between the two still tense, India has felt compelled to revise its own military plans, including deepening ties with allies and focusing on modernizing the country’s Air Force.
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“The Air Force, currently the largest beneficiary of India’s rising military budget, is in the middle of shifting its focus from being a purely Pakistan-centric force, to one that will be capable of simultaneously meeting the twin threats posed by an insecure Pakistan and an increasingly belligerent China,” defense analyst Nitin Gokhale wrote in The Diplomat. “In fiscal 2009-10 alone, for instance, the Air Force spent over $4 billion in capital acquisition, almost three times the amount spent by the Army.”
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Gokhale says that over the next few years, the Air Force budget for new purchases is only likely to rise with plans to buy six new-generation tanker transports, 22 attack helicopters, 12 heavy-lift helicopters and nearly 200 basic trainer aircraft.
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But Indian Decade writer Rajeev Sharma argues that Singh’s letter anyway has politics written all over it.
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“This is the first time a serving army chief has posed such political problems to the government. The Indian armed forces have been apolitical for the past 65 years, since independence,” Sharma noted, drawing a contrast with neighbors Pakistan and Nepal. “So the general mood in India on this subject is that the general has been speaking more like a politician of late and therefore his words need to be taken with a pinch of salt.”
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Still, fellow Indian Decade contributor Sumit Ganguly suggests where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
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“I fear that Singh’s revelations, though possibly motivated by a sense of personal piqué, are essentially correct,” Ganguly said. “India’s weapons acquisitions process is dilatory, cumbersome and plodding. I’ve no independent means of affirming if the situation is as dire as the general has claimed. However, reliable press reports suggest that there is some truth to his assertions.”
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“The revelations and the ensuing controversy also underscore the current political disarray within India. For months, there has been an unseemly battle between the Chief of Staff and the Defense Ministry about his age. With the latest revelations, the political atmosphere will become even more miasmic raising serious questions about the workings of civil-military relations in India.”
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Gen VK Singh tells PM some hard truths
By dnaindia.com and Saikat Datta
The army's tanks have run out of ammunition, the air defence is as good as obsolete and the infantry is short of critical weapons, General VK Singh wrote to the prime minister recently.
The country’s security might be at stake.
The army’s tanks have run out of ammunition, the air defence is as good as obsolete and the infantry is short of critical weapons, General VK Singh wrote to the prime minister recently.
The letter, sent to the prime minister’s office (PMO) on March 12, asks Manmohan Singh to “pass suitable directions to enhance the preparedness of the army”.
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The embattled general (the controversy over his date of birth and the Rs14-crore bribe offer) approached the PMO after he failed to get a response from the defence ministry. Ever since the general had a row with South Block — which houses the defence ministry — over his birth date, he has had to face a bureaucracy that seems reluctant to process files.
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With the Manmohan Singh-led government in power since May 2004, the military has failed to make any big ticket purchases and even critical operational shortages have failed to move a stubborn bureaucracy. “The state of the major (fighting) arms i.e. Mechanised Forces, Artillery, Air Defence, Infantry and Special Forces, as well as the Engineers and Signals, is indeed alarming,” Gen Singh wrote in his letter. Some of the major issues he has raised are:
- The army’s entire tank fleet is “devoid of critical ammunition to defeat enemy tanks”
- The air defence is “97% obsolete and it doesn’t give the deemed confidence to protect…from the air”
- The infantry is crippled with “deficiencies of crew served weapon” and lacks “night fighting” capabilities
- Elite Special Forces are “woefully short” of “essential weapons”
- There are “large-scale voids” in critical surveillance; night fighting capabilities.
- Defence budget is too low----1.8%, it should be nearer 5% of GDP.
- The army lacks adequate mortars...10,000 are needed 120mm.
- The Army lacks helicopters....1000 more are needed, useful in mountainous terrain.
- The army lacks AA 15,000 are required 23mm, 40mm, 100mm, 130mm.
- The army lacks decent artillery 5000 more should be ordered...105mm, 155mm.
- India should make 100% of its own equipment good or bad...this is what China, Russia and the USA does. From 50 ordnance factories to 500.
- 30 mountain divisions are required from the present 10.
Gen Singh points out that the present “hollowness” in the system is a manifestation of the procedures and processing time for procurements as well as legal impediments by vendors. The general’s plea is a direct indictment of the complex and slow defence procurement procedures.
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Gen Singh, miffed with ordnance factories that produce weapon systems and other fighting material, felt the work quality was poor and a “lack of urgency at all levels” on matters of national security.
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This is frustrating and worrying for the general because some years ago he was entrusted with preparing a comprehensive “transformation study” to modernise the army. As the GOC-in-C (Eastern Command), Singh, then a lieutenant general, had prepared a detailed report to modernise the force.
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This is frustrating and worrying for the general because some years ago he was entrusted with preparing a comprehensive “transformation study” to modernise the army. As the GOC-in-C (Eastern Command), Singh, then a lieutenant general, had prepared a detailed report to modernise the force.
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With two “inimical neighbours” and the “reality of large land borders”, Gen Singh feels such shortcomings severely erode the army’s preparedness. Therefore, there is a need to “urgently mitigate” these “critical deficiencies” that are “impacting the operational capability” of a 1.3million-strong army.
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The chief has made a few good points. they were not meant for public consumption.
This raises a few questions:
Why did the chief wait until now to speak out?
Why is the procurement of important weapons systems left to apathetic and corrupt civilian bureaucrats?
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The letter written is absolutely correct.
The COAS and the heads of the Air Force and Navy in India used to meet the PM personally every month to highlight shortcomings in the Military all the way up until Congress came to power, now its once every 6 months.....WTF, and then they have the nerve to blame him
Spot on! You've hit the nail on the head, Thor!
Most here are unaware that the cabinet committee on security is supposed to sit regularly for reviews. However, it's been months since it sat to review India's defence preparedness, and seldom does. Check out the priority of the CCS in the document detailing Composition and Functions of the various Cabinet Committees. Surprisingly, the CCS is listed LAST even after the Cabinet Committee on Accommodation, which includes modalities to provide accommodation in the general pool and out of turn allotment to our worthy Parliamentarians!!
So that's the priority this government accords to defence which is even lower than allotment of accommodation to our netas and babus!!
This sucks to hell and high heaven!
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There are more arms middlemen in Delhi than all the grains of sand on the marina Beach, and then some!
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The media in India seems to be just plain daft........
1.) The Army Chief decided to take a matter to court over the age issues after failing to reach an agreement with the MoD, that is his consitutional and democratic right. He did not agree with the decision and there was an option available to him to go to court and he took it up.....
2.) He came forward and informed, AND INFORMED the MoD of a bribery attempt on himself, and as such was told to investigate it. What utter rubbish, how can the complainant or his organisation investigate a matter like this themselves. It is done by the civilian investigators, i.e. the CBI or Police........not Mr Singh or the IA. I cannot believe the level of incompetence within the MoD to blame that on the COAS.
3.) The letter written is absolutely correct, and he highlighted this to the highest authority, why, so that if War did break out, and like post Kargil, where an investigation is held and the IA blamed for lack of information provided to the political class, at least the COAS can prove he conducted his duties fully and cannot be blamed for mismanagement and holding back information. COAS and the heads of the Air Force and Navy in India used to meet the PM personally every month to highlight shortcomings in the Military all the way up until Congress came to power, now its once every 6 months.....WTF, and then they have the nerve to blame him. I would not be surprised if this letter, a confidential document was leaked by the Government in a calculated move to have the COAS removed, due to him not agreeing with corruption in the Military, clearly kickbacks are not just contained within the Military and involves high level politicians.........
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Can't Agree more...!
btw....Gen V.K Singh is doing a great job by exposing the corrupt system....No wonder congress wants to get rid of him because he is making there life worse day by day...And yeah these corrupt thugs are scared of him and surprised by his guts to stand and speak truth by exposing the corrupt leadership!!!
We need to Get rid of this Gov ASAP!!
