-: [rti4empowerment] INDIA: A TIGER AWAKES TO CHALLENGE CHINESE MILITARY

Sunday, November 6, 2011

[rti4empowerment] INDIA: A TIGER AWAKES TO CHALLENGE CHINESE MILITARY

If ever there was a potent reminder of the need to modernize India's ageing defense capability, it was the regular tailspins and nosedives of its Russian fighter jets. The MiG-21 is known among the brave ranks of the Indian Air Force as the "flying coffin". Of the almost 800 MiG-21s inducted into the Indian Air Force since 1963, more than 350 have been lost in accidents, killing about 170 pilots.

Air Chief Marshal N.A.K. Browne, the head of the IAF, is counting the days until the country renews its strike force, which currently consists of Russian, British and French aircraft. At the end of last month, he said India's pilots would be "greatly relieved" when the country finally agreed a contract for the supply of 126 jet fighters, worth $11bn.

The Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft, or MMRCA, deal is one of the biggest arms deals in the world. India, which has relied heavily on Russian supplies during the past 50 years, is one of the biggest arms buyers, with a military budget of Rs1,420bn ($31bn) a year.

A closely watched competition has pitted US, Russian and other European aerospace companies against each other. All have extended a hand of industrial partnership in order to win a prize that promises a strategic reorientation by the world's largest democracy.

While deadlines are notoriously fluid in India, many now consider the deal to be in the final lap, and down to price. Air Marshal Browne says he expects the contest, narrowed to a choice between the Eurofighter and France's Rafale, to be concluded by the end of the year.

Snubbed US competitors Boeing and Lockheed Martin have found consolation in government-to-government deals between Delhi and Washington.

Delhi has bought C-17 military transporters to improve the forces' airlift capacity, as well as Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft. In Washington, multibillion-dollar defense orders for India's 1.5m-strong armed forces are viewed as a vital component in cementing ties between the two countries.

Air Marshal Browne has another reason to be "relieved". Among India's military leadership and security hawks, China looms larger and larger as a potential threat. They are particularly concerned about what they identify as a "collusive threat" posed by a nuclear-armed neighbour, the traditional foe Pakistan, and the growing military might of China.

China's supply of weaponry to Pakistan, particularly JF-17 jets, has fuelled these suspicions. So too has China's assertiveness over territory in the Himalayas and at sea. Delhi was alarmed by a challenge to an Indian naval vessel by the Chinese navy in July off the coast of Vietnam – described by Indian officials as the first "incident" of its kind.

China has also rattled India's defense establishment by parading technological breakthroughs, like its own aircraft carrier and ship-busting missiles, all of which could come to challenge India's dominance of the Indian Ocean and crucial shipping lanes between the Middle East and Asia.

India has been no slouch itself. Although 70 per cent of its military hardware is imported, it has launched its own stealth frigate and a nuclear submarine modelled on a Russian design. It has tested a range of longer-distance missiles, including a supersonic cruise missile called the Brahmos, and boasts a capable space programme.

Closer to the ground, military planners carefully eye what the US, UK and France have done to equip their infantry better.

Some private Indian companies, including the Tata Group, Mahindra & Mahindra and Larsen & Toubro, have a growing interest in developing their defense expertise in partnership with international defense groups.

Increasingly, international investors see opportunity among India's small, technologically advanced defense companies. Yet some senior officers now openly voice their concerns about the gap in defense capabilities that has opened up between big-spending China and what they see as "dithering" in corruption-prone Delhi.

The officers complain that military spending, just over 1 per cent of gross domestic product, is hampered by fears in the civilian government of over-militarization and the need to spend more on development than arms. They identify key vulnerabilities in cyber warfare and China's record of reverse engineering advanced technologies, as opposed to India's lumbering public sector defense companies.

Nonetheless, India's military establishment is looking more to its eastern border, where the Chinese invaded, albeit briefly, in 1962. A programme of infrastructure and airfield improvement is under way to give greater reach into the Himalayan region. The army has already got approved a $2.5bn Mountain Strike Corps consisting of 100,000 specially trained - high-altitude soldiers , which would lead to their deployment in greater number operate up to a height of above 20,000 feet in Himalayas.

China holds lessons, just as it poses a threat.

Jasjit Singh, director of the Centre of Air Power Studies in New Delhi, says India's challenge is to build a defense industry base rapidly after what he says was 250 years of de-industrialization under British colonial rule. He estimates that the process is only 10 years old. "India is in the process of an industrial technological revolution, and at the forefront is the aerospace industry. But we are still at the beginning," he says.

Air Marshal Browne says that China has some of the answers. One is that India's defense companies should devote far more resources to research and development. The second is that India should not try to "go it alone" – as it has with the 30-year development of the Light Combat Aircraft or Tejas – but rather "learn from" licence agreements with foreign partners.

In the manuals of the integrated staff headquarters at India's Ministry of Defence, diagrams show a fighting force typically has 30 per cent advanced, 40 per cent current and 30 per cent obsolete equipment.

Getting closer to this blueprint, and retiring the MiGs and Lee Enfield rifles, is a top priority for India's longer-term security

SOURCE: FINANCIAL TIMES

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