Is India prepared for war in the 21st century?

India desperatelyneeds to upgrade the armed forces' war-fighting capabilities and tackle theproblem of ammunition deficiency if it is to fight and win on the battlefieldsof the 21st century, says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (Retd).

Army chief General V KSingh's leaked letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the CAG's recentreport have revealed that the nation's defence preparedness is cause forserious concern.

Thechief's letter has brought into the public domain a fact that has been knownfor long to army officers in service, and those who have retired from service.

Theleakage of an ultra-sensitive Top Secret letter will certainly have an adverseimpact on national security, as it has given undue advantage to India'smilitary adversaries by publicly disclosing sensitive information about thedeficiencies in the weapon systems, ammunition and equipment in service in thearmy.

However,now that these facts are in the public domain, they will help to focus thenation's attention on the need to speedily make up the shortages and give thearmy the wherewithal that it needs to fight and win future wars.

GeneralV K Singh is not the first Chief of the Army Staff to have apprised the primeminister about the poor state of preparedness; his predecessors have done so aswell.

GeneralK M Cariappa had gone to Pandit Nehru to ask for additional funds for militarymodernisation and was reported to have been told, 'India does not need an army;it needs a police force.'

Theignominy of 1962 followed.

The late General Bipin CJoshi had written to then prime minister P V Narsimha Rao, urging him to helpthe army make up the long-standing large-scale shortage of ammunition.

Whilethe shortage was worth over Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 1 billion), army headquartershad reportedly identified a 'bottom line' figure without which the COAS saidthe army would remain unprepared for war.

Perhapsthe country's precarious financial condition in the mid-1990s did not allow Raoto provide the necessary funds to immediately make up the shortage.

Afew years later, the Kargil conflict took place and the whole nation heard thethen COAS, General V P Malik, make the chilling statement on nationaltelevision: 'We will fight with what we have.'

Itis well known that India had to scramble to import 50,000 rounds of 155 mmammunition for its Bofors guns, besides other weapons and equipment.

Stocksof tank ammunition and ammunition for other artillery and air defence guns werealso low. It was just as well that the fighting remained limited to the Kargilsector and did not spill over to the rest of the Line of Control or the plains.

Approximately250,000 rounds of artillery ammunition were fired in that 50-day war.

The defence ministry hassanctioned the stocking of sufficient ammunition to fight a large-scale war for60 days. This is known as the 'war reserve'.

Asthe army chief's letter and the CAG report bring out, apparently not enough newstocks were procured to make up even the ammunition expended during the Kargilconflict.

Stocksof several critical varieties of ammunition for tanks and artillery guns havefallen to as low as less than 10 days war reserves.

Also,ammunition has a shelf life of about 12 to 15 years, at the end of which it isno longer usable for combat, but can still be used for training. Hence, theshortages continue to increase every year if action is not taken to constantlymake up the deficiency.

Theother major issue highlighted in the letter written by the COAS pertains to thecontinuation in service of obsolescent weapons and equipment and the stagnationin the process of military modernisation aimed at upgrading the army'swar-fighting capabilities to prepare it to fight and win on the battlefields ofthe 21st century.

While the COAS has pointedout several operational deficiencies, the most critical ones include thecomplete lack of artillery modernisation since the Bofors 155 mm Howitzer waspurchased in the mid-1980s, 'night blindness' of the army's infantry battalionsand mechanised forces, the fact that the air defence guns and missile systemsare 97 per cent obsolescent and the inadequacy of the intelligence,surveillance and reconnaissance systems, which has an adverse impact on commandand control during war.

Thissorry state of affairs has come about because of the flawed defence planningand defence acquisition processes, a grossly inadequate defence budget and theinability to fully spend even the meagre funds that are allotted.

Fundsare surrendered quite often due to bureaucratic red tape, scams and thefrequent blacklisting of defence firms accused of adopting unfair means to wincontracts.

Long-termdefence planning is the charter of the apex body of the National SecurityCouncil which meets very rarely due to the preoccupation of the prime ministerand other members of the Cabinet Committee on Security with day-to-day crisismanagement.

Assuch, the 15-years Long-term Integrated Perspective Plans and five-year DefencePlans do not receive the attention they merit.

The 11th Defence Plan,which terminated on March 31, 2012, was not formally approved by the governmentand, hence, did not receive the committed budgetary support that would haveenabled the three Services to plan their acquisitions of weapons and equipmentsystematically, rather than being left to the vagaries of annual defencebudgets.

Consequent to the leakageof General V K Singh's letter and the major uproar in Parliament that resulted,the defence minister is reported to have approved the 12th Defence Plan 2012-17and the LTIPP 2012-27 in early-April 2012.

While this is undoubtedlycommendable, it remains to be seen whether the finance ministry and,subsequently, the Cabinet Committee on Security will show the same alacrity inaccording the approvals necessary to give a practical effect to these plans.

The defence budget hasdipped below 2 per cent of the country's GDP despite the fact that the Serviceshave repeatedly recommended that it should be raised to at least 3 per cent ofthe GDP if India is to build the defence capabilities that it will need to facethe emerging threats and challenges and discharge its growing responsibilitiesas a regional power in Southern Asia.

Thegovernment will do well to appoint a National Security Commission to take stockof the lack of preparedness of the country's armed forces and to make pragmaticrecommendations to redress the visible inadequacies that might lead to yetanother military debacle.

Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (Retd) is former director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi

Courtesy: Rediff.com, 09 April 2012

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