Arming without Aiming: India's Military Modernization

Preface to the First Edition

xv Preface to the First Edition There is widespread acknowledgment that India is newly important. Whether emerging, rising, or an Asian “giant,” there is some expectation that India’s new affluence will enable it to deploy vastly improved armed forces. This expanded military capability will enable it, then, to play a larger role in world affairs, notably in Asia, and to more effectively address military challenges both abroad and at home. While India’s historical poverty would seem to explain why it has not developed its military power, several studies have suggested reasons for why this is not the case, and why India has not been able to alter its strategic condition . In a very influential analysis in the 1990s, American strategist George Tanham argued that India had problems developing a robust security policy, including a strong military force, because the country was bereft of coherent strategic thought.1 Tanham attributed this missing piece to internal divisions in Indian society, which left a small elite responsible for strategic matters. Cut off from the rest of society, this elite was unable to mobilize available resources into military power. The result was repeated invasions of India over the last millennium. Stephen Peter Rosen argued that internal social divisions in India prevented collective action necessary for strong defense.2 He argued that the British had been able to raise an extraordinarily effective Indian Army by isolating the armed forces from the divisions of society . While it was possible for an independent government in India to do the same, a democratic India committed to egalitarian values and proper representation in the services would be hard-pressed to maintain a military set apart from the rest of society. In contrast, the Indian scholar Rajesh M. xvi / preface to the first edition Basrur has emphasized political choices and ideological preferences.3 Indian leaders, he says, preferred to view security as a political rather than a military matter and consistently made choices that downplayed military aspects such as nuclear weapons in favor of political management of security issues. Recent writing on India, drawing on the first period of sustained economic growth in the history of independent India, expects dramatic changes in how the country demonstrates its national power.4 Ashley Tellis, an American strategist who has been central to the reordering of U.S.-India ties, writes, “The record thus far amply substantiates the claim that India will be one of Asia’s two major ascending powers. It is expected that the Indian economy could grow at a rate of 7 to 8 percent for the next two decades. If these expectations are borne out, there is little doubt that India will overtake current giants.”5 Tellis has concurred with Central Intelligence Agency assessments that India will be the fourth most “capable concentration of power” after the United States, the European Union, and China.6 The assumption here is that India will continue to grow rapidly and that fast growth, which will give the country the wherewithal to function as a great power, reiterates the traditionally realist affluence theory that wealth and military power go hand-in-hand. Rodney Jones, for example, finds that between 1990 and 2003 India’s ability to conduct combined arms operations against Pakistan improved dramatically, giving India a 3:1 advantage in military capacity.7 Several observers, from Singapore diplomat Kishore Mahbubani to American strategic thinker and journalist Fareed Zakaria, see India as part of the gravitational shift eastward to Asia.8 Ambassador Teresita Schaffer notes that India is dramatically changing its outlook toward the world and is envisioning itself as a world power, with an expanding economy and greater engagement in global governance.9 In contrast, neorealists such as Kenneth Waltz have emphasized threat over resources.10 States reorder their priorities when threatened, irrespective of their economic condition. Poor societies are quite capable of generating military power sufficient to frustrate and even defeat wealthier nations with bigger and better-equipped armies. In this view, India’s 1998 nuclear tests were driven by its security concerns about the rising threats from Pakistan and China and established that India was willing to pay for the ability to secure its interests. On the other hand, richer societies may hold back their military spending to curb arms races; here politicians pursue political security rather than military power alone. Both India’s nonalignment and nuclear weapons programs, for example, have deviated from the predictions of the affluence theory. Its nonalignment during the cold war was the...