Arming without Aiming: India's Military Modernization

by Stephen Philip Cohen

Despite production, release, and updating of official documents to facilitate the acquisition process (the Defence Procurement Manual and Defence Procurement Procedure), the system continues to be plagued by fundamental structural problems. The Ministry of Finance, which has its own defense wing, has the authority to intervene in specific spending decisions of the Ministry of Defence, often with an eye toward limiting costs. One of the key unresolved problems in the acquisition process, which is almost entirely about importing weapons from advanced industrial societies (the West and the Soviet Union), is an unrealistic and ambiguous policy of offsets (where foreign companies, as part of their bids, commit to source a percentage of the contract in India). However, any leader or bureaucrat advocating lower offsets becomes vulnerable to charges of corruption. India simply lacks civilian expertise in military matters. Few politicians are interested in defense until forced by events. The bureaucracy that functions as the secretariat for the political leaders comprises generalists with little practical knowledge of military matters, but this group lobbies powerfully to preserve its position against military encroachment. Even the Ministry of External Affairs, with the greatest institutional capacity for international relations, has very few people with sound knowledge of military matters. Although the armed services are highly professional and have the necessary expertise, they ...