The Hindu : Strategic defence review

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Oct 28, 2003

Opinion

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Strategic defence review

By C. Manmohan Reddy

A central tenet of a strategic approach is the need to integrate all land, sea and air surveillance assets regardless of which service actually controls or operates individual systems.

WITH THE Indian Air Force celebrating its birthday this month and talk of space based weaponry flying thick and fast, it is time to ask if national defence is predicated purely on currently fashionable weapons systems. The IAF can justifiably be proud of its growth since its formation over 70 years ago in Karachi with just six already obsolete Westland Wapiti biplanes, but neither age nor size ought to be the prime consideration in deciding the directions of India's future security.

In the climate of excessive secrecy that clouds much of our thinking, one cannot be too sure of when the last honest defence review was carried out, but informed opinion has it that it has not happened since just after the Sino-Indian war of 1962. A quick and sensible result of that review was the relatively inexpensive raising of several mountain divisions to replace woefully under equipped Indian Army units forced to defend our arbitrarily drawn colonial borders.

Virtually every important aspect of rearmament since then has been ad hoc and, therefore, enormously wasteful. An example of arbitrariness ruling the roost is the surprising fact that the IAF's MiG-23s, MiG-27s, Mirage 2000s, MiG-29s and Su-30s are all not the product of previously well-thought out `Air Staff Requirements', in themselves born of broad national security needs, but the result of short-term `favours' that we, in our poverty, granted to various countries. In retrospect the Mirages and the Sukhois have proved to be good buys. On the other hand, the 1980s Air Staff Requirement that grew out of Air Chief Marshal Latif's vision of a single modern type replacing all the diverse MiG-21s, Gnats, Ajeets and Hunters then in IAF service became the LCA programme, which is probably why it has received such step-motherly treatment all along!

If one were to look at the Army, ill-advised attempts to make it primarily an armoured strike force have only meant that thousands of crores have gone down the drain. Inter alia, artillery of the class of the Bofors 155 mm was, and is, essential, but one does not need to again go into what that particular arms deal did to our polity.

On a more positive note, the integrated guided missile programme is an example of the benefits of comprehensive analysis. Born of a broad review of missile requirements jointly carried out by the three armed services and the defence research and development organisation in the early 1980s, its basic thrust has stood the test of time regardless of the problems that the short range Trishul anti-aircraft missile currently faces.

All this does not mean that autarky in all matters is indispensable or even always desirable. However, it is a policy that is generally cost-effective, allows for relatively easy upgrades and is relatively immune to `sanctions'. That it keeps most employment in the country and offers less scope for massive corruption is obvious. It is often not as obvious that `spin-offs' into the civilian economy can be considerable.

The rise and rise of Western dominance, particularly since the end of the Cold War, has given many in countries like India the impression that the former Soviet Union has nothing left of any scientific or technological value and that Western equipment is inherently superior. It will therefore surprise them to discover that America's Lockheed Martin went ahead with the development of its recently successful bid for the world's most advanced combat aircraft, the stealthy and multi-role Joint Strike Fighter, only after getting the basic design cleared by Russia's Yakovlev aeronautical design bureau. Yakovlev has a long reputation ranging back to the 1930s, but its innovative vertical/short take off and landing aircraft, the Yak-41, is what caught Lockheed's eye. This advanced naval fighter began its trials nearly 15 years ago and only explosions on board the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov and the economic travails of the disintegrating Soviet Union stopped further development. Incidentally, it is not very clear why the Indian Navy is after the damaged and decades old Gorshkov, particularly because it is too large to even enter any of our current naval bases.

Our decision makers also do not seem to grasp the importance of life cycle costing and rely only on initial acquisition costs. For example, Britain's Royal Air Force placed an order this July for 44 Hawks for £ 800 million while estimating that their thru-life cost would be more than four times as much at £ 3.5 billion . The RAF chose the latest `128' model partly because it realised that the new model was not only best suited to move trainees up to the aircraft they would be flying in the future, but primarily because the life cycle cost of the new design was likely to be very much lower than that of older models even if initial acquisition was marginally more expensive.

If one were to start afresh, the first thing to do is to put all `big ticket' arms procurement decisions on hold until a comprehensive strategic defence review is carried out. In parallel, however, one can look at the needs, for example, of air defence. Whether such defence is offensive or `purely' defensive, a primary need is surveillance of our borders, and some distance beyond, with suitable radar or other means. A central tenet of a strategic approach is the need to integrate all land, sea and air surveillance assets regardless of which service actually controls or operates individual systems. Only then should consideration be given to which current systems are adequate, which need up gradation, and which replacement.

The usefulness, and complementarities, of newer surveillance systems such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and synthetic aperture radar mounted on various platforms can be concurrently studied while considering how ground, sea and air based guns, missiles and unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) can be used against threatening intrusions.

This kind of analysis will only be complete if an honest attempt is also made to look at the requirements of strategic, and therefore long-range, technology development in a comprehensive manner. The importance of this approach can be seen with respect to the Agni, which was originally developed only to demonstrate `re-entry technologies' as part of the guided missile programme.

The three services have sometimes worked together very effectively — a classic example is that of Lieutenant Arun Prakash, now a Vice Admiral and Vice Chief of Naval Staff, being awarded a Vir Chakra for distinguished service while flying Hawker Hunters as a full member of an IAF squadron in 1971. Exchange of pilots between operational air force and the navy units was common, extending to naval pilots instructing air force cadets at the Air Force Academy, until an accident involving the death of an air force pilot while flying a Sea Harrier. A similar level of cooperation today could involve naval officers piloting maritime strike Jaguars operating from IAF bases. Or batteries of the longer range, smaller payload `air force version' of the Prithvi surface-to-surface missile under IAF command, but operated and maintained by the Army.

One needs to consider, finally, who should carry out a strategic defence review embracing geo-politics, national economics and technology. It needs to be done by men and women of singular integrity. Rather than specifying too narrowly who should be on the committee, it is important that certain kinds of people are kept out. The first are the timeservers and the `weathercocks', concerned only with their next posting or promotion. More importantly, there should be no one on the committee whose ideology can best be described by Samuel Johnson's dictum "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel".

All this does not mean that our armed forces have not acquitted themselves honourably in the 56 years since 1947 — they have, in large measure, and we should be proud of that. On the other hand, a thorough review of the military, political, economic and technological threats that our nation may have to counter in the next quarter century will lead to an appropriately structured and equipped national defence capability that does not cripple our economy or fracture our polity. In other words to a stronger, more independent India.

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